Pan-European Roadtrip | FindPenguins

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Pan-European Roadtrip
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Dag 17
donderdag 19 mei 2022 om 10:24
☁️ 23 °C
Hoogte: 256 m
Frankrijk Lac d’Allier 46.125686, 3.42044246°7’32” N 3°25’14” E
Vichy - Hall of Springs
19 mei 2022, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C
This small town (population of around 45,000), is famous already since the Gallo-Roman times for healing and therapeutic properties of its springs.

Here’s a wiki page with its rich history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy

The water really comes readily and eagerly out of the ground here - confirmed 😄Meer informatie
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Pan-European Roadtrip
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Dag 17
donderdag 19 mei 2022 om 11:01
☁️ 24 °C
Hoogte: 262 m
Frankrijk Lac d’Allier 46.121267, 3.42259546°7’17” N 3°25’21” E
Vichy - Église Saint Blaise
19 mei 2022, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C
An amazing small church in the middle of Vichy. Such vivid vitrages and the painted ceiling!

This was the last stop for us in this lovely town, as we headed forth towards Germany…
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Dag 17
donderdag 19 mei 2022 om 16:38
⛅ 29 °C
Hoogte: 230 m
Duitsland Landwasser 48.035308, 7.8017348°2’7” N 7°48’6” E
Deutschland über alles!?
19 mei 2022, Duitsland ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
Germany welcomed us with our first highway jams, which tend to begin quite abruptly, so keep your eyes up front and look out for those blinking hazard lights and start to break in advance. There were a couple of close calls…

A really hot day otherwise and we soon found out why there was consistently over 30*C.Meer informatie
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Dag 17
donderdag 19 mei 2022 om 18:13
☁️ 25 °C
Hoogte: 311 m
Duitsland Lichtental 48.762603, 8.26433748°45’45” N 8°15’52” E
Baden-Baden
19 mei 2022, Duitsland ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C
This spa town in southwestern Germany’s Black Forest, near the border with France, was on our list by a recommendation of a good friend.

With a population of some 57,000 residents it is quite small and compact.

It felt like a town we would gladly live in ☺️

The main attraction of Baden-Baden is, of course, The Merkur Funicular Railway (Europe’s steepest, and most technically advanced, funicular railway).

The ride is already an experience, but looking down from the tip of the near-700m-high Merkur mountain is truly breathtaking!Meer informatie
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Dag 17
donderdag 19 mei 2022 om 23:48
☁️ 17 °C
Hoogte: 321 m
Duitsland Gostenhof 49.44593, 11.07000649°26’45” N 11°4’12” E
Nuremburg (Nürburg)
19 mei 2022, Duitsland ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
While driving from Baden-Baden we were engulfed by a thunderstorm. It was raining cats and dogs occasionally and the speed dropped to around 70kmh. The roads were amazingly efficient at diverting the rainwater, but the mist from other drivers reduced visibility to 50m. Sky was constantly lit with lightning close and afar… so that’s why we saw temperatures above 30*C before.

Nürburg was strategically placed stay-over spot on our way back.

From here onwards we hope to have our last night in Warsaw - and then already sleep at home 🏡

We did not plan to visit any sights here or to spend here any more time than necessary, hoping to have a few hours to spend tomorrow in Dresden instead.

We stayed at Radisson ParkInn - an affordable and a dependable bed.

—

When a car enthusiast thinks of Nürburg, he imagines the Nürburgring (https://www.nuerburgring.de/) - so did I.

And I really wished to drive one lap on this world-famous racetrack where car journalists have ordered all kind and type of cars by speed and handling. There are open-track days, accessible for everyone.

