Shall we drive there?

He sat there pouring over a map of Europe, ‘Which one is Montenegro and which one is Macedonia? I think it looks as  if we will have to go though Albania, but we could take a different route home – through Bulgaria.’

Our son Tim had recently gone to Istanbul with his family on a Foreign Office posting, and within a matter of weeks Richard was considering when we would visit. This was soon followed with questions of how we should go.

‘Shall we drive there? We haven’t done Eastern Europe and if we made it to Italy last year I don’t see why we can’t do the rest this time.’

‘Why not? Sounds fun.’

That was all the encouragement he needed. The next few days were spent locating a suitable atlas to find out what lay between ‘us’ and ‘them’; not as easy as you would imagine as too many seemed to stop just past Austria or reduce the scale so we couldn’t even find Montenegro. Then he visited the library using his entire allowance on travel guides and information books based on the list he had made. Next he trawled all the charity shops, the church fete and a random book sale advertised in the paper, for more pearls of wisdom. Finally, of course, there was the internet which meant we had to double our allowance of gigabytes.

‘We’ll camp of course,’ he says, ‘we’ll take our time, it will be part of the holiday.’

‘Only if it is reasonably warm. I veto shivering in a sleeping bag every night.’

Cue further visits to the library and a renewal of our Europe camping club card in order to gather all the relevant information on suitable campsites between here and Mesopotamia. Errrr…  that was a bit further than we intended to go wasn’ it? He spent many, many happy hours deep in this plethora of facts, figures, opinions and advice. I don’t usually get involved at this stage. I like decisions and we weren’t anywhere near those yet. A gentle review of our few basic rules such as not driving more that two long days in succession, and not planning to arrive at a campsite after dark (you can but plan!).

The next stage was looking out interesting places at which we might actually want stay. ‘What about beside a thermal lake? All the beaches seem to be pebbles; do you mind? How many Roman remains can you take? We shouldn’t miss Dubrovnik, OK? Something in the mountains suit you? There’s a campsite by a series of waterfalls but it is a bit off the beaten track; are you willing to try?’

Just a minute, we don’t know how good the beaten track is in these countries, let alone off it!

Another visit to the internet is required and much exhaustive work finding out about roads, driving conditions, rules and regulations about importing a car albeit temporarily, speed limits, possession of sat navs and the information they show, vignettes, safety items to be kept in the car (not in the boot) and the way to pay for use of motorways using your Turkish bank account! And then there is the matter of insurance – health, motor, roadside rescue, repatriation …….

After much reading, sifting, sorting, referencing and checking a rough plan was emerging. It was possible - we would drive there.

We made it – and back again after 4615 miles, 15 countries, 7 currencies, 5 vignettes and an HGS, 1 dog bite (in Albania) - and 126 tea bags!

 Oct 2013