My BIG road trip

[Vlad]

Currently day 6 and now sitting over looking the sea on the Black Sea coast in Turkey in the little town of Amasra

Day one....UK down to a little town on the German/Austrian Border called Bergen 700ish miles

Day Two..rest day in Bergen, Southern Germany (beautiful)

Day Three....Southern Germany (beautiful), Austria (beautiful), Slovenia (beautiful), Northern Croatia (very flat and boring), and all the way down through Serbia (mostly boring apart from Southern Serbia) to the border with Bulgaria....another 700ish miles

Day Four...just over the border in Bulgaria (hilarious bunfight at the border crossing) and then through Bulgaria with epic thunderstorms, crap roads and great countryside. Get to Turkey and almost get refused entrance due to a slight problem with paperwork. Eventually through and then to Istanbul.

Istanbul at rush hour is a bad place to be....monumental traffic jams and very intense driving.

Day Five.....Istanbul. Great city. Have been many times before but still never get bored of the place.

Day Six...fight our way out of Istanbul and head inland and then up North to the Black Sea coast. Good roads and relatively little traffic but as ever you have to keep your wits about you.

Day Seven...tomorrow we head off to Sinop further down the coast. Apparently the road we take puts Highway one in California and the Pacific Coast Road in New Zealand to shame. We shall see.

 

[Giantvanman]

Sounds fantastic and very similar to our last trip to Turkey. Bulgarian roads………mmmm. Turkish border control….kept us dancing for a while. As for Istanbul in rush hour, you are a brave man. We hit Istanbul at about 10pm thinking most of the traffic would have gone. How wrong I was.
Is there a destination in particular you are heading for or is it a tour?

 

[st13phil]

 

[Giantvanman]

Give the lad (Vlad) a break……..he's probably still shaking after rush hour in Istanbul.

 

[RWDpetrol]

Bulgarian roads………mmmm.

Why? They have ONE motorway, stick to that and it will get you from left to right.

 

[Giantvanman]

Why? They have ONE motorway, stick to that and it will get you from left to right.

The route we took into Bulgaria was't anywhere near their m'way and so used several other roads (including a disused air strip…...massive it was) to get to it.
All of the roads we used were in dire, dire condition.

Thanks for your advice. Will do that next time.

 

[RWDpetrol]

Thanks for your advice. Will do that next time.

It's not advice really and it's pretty useless advice if you aren't driving from Sofia to Varna. I was just curious as to your experience.

The regular roads are sh!t (don't treat me like others did dhard re Glasgow)

 

[Vlad]

Just on a general road trip...going right upto North Eastern Turkey and in about two weeks time, we head back and up through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria etc...

Pics in due course when I find a faster Internet connection

 

[RWDpetrol]

... in about two weeks time, we head back and up through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria etc...

Pics in due course when I find a faster Internet connection

Please do share. We are flying to Bucharest then driving to Bulgaria and I would love to know if there is anything worth seeing/doing between Bucharest and the Bulgarian Black Sea. Before 3rd August?

 

[Giantvanman]

Fair play, RWDpetrol. I completely misunderstood. Sorry.
Don't want to hijack Vlad's thread so briefly, we went Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria. The plan was to use the m'way in Bulgaria but between diversions in Serbia (LOTS and lots of new roads being built) and closures in Bulgaria, we were doomed to what was left and although paved roads, they were last paved in the 50's I reckon.
The only consolation was that at least we were in a SAAB, in comfort, and not local 'vehicle' or lorry, all of which were trying to get to the same motorway.

 

[st13phil]

Pics in due course when I find a faster Internet connection

Thanks for the piccy - I was only joshing Mind you, I've found that Vodafone's 3G roaming partners in most of Eastern Europe manage to provide a service that shames their UK offering (and lots of UK copper-based ISP connections too for that matter!). Have a great, and safe, trip

 

[kth286]

great pic fabulous landscape - what car you driving ?

 

[Vlad]

A Skoda Octavia 2.0 TDi.......currently averaging 57.6mpg for the trip.

Pics of black sea coast

 

[d w124]

Will be heading that way shortly but in Croatia I'll be heading south

 

[Vlad]

You know when you're a long way from home when the Tourists in this part of the world have Iranian, Georgian or Azerbijan number plates. We are currently in the far East of Turkey about 50 miles from the Georgian border. Fantastic scenery. Really great part of the world. So far we have done just over 3,000 miles, have seen a stack load of dodgy driving, one death, lots of crashes, some truly epic driving roads etc etc

 

[Dieselman]

Fantastic scenery. Really great part of the world. So far we have done just over 3,000 miles,

Perhaps my Tour of Bluewater might not be in quite the same league...

 

[Giantvanman]

Perhaps my Tour of Bluewater might not be in quite the same league...

Bet it felt like 3000 miles though.

 

[carnut]

A Skoda Octavia 2.0 TDi.......currently averaging 57.6mpg for the trip.

Pics of black sea coast

Excellent I wondered what car ( I have one ..great car) ...Might be a different experience in a SLK or SL....what do you think?> any danger?

 

[Vlad]

An SLK or SL wouldn't really be able to take the road conditions as well and would be very uncomfortable. You would also run the danger of grounding out. I've not seen a sports car since Istanbul and that's 1,500km's away.

Lots of Renaults, Fiats, Dacia's and a fair few Octavia's over here.