The long and winding road
Author: Alex Hodgkinson
CASHCURRENCY should also be obtained well in advance as few high street branches carry a supply. One significant advantage of the introduction of the Euro at the turn of the millennium is that you only need one currency for most of western Europe and, should you wish to visit France this year and Germany next, the coins and notes are acceptable in all participating nations, which means you can hold onto any residue and use it next year, so it is preferable to change too much rather than too little.
The countries without the Euro incidentally are Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and those in Eastern Europe; the latter will all take Euros, albeit at their rate of exchange, but that is better than being left with a pocketful of useless paper as their own currencies will not be exchanged by banks back home or anywhere else in the world.
Should you run out of cash however, you can draw up to a daily equivalent of about £250 with your Maestro card at any dispenser carrying that logo or EC for Eurocheque. You have to pay a fee, but in an emergency, that is of little consequence.
Debit cards are not however a good solution for buying items or services; the usage charge is restrictive, and you are much better advised to use credit cards. Visa and Mastercard are almost universally acceptable, the conversion fee on payment is reasonable, and most outlets will authorise on your PIN rather than a signature.
France has its own peculiarities. Supermarket checkouts will take your credit card with PIN, filling stations will even authorise without if they are not logged in for PIN access, but forget the fuel automats; even the new generation PIN cards do not work at these, and they have long since closed the cash option, so, if you are driving away from the autoroute at night or on Sundays, please ensure that you have a full tank before parking up at the race track for the weekend and also carry as much in a spare can as you may need.
Some eastern destinations are more advanced than others. Slovenia doesn’t even have a 100 per cent document check at the border. Main road Czecho is almost indistinguishable from the west except for the girls on the roadside waving to passers-by, and some of the newer EC members like Bulgaria have become much more amenable to westerners now.
Croatia, the next candidate for membership, really advanced last year. The motorway is now complete all the way to Serbia, cards are accepted at all of the new filling stations and it is safer to park up there overnight than it is in
France.
Even the Serbs have got friendlier. Motorway tolls with card are no problem at all as do the new OMV fuel stations every hundred miles or so. But others still want Serbian cash.
Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria will take Euros, but here too, bigger stations like Shell on the main roads are set up for payment by card.
Whilst we’re on with the Balkan region, there are other minor irritations, like the fee for ‘disinfectant against foot-and-mouth’ which looks remarkably like mucky water when your vehicle is the nine hundredth to roll through it today. Yes, it’s a scam, but you’re still better off than most of the locals, as you will realise at latest the third time you overtake a horse-and-cart on the Bulgarian motorway, or have to stop while the local shepherd persuades his flock to stop crapping in the fast lane.
Looking briefly at the only MX1/MX2 overseas GP this year, South African Rand are only exchangeable once you get there. The banks there will accept Sterling though you can also get change at the hole in the wall.
MODE OF TRAVEL
SO, you’ve chosen your GP and are ready to go. How do you get across the Channel?
I personally use the ferries. Some people swear by the ‘Chunnel’, but miss your reservation and you can wait for a day and face an even higher fee. The ferries are much more amenable, but I would still book in advance; online bookings are generally cheaper, and you waste less time at the booth at the docks.
What sort of ticket? If you’re going for the weekend, then you need a 120-hour return – this is the same price as a single. Anything longer and you will virtually be paying two singles, but at least you have the payment taken care of and, on the continental side, the price at the dock is generally higher. And the ‘good, old days’ of manipulating tickets is gone; you can smile as sweetly as one want at the girl on the booth, her computer will not issue you a boarding pass if you have paid for a different time zone.
Another advantage of a return ticket is that the rate is determined by the outward journey. Sail out between mid-evening and first light and the price is much lower than setting out at dinner time.
If you have a long way to travel to the docks, I would recommend booking the crossing after the one you expect to arrive. That means you have a definite reservation if you are delayed, and, given space, they will always let you on the boat immediately preceding the one you booked.
You will usually be arriving on the continent at dusk or night, so there should be comparatively little traffic for you to acclimatise to driving on the right.
