10000km around Europe latviski
1. Riga, March 17, 6AM
Travel spirit wakes me up even without an alarm-clock. Gundega is in a similar mood, only Olivers is not so happy about the unusually early morning.
It’s -3°C outside and we are extremly tired of that. Got to leave this place as fast as possible.
670km ↝ 10h
2. Warsaw
Infamous Poland crossing seem to have goten more enjoyable; there are obvious improvements in the road infrastructure. Foodwise not much has change though; it’s not a very good idea to eat at gas-stations or other similar places.
Our hotel has windows covered with political ads. Ok, apparrently it’s crisis and everyone makes money as they see fit.
600km ↝ 8h
3. Berlin
One of the most progressive cities in Europe at the moment. Living here is cheap and high-quality while the environment is unobtrusively multi-cultural. We meet-up with Daina and time runs unnoticed.
Tip - have a lunch at Vietnamese restaurant Monsieur Vuong. Food is rather spicy, but tastes almost as good as at The Slanted Door in San Francisco, though 5 times cheaper and much closer (for those in Europe).
350km ↝ 4h
4. Prague
Somewhat unexpectedly, Czech Respublic greets us with the worst road in the whole journey. Motorway from Prague to Bratislava feels like driving on the staircase. If your car has sport’s suspension, you’ll be much better off avoiding it.
330km ↝ 4h
5. Bratislava
After an unsuccessful attempt to locate a breakfast near the hotel, we go out for an extended walk. Eventually we find a pleasant cafe and conclude that Bratislava is pretty.
200km ↝ 2h
6. Budapest
My knowledge about Hungary was limited to modest sterotypes, which where quickly broken. Motorway after Czech Respublic and Slovakia is perfect, while Budapest turns out to be suprisingly contemporary.
Tip - have a dinner at Klassz. Marvelous local wines (for instance Ikon Shiraz) and the prices are very ok.
300km ↝ 4h
7. Timişoara
Original plan to cross Serbia gets impulsively switched to Romania. Romanians are kind and friendly, although their english knowledge is rather modest. The driving is tiring; there’s an village every 10km, and ussually it’s small but long.
To get into Bulgaria you have to cross Danube. Our road-guru confuses us here, pretending there’s a bridge. There indeed is, however it ends near the middle of the river. Eventually we cross it via the ferry on which all the other vehicles are trucks.
500km ↝ 10h
8. Sofia
After reading wikitravel.org you get a rather troubling impression about driving culture in Bulgaria, which turns out to be quite true. Especially watch out for overtaking maneuvers where oncoming traffic is often completely ignored.
Overall Bulgaria feels like a country with most extremes, it alternates a lot between very modern and a complete opposite. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time to explore it much on this trip.
300km ↝ 5h
9. Thessaloniki
After crossing the Bulgaria-Greece border, for a moment we feel like teleported into another world. Soon we arrive in Thessaloniki which is a pleasant sea-side city and even more so because of +20°C outside. Out of the three cities visited in Greece, this was our favourite.
500km ↝ 6h
10. Athens
At first sight, Athens doesn’t look like much. However once you get to Acropolis, its historic glamor takes over you. Also called the cradle of modern civilization, it’s uncomparable to anything else.
200km ↝ 3h
11. Patra
Here we observe an amusing view - a truck stops at the junction on the red light, a bunch of youngsters run to it, open the rear-side doors obviously intdending to unload whatever is inside. Unfortunately for them, the truck contains something uninteresting so they flee. In the meantime, the face expression of truck’s driver is completely indifferent as if this kind of stuff happens regularly. As Richard Hammond would put it - “business as ussual”.
Tip - Colazione serves a rather enjoyable lunch.
300km ↝ 5h
12. Igoumenitsa
Ferry departs only at midnight so we hang out around the local cafes for the whole evening. There’s realy not much else to do here.
250km ↝ 7h
13. Brindisi
Italy meets us with a very rapid climate. Weather radically changes at least five times on our way to Sicily.
