Before I leave, here is some background tell you how the plan for this trip came about:

A couple of weeks ago I started getting bored of the combination of sabbatical and COVID. So, I started planning summer holidays, but as just planning wasn’t enough, I decided I needed some adventure... and presto... the idea was born! First question is: „What can one do during the current situation? And that is when the idea of a road trip emerged (most countries allow transit-travellers through without much hassle). Finally, I needed a destination that was in exciting, as well as challenging to get to but also feasible and not too risky.... Istanbul it is!

The distance from Lachen to Istanbul is about 2500 km. I am planning to get there in 5-6 days, then spend a couple of days in/around Istanbul, before I start back for home. All in all I hope to be back in about 14 days. Rough itinerary: From Lachen across San Bernardino to cross into Italy, in Italy I will drive east towards Venice where I will spend the first night. Then I will cross Slovenia, into Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. I intend to stay a couple of days in Bulgaria to get a fresh COVID test and then go on to Istanbul. 

I will be driving my trusted and beloved 1962 Triumph TR3B. As you can see, no roof, so I am praying to the weather gods…

Day 1 Lachen - Venice

Today started cold (1°C!) and with a thick bank of fog. Not ideal for an open car with no windscreen, but we set off with good hopes nevertheless. Those hopes paid off: only after about 10 mins, even before I reached the Walensee, the sky cleared and I had clear blue skies for the rest of the day!

The car was feeling great and I made good progress. My online shopping spree beforehand paid off and the classic pilot‘s jacket I bought was keeping me warm! And oh boy was I going to need that jacket.... I had decided to drive across San Bernardino because I think the route is much nicer than Gotthard. Spectacular the surroundings certainly were, but also cold!! The route goes up to 1650m above sea level, I didn’t check the temperature, but it must have been more than a couple of degrees below zero... there were walls of snow on both sides of the road, cross country skiers and ski lifts all around me.... A small technical point: my car does have a heater, which runs off the cars cooling system. But, if the outside temperatures are low, the engine does not have enough heat to send to the heater.... so, it was just me and my leather jacket.... 🥶

Never did the Italian sun feel better then when I reached the other side of San Bernardino and started to descend through Ticino towards Italy....  The border crossing was typical (please forgive my prejudice): 3 Italian border police wave me through without stopping, despite official rules being that travellers from Switzerland need to hand over an entry form and show a negative COVID test.... it was probably just good timing (right before lunch time)!

Shortly after the border I leave the motorway and take a more direct route east to Bergamo.  Pothole country and not too scenic, so I could have just stuck with the motorway. Further east the landscape becomes more attractive as I pass south of Lake Garda the landscape is dotted with the classical Italian villas, flanked by long tall cypresses, .... hmmm only the look of it and I can smell the Italian cuisine and wine!

Some more uneventful Kilometers on and it is time to stop for petrol and then the final hour of driving to my overnight stay. It was a long driving day (almost 600 km) and now I want some nice food and a glass of wine!

Tomorrow I go further east, I will cross into Slovenia and then into Croatia where I will spend the night not far from the Serbian border.

Day 2 Venice - Slavonski Brod (Croatia)

Tuesday started sunny and crisp, with clear blue skies. As I was driving off, heading east towards the rising sun, I suddenly felt that strange and empowering feeling of being able to travel the world. Yesterday evening, as I was driving the last kilometres to my hotel, the sun was setting behind me in beautiful colours, blinding me through the rear view mirror. This morning the sun was my guide again, she climbed steadily in front of me, then to my right to her apex as the day progressed and down until I had her in my rear view mirror again driving up to my hotel for the night. Funny how happiness hides in the small things in life...

I hit the road just after nine this morning, today again I have a long drive in front of me. The landscape of Udine is gorgeous and before long, close to Trieste, I get my first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea. Sooner than I would have liked my route turns north to cross the border into Slovenia. Again, the border police are watching the cars go by but there are no checks. There are a lot of police cars on the road. Sometimes they drive behind me for a while but then disappear and I pass several road checks, but they only seem to pull over trucks.

The short stretch of Slovenia provides the best driving roads so far. Fair enough, I have been doing a lot of motorway because I need to make progress, but the hilly landscape and gently curving roads are a lot of fun to drive! There isn’t much traffic and before I know it I am at the Croatian border. Finally a proper border check! The police are friendly though, they come out of their booth and take their time admiring the car. I tell them I intend to go to Istanbul, to which they answer smiling: „you are a masochist!“ 

Fine with me, I am enjoying myself massively: the weather is great, the car is running beautifully and the roads are quiet!!

My route takes me down towards Rijeka and I get my second glimpse of the Mediterranean of the day. The skies are hazy, but there are no clouds, the temperature has risen throughout the morning and is now around 15°C. After Rijeka the road climbs up into the mountains again and the temperature drops.... it gets colder and colder and of course that means no more warmth from the heater... 

I huddle up and wrap my scarf tighter, but it seems to take forever to cross these mountains!

Just before Zagreb I had planned to leave the main road and take some country roads to enjoy the scenery, but not before I stop for petrol and a bathroom break! As I pull away from the petrol station, my speedometer remains at 0! So, I pull over at the next exit to check what has happened and to make sure the cable hasn’t come undone and isn’t dragging on the road. I do see the cable has come out of the speedometer housing in the dashboard, but also it isn’t turning and I cannot reattach it. So I decide to leave it. I know from the rpm of the engine pretty much what speed I am going at and if need be I can always use my phone, so I do not really need it. I check again under the car to see if the cable is still attached and that is the most important thing for now. Because the extra half an hour or so I lost fiddling with the speedometer and the temperature which is already starting to drop, I decide not to go down the countryside roads but stick to the motorway for the last bit of today. That should get me to the hotel by about 5pm, just in time for a nice hot bath.... I hope....