It really is not difficult, except for overtaking a truck away from the highway, and, once you have started off on the correct side of the road, it seems like second nature. The only time I would advise caution is when you restart your journey after a nap or a cuppa on a relatively minor road. Tape a reminder on the steering wheel if you’re worried.
Much more problematic is the continental highway code.
With the smattering of French you have from school, you may be amused that at every gallic roundabout, a traffic form which has grown like wild mushrooms during the past 20-years, there is a sign ‘Vous n’avez pas la priorite.’ This is legally necessary, as all continental countries have a basic law that traffic from the right has priority. Completely idiotic, particularly when you drive on the right as they do, but they are foreigners!
This is also a point for you to remember, because, while Johnny Frenchman and Johannes German approach a roundabout with trepidation, they will gleefully pull out of what you consider to be a side road in front of you without a blink of an eyebrow, if you are coming from their left.
A yellow square, tilted onto one of its corners, is the sign, which tells you do NOT have to give way to traffic from the right.
Speeds are of course in kilometres per hour abroad. Each country has its own limits, but you can assume that a built-up area is 30mph (50km/h). Take a glance at the board when you pass from one country to another, but what the local Golfs or 205s are doing will give you a rough guide to what is permitted. Don’t judge the speed limit by Volvo drivers!
Motorway limits in Scandiniavia are 110 km/h (67mph), but 120 (74) almost everywhere else. France is the exception at 130 (80), while, unless otherwise indicated, Germany is thankfully still limit-free.
Away from the freeway, Germany has a 100 (60) km/h limit, most other countries 90 (55), though the Dutch push that down to 80 (50).
What could cause you more problems with manually operated speed cameras are the restrictions because of weight.
In the UK we think nothing of buying a 7.5 or 12 tonne camper, but anything over 3.5 on the continent is considered to be a truck, and is subject to the same restrictions. With a 20-foot camper you’re unlikely to be hassled, but anything larger and you are a sitting duck for the German patrol cars as the universal speed limit for trucks is 80 km/h (50 mph).
Even worse is Austria. It’s actually all about money, because any vehicle over 3.5 tonnes there has to pay the truck rate on the motorway. They have actually set up weighbridges on the parking lots. And you show me a camper, which is not over 3.5 tonnes actual weight when laden!
That motorway toll discrimination means that larger campers have to buy a ‘Go’ box at the border, while vehicles under 3.5 can simply buy a vignette, extending over a week, month or year. These are on sale for cash (no card payment) at German filling stations before the border.
Germany have only slammed a toll on trucks, but anything over 12.5 tonnes is a truck to, and it matters not that you have registered it is a camper.
At least the Germans don’t charge for anything smaller, a luxury that cannot be said for the countries of southern and eastern Europe. The Austrians? They charge you a second time on tunnels through the Alps and the Brenner Pass.
And one final word of warning if you have a ‘Go’ box. These have to be placed on the dash so that the overhead beams can check usage and reduce your pre-paid credit accordingly. And when it comes to money, the Germans and Austrians work hand-in-hand.
Most French motorways were built with private finance and charge you on a mileage and vehicle height basis, but at least the stretches around major conurbations, built by the state, are free. Just as well, the chaos around Paris, Lyon, etc. would be insufferable with queues at toll-booths.
The Italians also adopt the ‘pay per mile’ system, but have considerably lower rates, the Spanish too, though most of the motorways/ dual carriageways there are free as they have been built with common market subsidies.
Switzerland was the first country to introduce the vignette system of an annual fee for a windscreen sticker so that transit traffic through the Alps would help pay for the tunnels without which traffic would grind to a halt in winter, and has amazingly kept the price at 40 Francs (£20) for cars and campers. Here too trucks (but not genuine campers) have to pay usage rates, and they are also restricted at nights/ weekends. Not a member of the EC, Switzerland also still has border controls and defines rigs pulled by a tractor – however they are registered – as trucks.
Czecho, Slovakia and Hungary also have vignettes, but the stretch of motorway past Cheb on the way to Loket is exempt.
