Driving through the EU.

[Blogwitch]

I am hoping for a bit of information here from anyone who has driven and stopped recently in Hungary and Romania.

I start my European driving trip at the beginning of next week to Bulgaria.
This is a sightseeing venture, so coming off the main motorways when we enter the country. I have already driven before to Austria and I have stayed in Bulgaria for a while so I know the ropes on those countries, but never been to the above places.
I do know that you cannot use the Euro there even though they are members, so have bought in a little of their currency, 250 UK pounds bought 100,000 of whatever Hungary uses.

The info I am after is for accomodation and meals, are they easy to find, or is it just a matter of driving through small villages and asking for directions using hand signals?

I hope someone can help.

John

 

[Journeyman]

Hi John
Can't tell you anything about Romania but I have just come back from a week in Budapest. Hungarian currency is the Forint but the Euro is widely accepted as well in many places. In larger towns particularly the capital many people speak English. Once you get away from the touristy bits though you are back on sign language. Szia pronounced see ya is hello/hi. Köszi pronounced kusee is thanks. Beer is sör pronounce shure. Meals everywhere roadside stalls and restaurant/cafe look for étterem or kávézó. If you go into Budapest parking is a pain and usually expensive but all public transport is free to EU pensioners (need to show passport). I can recommend a visit to the Railway History Museum and Aquincum if you are into Roman ruins.. Plenty of small hotels about look for "Szálloda" signs. There are also plenty of hostels "Diákszálló". People are generally friendly and country is pretty safe (usual precautions) compared to some eastern European countries. Trip on the Danube (Duna) recommended for sight seeing in Budapest.
Have a great time, enjoy the holiday.
John

 

[Blogwitch]

John,

Many thanks indeed, what you have said has put my mind at rest. Those few words are perfect, as long as we can find somewhere to eat, sleep and go to the toilet, we will be happy. Unfortunately I don't drink, I did try a bottle of larger at a beach bar last year in Varna, and it upset my stomach for 3 days, so I don't think I will bother this time.

I am quite happy living and getting about in Western EU as I used to travel over there doing trade fairs for many years, but those two eastern EU countries are like going into a black hole for me.

We are, on the way to Bulgaria, just stopping in each country for half a day and a night, travelling about 6 hours per day, just to get the gist of what it is like, but on the way back, we are really going to do the local sightseeing thing, we are actually more enthralled by the local culture rather than tourist hotspots.

We are going to have an inpection of my partners house in Bulgaria, to see whether it is worth restoring after the builders did a bodge job on the new roof a couple of years ago, which let all the winter weather in and basically put it back to where it was before it was all started (legal proceedings well under way). We can then make a decision whether we are going to rebuild or just sell the land and buy one already modernised.

If we have time, we might also take a trip over to Turkey to see a Turkish model engineering friend I have been in contact with and helping him with his machining for the last couple of years.

So many thanks again

John

 

[Journeyman]

John,
No beer probably a good thing as the drink drive limit is to all intents and purposes 0 and the rendőrség (old bill) are pretty hot, don't forget you also need to have all your driving docs with you plus the emergency kit but you probably knew that. Public toilets as such are pretty rare but restaurants garages etc are usually suitably equipped, if you find a public WC they are usually "pay as you go" 100 forint a time and pay the attendant! Good journey.
John

 

[deverett]

Not much help to John, but the mention of European currencies reminds me of a tale of many years ago.

My last deep sea trip ended up in Stetin (Poland) and we young lads had heard that the black market exchange of £ to Zloty was astronomic compared to the official rate. Soon after we docked and the officials had cleared the vessel inwards, a local offered to exchange money for us at the black market rate.

Long story short... He was a plant and when we walked through the dock gate we were stopped and relieved of our illegal cash and spent the night in jail for our troubles!

A night out could be had for a fiver, whereas a night out in Hamburg cost me a month's pay. Oh happy days.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

 

[Blogwitch]

Dave,

It is amazing how much it costs us being on a small island, everything is processed and very expensive because we have to import almost everything, whereas on mainland EU, most fresh food is a lot cheaper.
Last year, a kilo of just picked plums in Varna cost us about 30 pence, whereas in the UK, they were well over one pound for six horrible things they called plums. I think it is cherries that are in season when we get there this year, can't wait.
I am one of those anti socialites who still smokes, a pack of 20 in Varna is about 2 pounds, in the UK, four times that price. In fact, the amount we saved by bringing back lots of ciggies more than paid for our two week holiday there last year. Doing the same this year as because I am driving over, there will be no weight restrictions that we had with the airlines last year.