Unfortunately, when I get to my room, there is no hot bath... the heating in the room isn’t working and the temperature in the room is probably not even 15°C. today’s drive left me cold to the bones. Even with my coat on I cannot get warm. The hotel is, ...well how shall I put it... well, I guess it is pretty much what you would expect in a small provincial town in the middle of nowhere on the Serbian Border... I suspect the owner had a shed in his garden, converted it into a room, build another one next to it, and a couple more, and has then named it: „Hotel Garten“. The staff make themselves busy trying to fix the heating but a short while later I am told it is not fixable and I am offered another room. The other room is great, mainly because it is warm, but it also doesn’t have a faux 4-poster bed and instead it does have wifi, so I am happy as Larry!

My dinner was completely in line with the hotel experience. We are not competing for stars here, suffice to say it was hot, contained a lot of calories and was accompanied by beer! (Instead of wine)

Tomorrow I will go on to cross the into Serbia. The route for tomorrow is not as long as the first two days, so I have planned for a scenic route. Serbia has some gorgeous forests and river gorges. I cannot wait to get away from the motorways and see some of the countryside!

The hotel has a strange building technique: first time I have seen braided walls!

Day 3 Croatia to Vrnjacka Banja (Serbia)

Well, after a couple of days of motorway I was eager to get off the beaten track... but I could not have expected it to become this wild!

I know I promised that these post would become shorter, but today that just will not be possible.... I don’t really know where to start... 

The day started of with crisp blue skies again. There was actually frost on the roof when I got up, so after two days of being cold at times, I decided to put on long Johns today. (It was a good decision, I didn’t get cold today).

I got onto the motorway towards the Serbian border at about 8:45. The roads were again almost empty, and I made good progress. I decided to stop for petrol before the border, as I had now gotten used to loads of petrol stations being around in Croatia but I wasn’t sure about Serbia. The petrol station only has 95 octane petrol, which is not great for my car, it really needs 98 or 100, but they have a „premium 95“ which the attendant tells me is perfect for my car! Well, we‘ll see about that later!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Serbia anyway... Croatia I had been to before and knew it nowadays is a pretty modern and prosperous country. There is an noticeable difference between the Mediterranean coast where there is a lot of tourism and the back country, but all in all it is pretty civilised. 

Just going by the numbers, Serbia is not as prosperous. GDP per capita in Croatia is USD 15‘000, in Serbia it is not even half that: USD 7‘400!! As a comparison Netherlands is at USD 52‘000 and Switzerland is at USD 82‘000!

It is not an ideal comparison, but it gives you a rough idea of the economic circumstances of the average person. So, I am curious what I will encounter on my journey today!

„This is great petrol for your car!!“

The border crossing into Serbia at Batrovci was effortless, I tell them I am driving to Sofia and they are happy to let me through, no questions asked, no need for a corona test result. They are more interested in the car and in where I am from and where I am going. Both in Croatia and in Serbia the motorways have a toll system, with big toll booths on the motorway (like in France). I enter the first section and after about 45 km my route takes me south, because today I wanted to do some back country driving!! Oh boy, was I in for a treat....

When I leave the motorway and go through the toll booth, on the other side, there are some old trucks parked up on the side of the road, as I accelerate away from the toll booth, one of the men standing there runs into the middle of the road, waiving his arms and shouting: „Stop, Stop!“

He hardly has any teeth in his mouth, but he looks harmless enough so I stop, half suspecting he is going to ask me for money or something. Instead he points at the car in complete excitement and shouts „Triumph, Triumph!“

With a couple of words of English he then asks me what year the car is 57, 58, 59? My jaw drops to the ground! He had spotted the car from a distance and recognised it immediately!! And also seemed to know one or two things about it!

There I go with my shallow prejudice.... After a couple of photos with the smartphone he then produces, I go on my way. 

The landscape for the next couple of hours is exactly what you‘d expect. A lot of farmland, and at this time of year there isn’t much to see. The countryside is dotted with little dusty villages and indeed people do not seem very prosperous.

The roads continue to be come curvier and steeper as we climb up in the mountains. I approach the mountain range from the north and as I cross over the top to the south facing side, the dress code suddenly changes from „1957 farmhouse chic“ to „track suits and designer sneakers“. All of a sudden I am in some sort of holiday resort with hotels under construction at every corner, wholes swaths of Maiensäss-like cottages and hordes of mainly teenagers hanging around. I really don’t know what they are all doing there. Yes, the landscape is gorgeous, but there is no snow, no lifts, and I really cannot see much appeal to this place for all these kids.... 

When I make my way down the mountains on the south side, is when things start to go wrong... 

It starts with a noise my car is making. I can’t be sure whether it is the motor or the drivetrain, but it is a noise I am not entirely happy about with the prospect of another 1000 Kilometers to Istanbul and another 2500 km to get back home...  Well I will just have to trust my brave little lady and hope for the best.

I am pretty confident I will be able to find a good garage in Sofia tomorrow, so I will just need to make sure I make it there... that is probably 200 km to my hotel today and 280 tomorrow.... hmmm I better say some prayers...

The next thing that doesn’t go as planned is Google.... I have learned today that Google Maps and Serbian country roads are not a great combination. 

Up until now all was fine and navigation was effortless, however as I decent from this mountain range, Google starts sending me down smaller and smaller roads... until .... well you can’t really call this a road.... 

At first the road is still ok...

The last hour and 45 minutes of my journey are then pretty standard. Kamikaze overtaking by crazy Serbians, photo-ops with a security guard who gives me more directions, anybody at a traffic light and drivers as well as passengers hanging out of their windows taking photos and videos while driving.

