Another route plan; The Serbian angle

I was always planning on writing this blog post, as I do not consider that I have yet even come close to settling on a route to Bulgaria, however I have been prompted to write about this now following the very interesting conversation with Chaz which I had on Monday night.

He has driven to and from Bulgaria many times and says that now, with Serbia heading closer to entry into the EU, driving through Serbia is the only route he would consider. He told us a story of starting to take the Romania route, seeing it snowing really heavily, turning round and heading through Serbia (still with it snowing heavily) but the roads were all cleared and safe.

He is pretty sure that I wouldn't have any problems taking Sassy through Serbia (so long as I have a pet passport, which I will definitely be getting) but is sure that I won't be able to transport the whisky. Apparently if I had a van which they could lock it would be fine (in a sense they turn your vehicle into a bonded warehouse and remove the lock when you leave at the other border) but as I have no obvious way of locking the whisky away this will not be possible. His suggestion was to find someone with a van who is doing a delivery and get it shipped that way; this is something I am researching now.

So, putting that challenge aside, I think the Serbian route has become a very likely option; quicker and with better roads. Chaz says that he does day one to near Nuremberg, and then day two all the way down to his place in Bulgaria!

As I did for the Romanian route, I'm going to break the trip down into days and see what it looks like. I am going to do slightly longer days as my parents are now going to be staying in service station hotels while I sleep in Julian.

Day One - Blackpool to Birmingham. 125 miles, 3 hours

Blackpool -> Birmingham

This is exactly the same as the other route; we are going past Birmingham on the first day so my parents can go to church, and we can have one more night in a proper bed.

Day Two - Birmingham to Cologne. 468 miles, 10 hours

Birmingham -> Dover

The first part of this day is the same as the other plan, getting from my parent's house in Birmingham to the ferry I have booked us onto in Dover. This stage is 200 miles (give or take) and will be about four hours of driving.

Calais -> Cologne

The second part of the day, after our ferry trip, is quite a bit different. Chaz suggested taking the route up north into the Netherlands and down towards Cologne. I have added about 100 miles to this day from the other Romania planning, however this should still be doable, considering we are having a good long rest on the ferry. This second leg is about 265 miles and should take about five hours of driving.

Day Three - Cologne to Linz. 435 miles, 9 hours

Cologne -> Linz

The third day we will aim to get into Austria and at least reach Linz. Getting to Vienna is another 100 miles and probably would push us too far. I am expected the German roads to be pretty easy to drive on, and Julian does cruise quite happily at between 50 and 60mph on a motorway so 9 hours for this stretch is probably realistic.

Day Four - Linz to Novi Sad. 420 miles, 10 hours (avoiding tolls) 449 miles, 7 hours (on toll roads)

Linz -> Novi Sad

I have an interesting choice to make here. The route from Linz to Novi Sad, when avoiding tolls, is shorter at 420 miles, however google maps has it taking 3 hours longer than if you go by the toll road. I need to research the cost of these roads as that is a fair chunk of travelling time. This is a pretty adventurous chunk of a day as we have the border into Serbia to contend with and I have heard some horror stories that this can take hours. My feeling is that if we avoid tolls we will probably have to stop inside Hungary and make the crossing into Serbia on Day Five.

Day Five - Novi Sad to Kardjali. 463 miles, 10 hours

Novi Sad -> Kardjali

So, with some hefty long days (which may not be practical) I can potentially get to Kardjali in five days going this route. This is two days quicker than going via Romania. Obviously this isn't quite fair as I have added about 100 - 150 miles to ever day, and if I did this going through Romania I would probably also save a day, but the fact that we feel this is achievable due to the standard of the roads in Serbia is a big thing.

Now I just need to think about the whisky.