Category Archives: 2024

Plitvice and pesky passports

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We left Belgrade around 08.40 on Wednesday morning to drive to the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. The Serbian motorway wasn’t particularly busy but again 5km out from the border the lorries started to queue to get into the Schengen area. It wasn’t too bad for us and only took about half an hour. The Serbian side weren’t too interested in us and the Croatian border control seemed even less so.

After we had sailed through we realised that the Croatian border official hadn’t stamped our passports so there was no record of when we entered the EU again after leaving it in Greece. This might not matter but, again, we had heard some horror stories of people trying to prove how long they were in the EU/Schengen area when their passports had not been stamped. We hadn’t realised until we were already on the motorway and gone through a toll. There was a rest area nearby that also went back towards the Croatian border so we turned around and headed back through the toll. We had only been on the toll for maybe 5 miles each way but obviously the system didn’t realise that and charged us the full amount of €25! We got back to the Croatian border, parked up and went to find the chap who had inspected our passports. Luckily, he was happy to just stamp them this time so we could avoid going back out of Croatia, into Serbia, back out of there and back into Croatia. It all could have been very messy!

Entering back into the EU
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Bemused in Belgrade

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Our park up in Belgrade/Beograd was a very large, gated compound on the outskirts of the city with full facilities and friendly hosts. We arrived around 15.30 and, as most museums in the city centre were shut on a Monday, we decided to chill for a couple of hours in the sunshine before making our way to the Danube riverfront 30 minutes walk away for a bite to eat. We found a lovely fish restaurant called Sent Andrea so Liz had perch and I had sea bream. Both cooked beautifully. Another peaceful night’s rest before hitting Beograd on Tuesday, April 2. We’d given up reporting to the police by now and decided we would chance it if we were ever questioned.

Compound in Belgrade

We navigated the digital bus pass app, Beograd Plus, so that we each had an e-ticket (all day ticket for less than £1) on our phones as we didn’t get any Serbian Dinars out for such a short stay. We have been able to use our Wise credit card everywhere so far on this trip and so it was in Serbia. It was an easy 30 minute bus ride from our park up to the centre of Beograd.

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Springtime in Serbia

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We left our camp stop in Sofia, Bulgaria on Saturday (March 30th) morning around 09.30 having emptied various tanks and filled with water. We also filled up with diesel as it seemed to be quite cheap in Sofia at around equivalent of €1.35 a litre and we weren’t sure what the price would be in Serbia. (As it turned out, the price for diesel seemed to be fixed at 203RSD in Serbia, which is about €1.64 so good call by us!) It was going to be another hot day but at least we have air con in the cab. We took the motorway to the border crossing at Calotina and waited in line. Even for a Saturday morning, the queue of trucks went on for 4km. It took us about an hour to get through and they even checked that we had bought a vignette (one off payment instead of individual tolls) before our passports were stamped to leave Bulgaria and then entered Serbia. We had downloaded an e-Sim for Serbia from Airalo but couldn’t activate it until we were actually in the country. Touch of relief that it all worked very smoothly and we could have connectivity whilst there. Before we left the U.K. we had purchased International Driving Permits as Serbia supposedly requires it but no one asked us to produce it. Perhaps they would have if there had been an accident. Who knows?

Wait nearly over

According to various government websites (UK and Serbia), we needed to register with the police within 24 hours of entering the country. Usually, if you are staying in a hotel they will do it for you but we had no idea where we were going to stay and certainly not in one place for the duration of our visit. So we drove to Niš as there was a large police station there and also various sights we wanted to visit. We found somewhere to park and hoped we had understood the parking sign correctly!

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Balkan border buildup

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It rained quite heavily overnight on Tuesday, March 26th in Pozar and we were slightly worried about getting stuck as we were camped on grass. Luckily, we had moved Dora forward in her pitch the evening before so that her front tyres were on a mix of grass and gravel. She behaved beautifully in the morning so we easily drove off the pitch and even found a tap to fill our water tank nearby before stopping on the way out for breakfast by the river. Low cloud had filled the valley which created quite an eerie scene. We decided to double back on ourselves and drive down to Vergina to see the Royal Tombs, assuming they would be open this time! On the way through we went through even more fields of cherry trees.

Cherry blossom as far as the eye can see

The tombs were actually quite impressive. They had been excavated in the 1970s and had been found in tact rather than been robbed like so many others over the centuries. Phillip II, Alexander the Great’s father, was a force to be reckoned with as he was a consummate diplomat as well as an inspiring general who managed to expand Macedonia. His tomb reflected his achievements with gold, silver and suits of armour buried with him. His grandson, Alexander III, Alexander’s son was also buried here in similar fashion. The burial mound has been dug out and made into an amazing exhibition. Well worth a visit. Interestingly, this part of Greece is still called Macedonia and the Greeks refuse to call the country to the north of them, North Macedonia as they feel their heritage has been usurped so only call it by its capital’s name, Skopje.

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Our Greek road trip continues north

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We have spent the last few days clearing our stuff out of our boat, Nimrod, into Dora. We have disposed of three full bin bags of clothes that were not fit for anything as well as food that had dubious things growing in them! The other criteria was what could we physically fit into the van which as it happened was more than you’d think!