All the while that ominous knocking noise that started earlier in the day, is getting more and more noticeable.... if only I make it to Sofia in the morning!

It is 5 o’clock when I arrive at my hotel. The hotel is brand new and quite luxurious. I chat with the receptionist to arrange safe parking and he tells me his dad used to have old cars too. On the off chance, I ask him if he knows anyone who knows about old cars, who can have a look at the noise my car is making... he tells me to go inside, check in and he will make some calls. 

Half an hour later, as I am sitting on the terrace, sipping a beer and frantically Googling (no I never learn) classic car garages in Sofia, he comes and tells me he has organised a mechanic who will be here in 15 mins. He will look at the car, and if needed his garage is only 3 Kilometers away. 

I have just finished my beer when the mechanic arrives. He doesn’t speak any English or German, but the receptionist and the janitor are both more than happy to help. I think all of the hotel staff have come out by now and have taken turns admiring the car and taking selfies with it!

With the team of 4 I explain the current situation and the mechanic asks a couple of questions. We then decide I will take him for a ride to demonstrate the problem. The drive is short: he almost immediately recognises the knocking in the engine and says „bad-benzin“! OMG!! I should/could have recognised that myself and I also could have known because I was dumb enough to put in the „perfect“ premium-95 petrol back in Croatia! I feel dumb but massively relieved!!! Istanbul here we come!

I decide to recover from all the stress of the day in the hotel Spa, after a steambath and a Lomi Lomi massage I am almost as good as new!

Tomorrow: Bulgaria!!

Day 4 Serbia - Sofia

The Bulgarian border was the first border so far where the guards (both sides) were less than friendly. I don’t know why, maybe my charm is wearing off or they don’t like my 1930‘s pilot look here. Anyway, they let me pass.

I did get a little nervous after crossing the border this morning to be honest. After the petrol affair, I am now always scouting for petrol stations to see if they have 100 octane/Super Plus petrol.

After entering Bulgaria on one of the main border crossings into the country, this is the road that leads to/from the border post:

It is lunch time and I arrive on the outskirts of Sofia. I decide to make an attempt to contact a local classic car garage that I found online, to put the car up in the air and make sure it didn’t sustain any damage in my off-road adventure yesterday. The guy on the phone is not very willing, so I decide to leave it at that, and just crawl underneath myself once I am at my hotel.

I am parked at a petrol station, and as I was on the phone, a small group of people have gathered around the car. One of them, starts chatting, in excellent English. His name is Konstantin and he loves classic cars. He has a classic Renault, from the same era as my car. He pulls out his phone with pictures and doesn’t stop telling stories. His car used to belong to a famous racing driver, who signed the sun-visor for him and he goes on and on... fantastic! He wants to see the engine of my car and within 10 minutes we are best buddies!

He also has some friendly advice: I should leave Sofia immediately: there is nothing of interest to see here anyway, just buildings, old buildings, new buildings and it is dirty everywhere! He himself was born in the coastal area where I wanted to go tomorrow, so he gives me a bunch of tips on the route to take and where to stay.

I then make my way to my hotel. The staff is super helpful and I am allowed to do the checks on my car in front of the hotel.

After showering and getting changed, I went for a walk around the inner city. My hotel is right in the centre, so everything is walking distance.

By now it is 17:30, the traffic in the city showed no sign of slowing down, but the parks were filling up with people young and old to enjoy the last rays of sun. The weather is lovely today, clear blue skies and about 17-18°C. Mucisians playing music in the street, families and children playing in the parks...

I wandered around the inner city for a bit, here are some of the photo‘s I snapped:

View of the Cathedral from my hotel room

Day 5 Sofia - Burgas

Oops! This morning I was woken up by the telephone. The voice of the concierge told me: “good morning sir, the taxi you ordered for 9 o’clock is now outside.” ... yeah, oops!

I jumped out of bed, splashed some water on my face, put some clothes on and ran down to the taxi.

I was up pretty late last night, so I think I have an excuse for sleeping late, but still I probably should have set an alarm! 🙈🙈

Anyway, I am now in the taxi on my way to a private testing lab for my fresh PCR test, so I can get into Turkey tomorrow or the day after.

The taxi leaves the city centre and goes down streets that look progressively problematic.

I feel a bit uneasy, but this taxi was organised by the hotel, so the chances I am being kidnapped are small (I haven’t paid my hotel bill yet!). But still when the taxi turns into an empty yard opposite this building, it doesn’t look very good for me...

On our way back to the hotel, we pass the cathedral St Alexandar Nevski that is opposite the hotel and that my room looks out into. There is a door that is open, so I decide to get out of the taxi and have a quick look inside. There also is an underground museum, but I skip that and just visit the main church.

The hall and the building are magnificent.

After sleeping in (oversleeping) and getting my test, it was finally time to set of. Oh no, let‘s buy some sunscreen, because my nose is becoming pretty red by now. When that was done, it was time to set off. Oh no, the hotel manager wants me to pose for a photo in front of the hotel with the car for their social media account! Ok, no problem.

My journey was going smooth, I was enjoying the driving and all the attention. Seriously, I don’t think there has been a day so far with so many people taking photos. At one point I was behind a truck, I had two cars next to me and one behind me. All filming or taking fotographs!! Crazy! But also it makes the journey a lot of fun!

Since I was making good time, I decided to make a whistlestop visit to the small town Nessebar. I had read about it when I was planning my trip, as it is one of the oldest towns on the coast. The town has Byzantine ruins of the fortifications and baths and a 5th and an 11th century church, anyway it was widely billed as the place to see on the black coast.