The only qualms I have about this year, as John has already given me the thumbs up for Hungary, is passing through Romania, which has a bit of a bad reputation. To not take any chances, I just might drive straight through, keeping to motorways all the way, only overnight stopping when we reach northern Bulgaria.

John

 

[Cogsy]

Dave,

a pack of 20 in Varna is about 2 pounds, in the UK, four times that price.

Here in Oz the government likes it's tobacco taxes - they claim it's for public health but the reality is they 'need' the money. So a pack of 25 costs around the $25 mark (roughly 12.50 pounds) and a new increase has just been announced that will take them up to $40 a pack by 2020.

Luckily for me, I gave up 2-1/2 years ago and I have no idea how I afforded it back then - I certainly couldn't afford it now.

 

[hanermo3]

We drove from Finland to Barcelona, through both places (and about 10 others), spending 1-2 nights at each interesting place, through the eastern route.
Budapest was one of the best, but all others were also worthwhile.

Had no troubles, prices were cheap.
We mostly ate at better restaurants, tripadvisor works well for this.

It also turns out top end hotels are cheap, about the same place as a basic "pension".
At the pension, breakfast is weak and 10€/person, parking is 15€.

For 35€ more per night, you get a great buffet breakfast, lots nicer place, sauna and gym (went to about 10 different ones on the trip), for about 10€ more for 4-5 stars.
Pension 35-65/room, (capital cities), 4-5 stars 90-130€ with breakfast and parking included.

Usual cautions about eastern european countries apply, just like in tunisia (africa overall) and all latin/south american countries (including Barcelona, where we live).

We had a great time, and vastly enjoyed it.

 

[kvom]

I plan a trip through Poland to Hungary later this year primarily via train and bus, plus a cruise on the Elbe via Prague to Berlin. I might need to see if there are any model engineers along the way.

 

[Blogwitch]

Got back last night after a 4k+ miles round trip.
Went through Serbia and missed out all of Romania on the way to Varna (Bulgaria). Only took us four days driving, so had an extra days holiday in Varna. But came out of Serbia into Bulgaria from a 3 lane motorway onto a 30 mile long goat track, in the dark, with more potholes than a smallpox victim, took us nearly 3 hours to get back onto civilised roads Next time I won't use the 'shortest' route in my satnav.
On the return journey, we came through Romania, the bottom 80% of the country is ALL 2 lane, very bendy roads, with almost entirely good surfaces, but get stuck behind a couple of trucks and you can stay there for ages as there is no way to overtake. Took us over 12 hours on the first day and three on the second to get out of the country.
Next time, maybe later this year, we will allow double the return journey time to allow us to see more of the major cities.

Worst motorways to travel on were definitely in the UK. We should take a page out of Germany and Austria's book on how to keep the traffic moving when there are major roadworks. We didn't have one stop/go while traveling the Germanic countries, but stop start all the way up on the M20, M25, M1 and M6 in the UK. Took us 5 hours to complete what should easily have been a 4 hour journey

Reasonable hotel prices in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, from 35 Euros a night in these countries gets you a decent 3* hotel with breakfast. Germanic countries, less than 100 Euro a night for the same thing. Belgium is one place you don't want to stop unless you want to get ripped off for almost everything. Small basic hotels start at around 140 Euros a night, and a meal in a restaurant requires a second mortgage as every bit on your plate is sold separately, meat. potatoes, salad etc. They do allow you to use cutlery, salt and pepper etc for free though.


John

 

[goldstar31]

I'm glad that you are back- safe and sound but I would comment that whilst you are right about British roads to La Manche, the only decent autoroutes are French and here it is worth getting a Liber-T tag from Harrogate. Unquestionably, German and Austrian roads are even more chaotic than most - when the summer comes. I've spent 2 hours doing 3 miles outside Ulm and literally hours between Switzerland and Karlsruhe. Even in better conditions, it costs a euro for a leak and the tankstelles stink.
Austria- you need a vignette for 10 days and you may only pass through on the autobahnen.