We spent each day at the boatyard but returned every night to our lovely spot at Pounda Zeza. One evening the occupants of the motorhome parked near us came across enquiring how we knew of this place as they’d been coming there for 20 years and wanted it kept a secret as the locals call the police if more than 3 vans are there. We pointed out that we’d known of the place for years as well so not much of a secret!

By lunchtime on Monday, we were all done and sadly said farewell to our beloved boat. We then made our way north towards Mount Olympus in northern Greece. It was a gloriously sunny day and the snow capped peaks of Olympus looked wonderful as we headed towards them. Our park up for the night was the old monastery of Saint Dionysios (P4N#105922). We noticed the temperature cooling as we headed north and as we climbed up the mountain the temperature started to drop even more. By the time we parked up it was only 6°C and not even dark so we were slightly worried the temperature would drop even further overnight. We popped the heating on low just in case as we didn’t want the frost valve to open and dump all our water!

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And relax

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We have made it to Lavrion on the Attica peninsula, about 40 minutes SE of Athens.

Yesterday morning we awoke from a really peaceful night’s sleep in our campervan park outside Brindisi. Our ferry to Greece left at 13.00 but we had to be at the ferry terminal at least 2 hours in advance. So around 10.15 we left our site and made the short 15 minute journey to the port. It was very chaotic at the terminal with no signs where to park or what to do. We checked in and waited. And waited. Finally around 11.30 a security chap told us we could now get in lane for loading onto the ship. The queues were full of trucks with a handful of cars and half a dozen canpervans or motorhones. We then sat in another queue for another hour until we were finally on board. We were put onto the top deck (which made for some interesting manoeuvring) but at least the batteries would be topped up during the 8 hour crossing! Amazingly, the ship left just 6 minutes behind schedule.

Dora is at the back below the arrow
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We made it!

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We woke up very early on Wednesday morning in our “dodgy” car park for no apparent reason and were back on the road just after 0700. Refuelled at a 24 hour self service station although limited to 100 euros so not quite filled the tank. Still, we would need to refill again later on in the day anyway. We continued south from Modena and came off the motorway at Rimini. We had decided to treat ourselves to breakfast/ brunch out somewhere along that part of the coast overlooking the sea. We were last on this part of the Adriatic coast in 2017 when we sailed up to Venice so it was good to be back as it is lovely. We found somewhere to park at Riccione, a few miles south of Rimini, by the harbour. All of the beach cafes were still shut but there were lots of activity getting ready for the new season.

Riccione beach
Lovely promenade
Still can’t resist a harbour!
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Lakeside vistas and dodgy car parks

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We woke up refreshed around 07.30 on Tuesday morning and decided to drive to Lake Annecy to have breakfast. Jill had told us of a lovely village down the eastern side of the lake called Talloires so we headed to it and found a great spot near the golf course overlooking the lake (P4N#77299).

Lake Annecy
Breakfast stop
Talloires

We then made our way along the motorways towards the Alps to go through the Frejus Tunnel. We had thought about going through the Mont Blanc tunnel but we needed a Crit’Air sticker to show that Dora is a low emission diesel van and we hadn’t had time to buy one before starting out. The Frejus Tunnel is about 13km long and you have to stay 100m away from the vehicle in front. If you don’t, blue lights at the side flash. All quite clever.

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And we are off!

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Long story short is that we have sold our lovely boat, Nimrod, (who has her own blog btw) so we need to clear our personal stuff off her. This would be easy apart from the fact that she is in a boatyard near Athens, some 2,000 miles away! So, on Sunday we left in Dora to drive down to Folkestone as we had a booking on Le Shuttle to Calais for Monday morning. We had found a park up for the night at The Master Brewer only 15 minutes from the tunnel terminal. Perfect. They were celebrating St Patrick’s Day so when we arrived at 18.30 hours quite a few of their customers had clearly been celebrating since lunchtime. No food as they only serve Sunday lunch but that was fine as we had a chicken tagine left over to heat up. A quick drink in the pub as a thank you and then back to the van to actually do some planning! We reckoned it would take us about 5 days to get to Greece via Italy with long driving days on toll motorways but then,once we had sorted the boat out, we would meander our way back through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Belgium and France. At least, that’s the plan.

Not the most salubrious but worked for us

The pub car park was remarkably quiet after about 22.00 hours so we managed to get some sleep. We were both awake by 07.00 and at the terminal before 07.30 which meant we could then have breakfast before boarding the train.

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A night away to test her batteries (and everything else!)

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Over the winter we had a problem with the batteries or so we thought so we booked Dora into Hitchin Leisure Services, which is only a 25 mins drive away. After much head scratching they managed to identify the problem as a faulty battery isolator switch. This was a significantly cheaper repair than we originally thought as it was looking like the 12v fuse block might be faulty. Phew!

So, we thought it would be a good idea to ensure all was well before any long road trips. Hence a trip to a Caravan and Motorhome Club site at Henley on Thames (P4N#170466). It’s quite a small site but very friendly and not very busy in mid March on a Tuesday!

Henley Four Oaks Campsite

Dora behaved impeccably of course and everything seems to be working which is good news. Didn’t help that Jo forgot to turn off the cold weather dump valve so most of the water we filled up with came straight out again!

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