Well, as chance may have it, as I was coming closer to the coast it was getting colder and colder. I had been super happy all day with 16-17°C and sun, but now it got noticeably colder, maybe around 10°C. In addition it was getting close to 5pm, so the sun was going down which also didn’t help. This meant my mood wasn’t as good when I was approaching Nessebar. Maybe it was me, or maybe not, but either way, I think I could have spared myself the extra hour to drive there and back... I took some pictures as I drove through the old town, but I didn’t really see anything that was worth getting out of the car for.

I am sorry, that is probably totally barbaric of me! Maybe you better judge for yourself. Here are my pictures and maybe you do end up here one day!

COVID and my trip so far...

Over the last 5 days it was quite interesting to see the way people have adapted life to COVID and to see and hear about their opinions. In general I have felt safe and people seem concious of the risk and their responsibility, but there also were some shockers!!

In all the countries that I passed through so far, people seem well aware of the situation and take precautions. Especially everyone at work wears a mask. Petrol station attendants, border police, hotel and restaurant staff, everywhere I came people were wearing masks. Although, that is not completely true, the weird Garten Hotel in Croatia, the owner and one of their staff didn‘t wear a mask some of the time. During (serving) meals, they would however.

But also people at bus stops, people in cars, people in shops elderly people on the streets, etc. they are wearing masks everywhere. Even out in the countryside. I saw and elderly farmer riding a bike, with a mask below is chin!

... but there are also some exceptions: the first time I was shocked was in the nice hotel in Serbia. At breakfast a couple of around 50 came into the restaurant and went around the buffet without a mask. The staff didn’t say anything, so I did. Of course they didn‘t speak English but I still I got my point across. The husband made clear that they were both vaccinated with the Sputnik vaccine, but with some more or less friendly pressure from me, from then on they both put on a mask when they went to the buffet.

The most shocking exchanges I had were both in Sofia though. Yesterday at the hotel a young lady who had admired the car and was chatting to me, asked „if I believed in COVID“. I said, „I don’t really understand what you mean, it is like if you ask me if I believe in cancer“.

No, of course she knew cancer was real, but she just didn’t believe that doing all these things to stop COVID was really needed. She thought the whole thing was just a big exaggeration. I will spare you the rest of the discussion, but the bottom line was, she was ok with not smoking because she „believed“ it was bad for her, but she wouldn’t reduce social contacts and adhere to social distancing because she felt like she was fed a bunch of lies...

If you are worried about my health, after talking to her for 15 mins, don’t. The whole thing happened outside and I just got the result from my covid test from this morning: Negative! 😇

The second and strangest interaction was this morning with the doctor at the lab where I was getting my PCR test. I asked her how Bulgaria was doing with vaccinations, and if they, like Serbia were also using the Sputnik vaccine.

To which she replied: she was against vaccination. She thought it would be much better for people to build up immunity in a natural way. Dumbfounded, I thought I‘d better check if she was really the doctor in charge here, which she was. So, I asked her, how does she think would we build up immunity against a fast mutating virus? Just like the flu, she thought. But, I said, we are not immune against the flu, in fact every year a bunch of new flu viruses start going around. It is never the same virus, and everyone gets ill because we are not immune to these new viruses.

Yes, she says, but we don’t die from the flu anymore, do we? At this point I was quite lost for words. With my limited understanding of medicine and virology, I am still pretty sure the fact that most people don’t die from flu anymore has nothing to do with immunity and more with gereral health and availability of basic medicine. But anyway... I don’t want to judge anyone here, but I will just keep my mask on, ok? 😷

Day 6 Burgas - Istanbul

It was a grey and chilly start to the day. Tempertures in the morning would not be above 10°C. So, I decided to skip the swim in the Black Sea and put on my long underwear instead.

The drive to Istanbul should take 4,5 to 5 hours so, I should be there early afternoon, with enough time to maybe have quick stroll through town around the hotel.

There was some rain in the forecast but only 1-2 mm at the max. Driving this car in the rain is not that much fun, so I am hoping the weather gods take favour on me.

Last night I filled up the car with 100 octane super plus „racing“ from the local Shell station, so off we go!

Soon after I leave, the landscape becomes difffent already. These dark hills rise up on both sides. My route is through the countryside, no motorways this morning, so the road is curvy and I am having a blast driving this little car through the hills.

Every border crossing on this trip seems to be an adventure in itself, but this one is definitely the one I felt most tense about. It was the last real hurdle to make it to Istanbul, I could be so close, but also if something didnt work out, I would be so far away....

Almost all the borders that I crossed have a passport control and a customs check, pretty standard and you have those for the country you exit and also for the country you enter. When your are on your way out no-one cares much about the passport check, the customs checks are only important between non-EU countries (so far only Serbia).

Yesterday crossing into Bulgaria, I nearly drove past a little booth that had an officer in it, it looked dark and deserted, so I thought I was empty and I only needed to stop at the next, bigger building. The guy nearly lost it, so I had to stop and reverse and show him my passport. After some grumbling he then thought it as ok and I could go on to the next building. After this experience, I wanted to be a really good boy and I approached every hole in the ground as if a border officer was hiding inside it, I stopped, waived my passport with a friendly grin and hoped for the best...

In the first booth a small window was opened and I was waived through. At the next and much larger building (was this the Turkish border?) 4 border agents appeared at once. A tall woman directed me, in perfect English, to park up in front of the barrier and switch off the engine. She ordered me to hand over my passport and after the passport check I would have to report to the opposite window for customs. She was definitely in charge here, and I think she enjoyed it! After studying the car papers, looking through the boot of the car and stamping my passport I was good to go! And she must have warmed just a little to me, because she insisted on a picture and I had to be in it!

