Follow up to "Planning the Route"

First of all thank you to everyone who has made their knowledge and experience known since I published the "Planning the Route" post. It has been incredibly helpful to hear from you all and allow the benefit of your information to improve my decisions.

Please keep it up :)

To quickly summarise, I came up with three alternative routes; through Romania, through Italy/Greece and through Serbia. I discarded the Italy Greece route because the cost of the additional ferry was too high and so was left with a decision between Romania and Serbia.

Originally I was very against the idea of Romania as it was a long and difficult journey to get across to the ferry near Ruse so I was focusing on Serbia. To this end I sent an email to the Serbian embassy to find out about transporting my pet rabbit and my whisky collection through their non Schengen country. I have not yet had a reply to this email.

As intimated above, however, I had some interesting information which was you can get across Romania in day because the new bridge (I think I mentioned this in the last post) is now open and the roads across Romania to it are pretty good.

This has nearly decided me in the route I am going to take and so I thought I'd quickly detail it here and put it out there for anyone else to shoot down and say "you don't want to do that, you want to do this!" because they know something I don't.

So, without further ado:

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

Blackpool -> Birmingham

I am leaving from Blackpool where I am packing and driving to my parents house in Birmingham so they can go to church before starting the long drive. It is also going to be a good short comfortable stage where any problems with the packing will be spotted and we will not be in a rush. It will also be really nice to sleep in real beds for one more night...

Day Two - Birmingham to Brussels. 333 miles, 8 hours

Birmingham -> Dover

The first part of Day Two will be to get to the ferry. We will start early and aim to be there with plenty of time. Then, sit on the ferry for a bit and then...

Calais -> Brussels

... we aim to make a few hours driving through France and into Belgium as far as we can.

Day Three - Brussels to Nuremberg. 384 miles, 9 hours

Brussels -> Nuremberg

The third day on the road is the longest however it should also see us on the easiest roads; Autobahns are easy to drive on at 55mph, right? Anyway, this will break the back of the trip and leave us within striking distance of Austria

Day Four - Nuremberg to Liesing, Vienna. 300 miles, 7 hours

Nuremberg -> Vienna

Day four will see us heading even further south and east with the aim of ending the day in the region around Vienna.

Day Five - Liesing, Vienna to Szeged. 250 miles, 6 hours

Vienna -> Szeged

This is the key day as we need to end up at the end of a day at Szeged which is in Hungary just before you start driving in Romania. This shorter day should allow us to get some extra rest before the slightly more stressful following day.

Day Six - Szeged to Vidin. 300 miles, 7 hours

Szeged -> Vidin (avoiding tolls)

Day six is when we plan to tackle Romania. I am avoiding toll roads the entire way over and this makes about 6 miles difference on this leg. We will end the day over the new bridge and in Bulgaria.

Day Seven - Vidin to Kardjali. 300 miles, 7 hours

Vidin -> Kardjali

Day seven and the homeward stretch. Once I am past Sofia I know the route off by heart and I am expecting that to be a fantastic feeling as we coast down the E11 (I think it is?) towards Plovdiv. I may have to divert from this route if it is snowing as doing the Aceonograd pass in the camper and towing the trailer, in the snow, would not be my idea of fun. There is a less-mountainous route as an alternative.

So there you have it, seven days of driving which will result in me and my parents at my school in the Rhodope.

Obviously the maps here are pretty general, and I will not be going into places like Brussels or Vienna (sadly). As I get closer we will be looking for campsites in the general area we are aiming to end up every day, as well as some Geocaches for my dad. I have one more thing to share with you which is this really helpful link explaining how to take a route on Google Maps and import it into your satnav.

Please do add comments/criticisms/observations/suggestions below. I am desperate to learn as much from others as I can.