540km ↝ 9h
14. Catania
We are rapidly acquiring gesture communication skills since this is the first place where practically nobody speaks any english. Driving is also a challenge because it seems as if road signs have only informative meaning and traffic lights are very few.
Also we experience a little cultural shock from parking Italian-style - cars get parked in a tight row one after another and you have to leave the keys in the vehicle. Our communication with parking’s supervisor probably looked quite amusing.
540km ↝ 8h
15. Naples
If Catania’s traffic is challenging, Naples is a nightmare. There are crazy scooters everywhere and the streets are very narrow, goes up and down and ussually in one direction only.
This is the first place where road-guru really lets us down, eventually leading to an impossible turn. Subsequent driving downhill backwards on a very narrow street (actually gap would be a more appropriate name for it) is epic.
Tip - Naples is the birthplace of pizzas, and here they are trully brilliant.
270km ↝ 3h
16. Rome
After Catania and Naples, Rome feels like a fresh air.
I guess it’s true, this is one of the most romantic cities in Europe.
700km ↝ 8h
17. Nice
Here it feels like the time has stopped. We pause a little and stay for a week, also checking out Cannas and Monaco. Our favourite turns out to be Cannes, as Nice appears too slow but Monaco uneasy.
Oliver’s birthday get’s celebrated in a little video chat across three corners of Europe. And finally we conclude that French kitchen beats Italian, at least this time around.
660km ↝ 7h
18. Barcelona
Quite possibly the most stylish city in Europe. Architecture brings surprises on every corner and sometimes it feels like you are in the middle of an enourmous art exhibition.
Tip - have a dinner at Santa Maria. As a lot of restaurants in Barcelona, this is fusion with a wide variety of influences. It’s small, stylish and the food is unforgetable. Order the tasting menu which includes almost everything the restaurant has to offer in small portions.
Be careful - with parking. Even if you leave a car in an allowed spot but forget to pay, it will be towed away in a matter of minutes and will cost you at least 150EUR.
640km ↝ 7h
19. Bordeaux
I’m not sure why, but we almost instantly feel like at home in this western French town. If only we wouldn’t have problems communicating in french…
580km ↝ 6h
20. Paris
What can you possibly say about Paris that hasn’t been said before? We are here just for one night, but nevertheless this is the most beautiful city in the journey.
Olga takes us to a nice restaurant with a real Paris authenticity feel. Besides great food they serve the most ridiculously large cake I’ve ever seen. Say what you will but they aren’t moderate here.
480km ↝ 5h
21. Leiden
A little town close to Amsterdam, where we hang out with Zane and Martins and enjoy the first home-grill of the season. Yeah, it’s super-tasty.
Tip - for fast, cheap and delicous oriental-style lunch/dinner, stop by Eazie.
500km ↝ 6h
22. Hamburg
We arrive here late in the evening and don’t have enough time to fully grasp it. Plus seems like we have relaxed too much near the end of the journey and have caught a cold.
One weirdness we come across is that grocery stores don’t accept international payment cards such as Visa. Quoting shopgirl, “no only normal card bitte”.
470km ↝ 5h
23. Copenhagen
Here we finally realise that our genes are northern after all. Copenhagen gets the title of “the city where we would gladly live”.
660km ↝ 7h
24. Stockholm
After fairly uneventful but really beautiful passage, we head straight for the ferry. At the check-in the officer starts calling our names before we even say something or show any documents. Few moments later our confusion fades when we realise that he probably had our car number registered.
540km ↝ 15h
25. Riga, April 25, 11:00
There are still a lot of little ice blocks in the sea. Fortunately in Riga, at least temperature-wise, the spring is on. It feels a bit weird, but still truly great to return home!
Big thanks to Navigon for almost perfect driving directions, Foursquare for help in finding the coolest restaurants, TripAdvisor for quite reliable hotel recommendations, ABroadband for mobile internet, and most importantly, to Daina, Olga, Zane and Martins for the great time we spent together.