BTW, all those oil stains are not from my car!!!

I am happy as can be and motor on. On wide, curving roads I pass several mining/sand digging operations and the road is full of trucks. Not great for me as I get loads of dirt in my face. And, ... the skies start turning a bit darker gray... will this be the rain that was forecast?

Approaching Istanbul was a nightmare. Google had already been sending me signals that caused me to worry. I kept getting closer and closer to the city, but my arrival time kept getting later and later... at one point the Goolge Maps voice said: „your current route has 53 minutes of delays, you are still on the fastest route.“ ... and the rain continues...

The people of Istanbul did their best though to aleviate my misery though! While stuck in traffic, the honking, foto taking, filming etc, all took took on crazy proportions. I had conversations with a guy in Dutch, with 3 guys in a car covered in „diamonds“, at least 5 parents with toddlers standing on their laps while driving, people cutting in in front of others, blocking lanes, hanging out of windows... hilarious!

What happens if you drive a Triumph through down town Istanbul... all these people were involved in taking fotos and videos.

Day 7 Istanbul

Good morning Bosporus!!!

After changing clothes I take a taxi to the old town. I plan to go and see the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace Museum. They are all right next to each other, so walking distance. I wanted to also see some of the area around the city, the banks of the Bosporus and the Black Sea, so I agree with my taxi driver, who seems like a nice enough chap, that he will take me on a tour after my visit to the old town.

First stop: Hagia Sophia Holy Grand Mosque.

Next stop: Topkapi Palace Museum

I have to be honest here, I only made a whistlestop visit to the museum, I downloaded an audio guide and wandered through the gardens and some of the buildings while cherry picking some of the audio guide topics. (The full length of the audio guide tour was 4,5 hours!). And, my brief visit definitely didn‘t do the palace justice. There are breathtaking buildings, treasures and relics displayed and it is worth spending a lot more time there. But, I still had some other plans today...

I snapped some photo‘s anyway, I hope it wets your appetite and you will come here one day.

Golden case of the „Black Stone“, almost a meter big! \240(Can’t see the stone though)

Third and last stop of this short tour of the old town: the Blue Mosque. From the outside easily the most beautiful of the big mosques in Istanbul...

... on the inside? That will remain a mystery for now... as the whole mosque is being refurbished. I did go in, but everything is boarded up, and there is literally nothing you can see of the interior.

Here is my favourite taxi driver of the day, who took me around Istanbul, to the Black Sea (behind us 😉)

Day 8 - Istanbul

Sorry for the crappy picture, the sunlight is breaking in the dirty window and I couldn’t get a much better shot to show you that on my final day in Istanbul the weather looks great.

Although today was the best weather since the sun and warmth of Sofia, which feels like a lifetime ago, there are dark clouds on the horizon... more about that later.

Then after lunch I headed off to the Grand Bazaar, because, well... when you are here, you have to see it, right? To be honest I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much, after two days in the city I was ready to get on the move again. I don’t know if it is just me getting old, but it is something that I also have in other cities. 36 hours and I start getting itchy. Too many people too much noise... .... so what better place to go then the grand bazaar!

Over the past two days, I have fine tuned my technique to avoid annoying sales guys: earphones in, mask on, always keep walking and never, ever make eye contact! Worked pretty well for me.

I got into a taxi to get to the old town, but the taxi driver warned me and said traffic was too bad, I‘d be better off taking the metro. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but thought at least I‘d go and see how the metro was. To my surprise, it was modern, clean and spacious! The latter is probably also due to the COVID restrictions. Today again the city has been swarming with police, doing checks and condoning of streets and squares. I can’t really get a straight answer out of anybody what all the police are doing, but the upside for me is the subway is not busy. So I buy a ticket and it takes me to walking distance from the Bazaar.

After I get back to the hotel, I get myself comfortable and start planning my return trip.

I could go back the way I came, but I‘d rather not. So I can go north (Romania, Hungary, Austria) or I can go south (North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia). I did some initial checks on COVID travel restrictions and found out that I cannot get into Romania, but still I would quite like to see Hungary: Budapest, Bratislava... that could work.

I hadn’t really considered the southern route, mainly because I cannot go through Greece (they have closed all land borders but one, and that doesn’t make sense if I am trying to get home).

So next thing: the weather forecast... \240 So far, I hadn’t given it much thought, I guess I was sort of expecting this patch of dry and warm March weather to continue.... well it isn’t!

The next week is pretty much rain everyday, in every country! With the added bonus of snow showers from Wednesday onwards!! 🥶

I of course then looked at the southern route, ... much the same!

I played around with google maps and several weather forecasts for a couple of hours, but I cannot find a route that offers a „slightly better weather“ corridor...

So rather than trying to predict the weather 3-4 days in advance, I will just set off and take it one day at a time.

First leg will be tomorrow back to Sofia. Both for the northern and for the southern route, I‘d have to pass Sofia, so I may as well go there. In Sofia snow is expected for Wednesday, if that comes true, I will just wait there for it to pass. And then look at my next destination. I gues the southern route may have the better weather, but I will see about that on Wednesday or Thursday!

The only thing I can do is just take it one day at a time and hope for good wether. So maybe my return journey will be a bit slower, but that is not much of a problem. I brought some books to read and haven’t done much of that so far!

Day 9 Istanbul - Belchin Springs (Bulgaria)

A beautiful start to the day! What better way can you imagine to say goodbye to such a fabulous city! I am sure I will be back! (But guaranteed with different transportation)

The drive was great! The weather was nice, the roads were quiet and I made good progress. Because of the petrol situation in Turkey I had only put a small amount of petrol in the car. I still had a jerrycan with 10 litres of super plus petrol in the car, and actually she was running very well on the Shell „Super plus premium 95“, so I had a quick look and spotted a Shell station just off the motorway on my way to the border. I didn‘t have enough petrol to make it to Bulgaria, where 100 octane is available, so I‘d have to stop and put about 10 litres and my jerrycan in the car.