Note that until recently( death of my wife) that I had Spanish car for 40 odd years and my son drove as a student and as a stagiare in his own original French Twingo. Going back in the history book, the first Merc went over the cliff in true Italian Job fashion on the way to our Savoie appartement whilst the second one blew up. I thought that Stuttgart and its environs could mend their own product. Not so!

OK, my son still has a place in the Dordogne and my daughter is heading for Quimper. But no, my Spanish property is up for sale.
I really think that you were there in what could be described as Low Season between the winter ski season and the Le Carthorse Julie.

So with thousands of kilometres on the clock, I must add my views.

Glad you are back


Norman

 

[Blogwitch]

Norman,
I spent many years driving on the continent for up to three months at a time, setting up trade fairs, and my thoughts on the autobahns remain true, most of the time I was cruising at 100 MPH +, and still getting 50+ MPG from my large Skoda estate, you just have to get used to the no overtaking for lorries over 7.5 tons and cars just pulling out in front of you with no indications (still at 100+).
The vignette countries that I went through were Serbia, Hungary and Romania, and were the cause of most of our holdups.

We did manage to tour a few cities on our journey, Budapest was very memorable, Belgrade was dismal all through, they still haven't got over their communist regimes, our worst nightmare was Brussels in Belgium, it seemed to be a major city made up of back streets and by traveling by car, both of us were occupied by trying to find a way through it all. I suppose OK if you were using local transport and by foot, where you can appreciate the sights, but by driving yourself, next time, we will just bypass it.
We did manage to stay over in my old stomping ground of Bavaria, between Nuremburg and Munich and we are planning a little trip there in September this year for a week or two as her indoors was deeply impressed by it all.

The whole holiday was paid for completely by savings made on the cheap but good quality ciggies in Bulgaria, we brought back 60 packs of 200 at a cost of 20 UKPounds per pack, a saving over UK prices of 3600 UKPounds, so in fact, we more than recouped our costs. Neither of us drink, but if we did, we could have saved a lot more on plonk and beer from one of the big wine supermarkets in Belgium/France.

Because my better half is a vegetarian, we did find that there was a lot more on offer in the old communist countries, as there was a lot more home grown food on the shelves rather than prepacked irradiated stuff we are forced to eat here. Even I started to enjoy the better quality home grown stuff at 10% of what we pay here. Varna was perfect for that, it is cherry and strawberry season there at this time of year, at less than 2 UKPounds for a kilo (2.2 lbs), we had fresh fruit on our hotel room table all the time we were there, most enjoyable.

John

 

[goldstar31]

I can quite understand John's comments but I'm neither a smoker or a serious drinker. Certainly, I like Europe Europe and all that.
Laughingly, my son asserts that I have been retired for longer than I have worked. Well, 31 years of rather exciting pension cheques is not to be sniffed at. He'll never do it

However, I can confirm that German autobahns are- in the ski season and in Les Vacances Scholaires almost impossible. All this 100 mph or actually about 146MPH when the governor kicks in are things- for imagination rather than cold reality. Again, there are miles of gantries controlling German speeds. At least, Les Grenouilles have 80mph in the dry and 70 in the wet.

Today, if I have my facts right, there will be French cars struggling to get supplies of fuel from Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. There aint no gas 'n France!

There might not be enough electricity in the UK either. The Frogs are revolting! EDF et al.

Back to the Carthorse Julie!( with apologies to Frank Muir)

 

[Blogwitch]

Norman,

We had picked up the French fuel problem on the TV before we left Bulgaria, so we filled up in overpriced Belgium, and that got us all the way home with lots to spare.
We did have problems at Calais port.
We were going to have a look around the town as we had a while to wait before our ferry crossing, but because of all the new fencing going up because of illegal immigrants getting themselves killed trying to jump onto still moving wagons, they haven't had time to put up new signage, so we followed the town signs, but got fed into the port itself, where we couldn't get out of, so ended coming back on an earlier ferry.

John

 

[goldstar31]

Hi John
You sound as if you really had problems.

Glad you are still in one piece

Cheers

N