Car trip in Europe in 2009

My name is Aziz; I am in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University in Turkey. In 2009, I had two scheduled meetings with some scientists in Europe about truffles (Italy and Sweden). At that time I did not have enough money for flight tickets because I was so late and flight prices for flights was getting expensive. I looked for an appropriate solution and considered several options. I thought train was a good option but with so many connecting trips, it would take too much time. So I asked myself, what about going there by car? But I was not brave enough to try that. I explored on the internet and read many experiences and stories about cars trip to Europe. Most reports were positive. Experienced people also gave some advice. But I still needed some more encouragement. I wanted an outside perspective so I asked some close friends for their opinions.  All of them had strong feelings against my car trip.  

In August 2009, I rented a car and started on my trip to Europe. Myself, my assistant and my son (11 years old) drove together. We drove 11.800 km within 15 days, it was so tiring but so amazing!

 Our adventure started from Turkey and we decided to go to Italy first. After driving through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, we arrived in Italy. Our next destination was Sweden. We drove across Austria, Germany and Denmark and after 6 days we reached Sweden. On our return trip we chose different a route, driving across Denmark, Slovakia, Chec Republic, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria to finally reach our country. It was crazy!

We had some problems at the Bulgarian border so our journey had a 2 day delay. This caused a delay attending in the meetings. I had not given information to our colleagues that we were coming by car so they were very surprised when they met us.

We experienced many first things on this adventure:

·         In Italy we stayed in a hotel and unfortunately my son had an allergy to the bed. We had to look for a pharmacy to get some medicine.  It was an unpredictable situation for me. The rest of the trip we slept in the car or stayed at camping areas.

·         We drove across the long bridge (about 8 km) and the combined tunnel under the sea about 4 km from Denmark to Sweden.

·         During the first 2 or 3 days of our journey we did not realize which country we were in because there is no border in EU. So we recognized that when we had to pay a toll for the highway we were getting in to a new country.

·         We were asked to give a bribe of 400 Euros to police in Bulgaria but I gave only 20 Euros after a strict bargain.

·         In Italy we saw some very fast driver who honked their car horns.

·         There was no high speed limit on the highways in Germany.

·          Our costs increased from the South to the North in Europe.

·         We ate only breakfast and dinner during the journey so I lost weight, about 4 kg after this adventure.

·         On this adventure we spent only 1500 Dollars for everything.

·         When we got back home my friends who had strong feelings against my trip, said that they thought that kind of car trip would be nice!