So I drive to where this Shell station is supposed to be: no Shell station. Some other station, didnt even register the name, and of course they only had normal petrol, not even a „Super“ version... oh boy, here we go again! Ah well, I had little other choice, so I put 10 litres in and added my jerrycan with another 10 litres of proper 100 octane super plus.

As I am about to drive off, there is a bit of a scene unfolding in front of me. A young lady in a rather skimpy outfit is draped over a bright pink classic VW bug while one guy is busy jumping around and taking photos and a few other people are standing by and watching the spectacle. This was quite surprising, because this petrol station wasn’t really what you‘d think is a prime photo shoot location: it is about a mile of the motorway, in the middle of blinking nowhere!!

When I start the car (it‘s a bit noisy) they all look and waive. So I drive up to them and soon we are planning a joint photo shoot... 😂😂

The young lady absolutely has to sit in my car, and the photographer snaps away. I insist I also want a picture with the star(let) and everybody is happy. She says she loves my car, but I think she loves herself/her Instagram most of all... she says she is a model and known from tv, and bla, bla, bla bla. I looked her up and I gues 110’000 followers is not so bad, but by all means look for yourself: yasemin_karamisa

Another experience ritcher, I continue on my journey... the border crossing is thourough. I think as this is really an EU outer border, and maybe a key route for drugs to get in, they are extra diligent. They call in a guy who is of a similar age as my car for this special job. He makes me open the boot, lift up the tonneau cover (the black cover that covers the passenger seat and rear seat of the car). He works out that there is „empty space“ between the back seat and the boot, and starts pulling at my back seat to see if there is a hollow space behind it. I start objecting and at his „what is there, what is there?“ I say „petrol tank“ and point at the big shiny filler cap that is right in the middle on top of the space he wants to study. I have to open the filler cap and allow him to shine his torch inside... that seems to satisfy him. I have to open the hood, and he looked around the engine bay, taps all the body panels of the car (they all sound hollow), and that‘s it.

My tip if you are trying to get drugs into the EU: put it in a suitcase and put it in the middle of the boot of your car. They make themselves super busy looking for hidden compartments, but they don’t make you open up your luggage...

Testament to their thourougness, they did confiscate a lot of stuff.

But COVID test certificates (which they are supposed to check) they do not ask for... ah well. At least I know I am still healthy! 😁

A short while later, it is time for a stop to fill up the car, have a coffee and decide on the final destination for today. I again check the weather, all destinations show snow on Wednesday and again nice weather from Thursday on. So it really looks like I will just have to wait out one day and then I can continue. As I have had enough of big cities for the moment, and also because I quite like the idea of crossing to Italy by ferry for the way back, I decide for the „country side spa retreat“ that I found last night.

Here is a picture of the map. I am coming from the right (east) and going to the left (west) you can see the route \240via Sofia (blue line) that I‘d have had to take. And the blue dot in the middle of the picture is where I have decided to spend the next day and a half....

Day 10: Belchin Springs - Skopje (Northern Macedonia)

There is a old army saying: „Even the best plan, doesn’t survive the first contact with the enemy.“ So, another day, another surprise. Just after getting up this morning the plan for today had already changed!

As I woke up and looked out of the window, the snow that was forecast hadn’t really come. The roofs of the houses were a bit white, streets were wet, it was still drizzling a bit, but no snow....

Of course this meant that I could drive down the mountain safely today... and as the current forecast was that there was more snow coming in the afternoon and evening, I thought, why wait until tomorrow and maybe have to deal with more snow, if I can actually drive now?

The hotel staff and the manager, who had helped me so nicely yesterday, were visibly disappointed that I was leaving already, but to be honest, I wasn’t really looking forwards to just sitting around all day anyway...

A more detailed check of the weather along the route showed that I would have rain for the first hour or so and the rest of the route the weather should be getting better. At least, that is what the forecast said....

Would the forecast hold up this time? Or will it be completely different again?

My plan was (famous last words) to at least drive down the mountain, and then decide wether to drive on, or if it was still too cold, or would rain too much, wait for better weather tomorrow for the rest of the drive.

It actually wasn’t too cold and there was only very light rain, so I decided to keep going. I had made a couple of calls in the morning and found a hotel in Skopje (Northern Macedonia) and had confirmation that I could do another COVID test there. The route to Skopje again crossed a mountainous area, but I wouldn’t have to go too high and as it is a main route connecting two capitals (Sofia and Skopje) it should be in decent shape.... well maybe...

My route takes me from central Bulgaria almost straight west, across the border into Northern Macedonia and on to the capital Skopje. This side of the country (or maybe anywhere in the countryside) one of the things that strikes me most is the number of derelict, abandoned buildings in the villages that you pass through.

After I drove down the mountain this morning and had turned onto the road that would lead to Skopje, I started noticing these signs along the road at regular intervals.

I did actually hear that in Bulgaria you need a toll-vignette for the motorways, just like here in Switzerland. Still, I hadn’t come across them, so I hadn’t bought one and I still managed to make my way across the country and back... However, I kept seeing police checks. And a story that I read last night when I was researching for my route today, came to mind: a Bulgarian guy was telling tourists on Tripadvisor, that the Bulgarian police apparently loves to pull over tourists and check if they have the vignette.... as I pass police car after police car, I was beginning to feel a little uneasy: would my „luck“ run out, and would I be pulled over on the last kilometers before the border??