Down into the Balkans the Slovenians, Croats and Serbs use the ‘pay per mile’ system, but Romania and Bulgaria have road tax fees, which must be paid at the border. Here you will get a vignette, a receipt and another piece of indecipherable documentation in Cyrillic script. DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY, as it must be produced at the border on departure to prove you paid for the entire duration of your stay!
Balkan border fees can be paid in Euros – the price is actually defined in that currency, but in western Europe it is easiest to pay by credit card; indeed many smaller exits in Italy are unmanned and payment by card is obligatory.
SPEEDING
ONE bureaucratic failure for which we can be thankful is the intended EU wide collection of speeding fines – but you still need to be careful.
The local police at French, Belgian and Dutch speed traps can confiscate your car if you are more than 20 km/h over the limit. ‘Set-ups’ (artificially reduced speed limits) are common practice all over the continent. At least the French let you know where they have set up their permanent boxes. There is a sign half-a-mile before each one warning you in French that speed limits are for your own safety.
Not strictly speaking a road toll as it is the alternative to the ferry link between Denmark and Sweden is the Oresund Bridge over the Skagerak from Copenhagen to Malmo.
It’s pretty much six of one and half a dozen of the other for anyone travelling from mainland Europe to Scandinavia; you can buy combination tickets in Germany (but not in Sweden, so purchase the return on your way north) for either alternative at comparative prices. The bridge is quicker, but is also 30-miles further if you are heading northwards once in Sweden.
However, anyone just out for the weekend will find the direct ferries from the UK to Goteborg is a much more viable alternative, financially, if your plans can fit in with the schedule as they do not sail every day.
One new scam this year is the German ‘environment disc’. This is a bit like ‘Livingstone’s Levy’, only applies to major inner cities, does not apply to urban motorways, and is not even much of a revenue-earner as it only costs five Euros. The only time it is likely to affect anyone this year is the sidecar finale and the route listed avoids the restricted area.
The mid-day siesta in southern Europe is still widespread, and ‘mid-day’ can run until 4pm in Andalusia, but the French are gradually getting real. More and more larger supermarkets and all hypermarches now stay open through the dinner break, but you will still find filling stations closing shop at noon away from the motorway, so always make sure you are full at 11.30am when driving cross-country. The same applies at night-time (10 to 7) and Sundays.
FUEL
FUEL prices have become much more harmonised in recent years, though everywhere is still cheaper than the UK, but there are still savings to be made, predominantly in Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal.
Expensive for diesel are Scandinavia and Switzerland; for petrol the Nordics again and Holland.
And don’t put the wrong type of fuel in the tank. Petrol is called ‘Essence’ in France, ‘Sans Plomb’, ‘Bleifrei’ or similar means lead-free and diesel goes under various names – Gasoil in France, Nafta in Czecho. But don’t put Gasolio B in your tank in Spain; this is not even straight red diesel, it is inferior quality diesel for tractors only.
SOUTH AFRICA
THE South African round is now an established feature on the calendar and an amazing race. All national carriers fly to Johannesburg, but fish around on the Internet for the best price. Almost every airline is looking to fill up their plane with passengers, and you can usually get intercontinental flights cheaper than the natives if you are setting off for Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Zurich or Frankfurt on a shuttle.
There is a small airport closer to Nelspruit, but once you have fought off the locals who want to push your baggage trolley, it is easier to take a rental car from the park (with all major international suppliers next to each other in a building just over the road from the main terminal).
Even in July (mid-winter!) take a car with air-conditioning, and, once under way, lock the doors and windows, do NOT open them for anyone, and do NOT stop at all after checking traffic as you approach at a lonely crossroads.
SAFETY ABROAD
NOW I don’t want to put off anyone from travelling to the continent, but please, please be careful where you park up, either for the night or a mid-day snack.
Once was the time that tourist attacks were restricted to the Mediterranean coastline, but the insertion of East Bloc mafia bands to supplement the arab and gypsy population of southern France mean that nowhere can be considered totally safe anymore.
Just take care; never park up in an unlit, deserted lay-by, and you should be OK.
Now you’re ready to go, so enjoy a great weekend/ holiday, and, who knows, you might just have chosen one of those races where Billy and Tommy give the continentals grief. Now that’s a better story than the one that got away over a few jars down the local!
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