I kept a nervous eye out for a petrol station, to see if I could still buy one, but there were no petrol stations around. In the end I passed a single petrol station on the road to the border and that looked so run down, that I didn’t even bother stopping.

Well, my luck lasted, at least until the border and I made it out of Bulgaria without a fine! 😁

The border as again quite an adventure. This time my car attracted no less than 5 border police officers to check it for hidden compartments! I had to drive my car over a pit, so they could inspect the underside. This time they spotted the compartment that holds the spare wheel and they wanted it opened (the last time they didn‘t even spot that).

They pulled out the back seat, tapped all over the car... but found nothing. And again, no one checked inside my luggage!

The last kilometers before and after the border I was driving through thick fog and clouds. Add to that goggles covered with rain and it gets very hard to see the road.

The rain, which was supposed to have stopped after an hour or so, kept falling. For most of the morning it was easy to live with, compared to my final drive to Istanbul this was nothing! You couldn’t even call it rain! This was just high humidity! Ha! I am from the Netherlands, we are not made of sugar, we don’t melt!.... well I came to regret my bravado later on....

Although it wasn’t very cold when I left the hotel in the morning, it had steadily been getting colder and since the border, I had also spotted the first tiny specks of snow in the air. At first it was nothing, but the wind picked up and the small flocks kept pounding my face.

Although the flocks are small, at 90kmh they feel like small hale hitting your face... ah well, I heard needling is the latest thing in facial beauty treatments, it felt like I got a free one today!

And anyway, it is only another hour and a half and then I will arrive in Skopje! Looking forward to that warm bath!

Finally, I have arrived at the hotel. Although today was one of the shorter drives, I guess the cold and the snow made it feel a lot longer.

I park the car, check in, get an appointment for a COVID test and settle in the bar for some lunch. I get delicious falafel with humus and have some tea to warm up.

I have some small fixes to do on the car, and I prepare for that by reading up in the garage manual.

Yesterday as I came to the hotel, I noticed my handbrake wouldn’t catch on as it used to. It still had some braking power, but not as strong as normal. I made a mental note of it and left it, but now I wanted/needed to check it:

I am planning to go on the ferry from Albania to Italy tomorrow night and I think that I will not sleep very well when my car is parked in the belly of this ship, knowing that my handbrake isn’t holding very well!!

I will first do a general check of the brakes, fluid, etc. Then I will re-adjust my rear brakes (the rear ones don’t automatically adjust like on modern cars and when the break pads wear over time, you need to adjust them manually). And if that doesn’t solve the problem, I will tighten up the handbrake cable.... well I didn‘t have to do most of that: as I jacked up the car (in the hotel garage again 😂) I noticed the handbrake cable to the right rear break hanging loose!

As the evening starts to fall on Skopje, I enjoy the view over the roofs of the city and that cross on the hill peeking through the clouds.

The weather still is nasty, so after I did my corona test I came back to the hotel. In the taxi we past a host of interesting buildings, a massive fort, the (presidential?) palace, I think the city has some nice things to offer... but with better weather, and I have just had my fill of „city trip activities“.

Day 11 Skopje - Dürres (Albania)

What a difference a day makes! Today the weather is beautiful. It is sunny, but still a bit cold (2°C!). I decide to get up early so I can pick up the result of my COVID test and a have quick wander around town.

I get onto the motorway and head south towards Albania. The landscape and the towns look much friendlier in the sun than they did yesterday in the rain and snow! My destination for the day is Dürres from where I will take the ferry to Bari (Italy).

The road keeps climbing and climbing, and it gets colder and colder. Soon enough, there is the first snow along the side of the road.... and we continue climbing!

I was a bit worried about the Albanian border, no specific reason, but I just thought they could be difficult. Reality could hardly be more different: leaving North Macedonia was almost more difficult then entering Albania! They spoke good English and were super friendly!

Sorry no photo’s for this post.

I have arrived at the Ferry terminal in Dürres at 5pm. We have to wait for two hours until 7pm before they start the check in. Then, at passport control the very masculine and decidedly unfriendly border officer is almost ready to waive me through, as he spots the stamp from Turkey in my passport. „Ah, you Turkey??“ he asks me. Which I confirm, and with clear satisfaction in his voice, he hands me a piece of paper and directs me back: pointing in the direction he wants me to go with the words: „Police check!“. Ok, we have seen this before I think. But when I then get to the police checkpoint it is a bit different.

There are cars in front of me, who are also checked. They have to drive into a brightly lit garage and they have to take everything, really everything, out of the car. Then a police van arrives and escorts them somewhere else. Where, I don’t know. I am told to clear out my car too. Everything including all my tools and spare parts I have to deposit on a large table. Then I am told to sit in my car and wait. It seems like an eternity and I am beginning to get worried they will drag this out and I could miss the ferry...

After maybe another 25 minutes of waiting the police van comes back and I am told to follow it. We drive to another part of the harbour and enter a large building with something that roughly resembles a huge car wash with barriers on both sides. They are actually going to x-ray my car!!!

After I am done, I have to wait for a tour bus also to be x-rayed. In the mean time all the border agents present come and admire the car. One of them speaks some english and the mood gets quite good. They all want to pose with and in the car, which I happily facilitate!

After the waiting Lizzy gets a clean bill of health! Yeah!

I can go back to the police post and pack up the car again.

They are obviously looking for modified vehicles with hidden compartments, the same as with all the other borders. But even here, where they go through all this effort no-one checks my bags... (the same goes for the other cars that get checked, all get x-rayed, no-one looks at the luggage!)

Finally I can go through passport control and onto the ferry. It only took me one and half hours to clear customs... 

At checkin, the guy goes, oh sir, you have booked the suite! He nearly bows when he hands me the key to the room, so I am curious what will await me...
In the picture, my „suite“ actually looks more spacious than it was in reality! But, there is a double bed, so I can lie diagonally in it! And that is all that really mattered to me...

Day 12 Bari - Rome

The day started beautiful: sun and blue skies and a sliver of land on the horizon. I woke up early due to the alarm that sounded over the ship‘s announcement system at 6 am (2 hours before arrival). I took a stroll on deck and settled into the bar with a coffee and a croissant. And finalised my blog update from yesterday. 

Then off onto the motorway to Rome via Naples. A new country brings new impressions, one of the things I noticed most today were the smells. I didn’t really smell much different things (apart from smoke from fires or the scent of the forrest) in the last couple of days. In the first hours in Italy I smelled fruits and acacia trees. Delicious sweet scents!

The motorway journey was uneventful up until it was time to get petrol... I had had some difficulty on the first day in Italy too, but then I managed to find petrol in time. Now on the motorway, the only oil company that has super plus petrol in Italy (Eni/Agip) didn't seem to have any stations on this motorway.... so Google to the rescue and I found a petrol station just off the motorway. As chance happens, there was a huge road construction site right in front of it, which meant I had to drive on to the next village, turn around and come back... I was already cursing myself until I stopped in the petrol station that was: I have never met a more friendly and funny petrol station attendant then here!

A change of clothes and off we go for a quick tour of the inner city. 

My hotel is and absolute gem! It is literally less than 100m from the Colosseum! The owners are super friendly and gave me some ideas for a walk through town. Of course it is too late in the day to go into any of the monuments, so I settle for a walk around them and some pictures. 

It has been like this with all the main cities that I have visited. Each of them would have deserved several days at least. But that was not the objective of this trip, so I take it as an appetiser, to make me hungry for a speedy return! And Rome definitely deserves that! My walk around the city took about 3 hours and I had an absolutely wonderful time. Here are the highlights in photo‘s...

Day 13 Rome - Piacenza

Another day, another adventure! The day started out peaceful and with everything according to plan, but I would get a couple of headaches later...

I had an early breakfast and went for another walk in the city. I hadn’t been down to the river yet, so that was my main destination.

On my way I passed the Circus Maximus where the Romans held chariot races. The banks of the circus held crowds of 250‘000!!!

Today the Italian weather does not disappoint and neither does the landscape. I have chosen the motorway that snakes up the west coast via Livorno and the Tuscan coast, then turns inland for one of my favourite stretches of Autostrada the SS62/E31 up to Parma.

It is 17:20 when I finally reach my hotel. These motorway drives always take longer then expected. It is mainly because the sat nav predicts your time of arrival based on you driving around the speed limit (130 in Italy) and I do around 100 km/h, so you start of driving seeing an arrival time of 15:53 an you end up arriving at 17:20... of course I calculate this into my plan, but it is still a little frustrating .... Anyway, as I approach my hotel (I have been excited about this as I spotted it has a Michelin starred restaurant!! 😋) my mood improves. It is an ancient castle and as I drive around to get my car into the courtyard I am greeted by two peacocks! Does it get any more romantic??!!

Day 14 Piacenza - Lachen

So, it is Sunday morning, the last day of my trip. Today I will drive from Piacenza, where I spent the night, back home to Lachen.

As I wake up, there is only one thing on my mind: the weather in Switzerland... I was warned already by a number of people that the whole weekend looked grim: cold, rain and snow! This could be a bit of a problem for me as besides that I will get very cold, the car is on normal „all year“ tyres. So I don’t really want to get stuck in a snow storm....

I feverishly check the two main apps that I use for the weather (not that they have been very accurate in the past, but from my Google maps adventures in Serbia, you already know I don’t learn very quick and maintain my trust in the tech even beyond common sense...)

I basically have 3 options:

1. San Bernardino pass, this route goes pretty high, around 1650m so it could be risky taking this route if it is going to snow.

2. Gotthard tunnel. Doesn‘t go very high, thus safer, but of course 16+km in a tunnel is not so pleasant.

3. If neither route looks feasible today I will have to wait around in Italy for the weather to get better.

I don’t fancy waiting around, I have informed everyone at home I will be coming home today and I very much look forwards to being able to hug them all close!!!

So, I look at my trusty weather apps and they show that the weather is best in the morning and starts getting nasty from about 1pm onwards. In addition the weather in central Switzerland after I come out of the Gotthard tunnel looks the worst: snow and rain, and temperatures that look lower than on the San Bernardino route. So, I think I know what to do. But to be safe, I decide to stop at Bellinzona and do a final check of the weather radar before I head into the mountains....

I am pleased to see better oil pressure when I set off this morning. It is also to be expected as the engine, and the oil, are still cold. At first when the engine warms up I see the pressure fall a little again, but then an hour or two on, the pressure has steadily gone up to the normal level!!

I can‘t explain how that has happened, but for now I am just happy and drive on. The car will get an oil change when we get home anyway, so there is nothing else to do about it now! Great!!

As the day continues the pressure gets better and better, so that is a big worry off my mind... only the weather to think about now....

I still have a couple of stretches of toll roads to do and I already get melancholic about missing the machines voice!

When I arrived in Bari on Friday morning and came to the first toll booth, my heart warmed at the sound of this voice... „Ritirare la tessera! Arrivederci.“ So many memories of holidays and trips of the past travelling the Italian Autostradas...

But for now it is „Arrivederci!! ... 🥲

I pass the border without any problems (don’t even have to stop), past the lake of Lugano where it is already getting pretty windy.

And then suddenly I am there! The last couple of hours seem to have been lost in a mist. So good to see the family again! (Jeanne was still at a birthday party)