Not one, but THREE, “known” unfortunate conditions inhibited us to enter the track:
1. We would not arrive at open hours.
2. The car is full of stuff which would fly around
3. There seems to be a minor puncture in one of the front tires - there’s weird noise coming from it at certain speeds and I would really like to drive the car home myself…

So maybe on another day… ☺️Meer informatie
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Dag 18
vrijdag 20 mei 2022 om 11:57
☁️ 22 °C
Hoogte: 282 m
Duitsland Limbach 51.060092, 13.4630851°3’36” N 13°27’47” E
Autobahn experience
20 mei 2022, Duitsland ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C
Maybe we did not see the “proper” German autobahns on this route, but I was seriously not impressed by them. Maybe I had unreasonably high expectations of the hyped-up “full-throttle” driving there. The reality was quite different - yes, there was no speed limit, but there were “only” 3 lanes, and most of the time two of which were occupied by lorries inching past each other ☺️
I must speak to a real-life truck-driver and ask him - why is it, that all of them have the same speed limit at 90 kmh, but some drive at 88 or 89, and the others behind them cannot stand the “vast” speed difference 🤦‍♂️

Anyway, driving in the “3rd lane” was not about just pushing the pedal to the metal - it was serious work accelerating and braking alternatively, because fam-vans kept “leaping” into your lane not minding the huge relative speed difference… I enjoyed the sport for a while, but to be honest, sticking to the overall traffic speed was much more enjoyable.

And then we hit another traffic jam at about to enter Dresden. Usually the culprits were the roadworks ahead, forcing lanes together and creating huge lines at almost a standstill. This one lasted for about half an hour.Meer informatie
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Dag 18
vrijdag 20 mei 2022 om 13:16
⛅ 25 °C
Hoogte: 108 m
Duitsland Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister 51.053741, 13.73576251°3’13” N 13°44’9” E
Dresden
20 mei 2022, Duitsland ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C
Dresden is the 12th most populous city in Germany with almost 600,000 residents. The name of the city as well as the names of most of its boroughs and rivers are of Sorbian origin.

It has a long history which you can devour here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden

You should plan a day here to comfortably explore both the old part as well as the Neustadt. We only had a couple of hours and also needed to fit our lunch in it 😊

More comments are captioned with the images below, but this was our last destination on this European trip before closing the loop and getting “back” to Warsaw, and then Tallinn.Meer informatie
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Dag 19
zaterdag 21 mei 2022 om 12:10
🌧 14 °C
Hoogte: 114 m
Polen Rybniki 53.28952, 23.12284253°17’22” N 23°7’22” E
Rain and storm…
21 mei 2022, Polen ⋅ 🌧 14 °C
The closer we got, the more it started to feel like home - weather-wise 😂

The cyclone that had passed Germany a day before (lightning-storm), had not eased, but reached Poland.

We even got an alert on the phone about strong winds and such. Trucks on the road were swaying from side to side in the extreme sidewinds.

So in an effort to make a point, the storm fell a tree across the road some 500m before us. We were already beginning to mull alternative routes while waiting in the standstill, when young & strong German drivers joined forces and managed to break off the treetop, freeing one lane for the traffic.

At the same time a fire brigade arrived already and started cutting the trunk - some mere 20 minutes later, in the middle of nowhere! 👏🏻Meer informatie
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Dag 19
zaterdag 21 mei 2022 om 22:51
⛅ 9 °C
Hoogte: 19 m
Estland Siili 59.403972, 24.6978259°24’14” N 24°41’52” E
Home sweet home
21 mei 2022, Estland ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C
…aand after staying at the same roadside hotel in Warsaw as before, we reached back home late in the evening of our 20th day.

Direct driving time: 127 hours 40 minutes.

Total distance: 10,149km.

Average speed: 79km/h (it felt faster! I was driving over 100 most of the time, and 140 where it was permitted).

Average fuel consumption: 5,7 l per 100km (3.0 diesel, 180kw, 100-120kmh).

Average cost of accommodation: ~70€ per night (mostly excluding breakfast).

Average not-so-fancy-dinner for two with drinks: ~45€ (lunch around 30€).

Other stats I need yet to compute, so will add here at a later time. Road tolls, fuel costs, etc.

Thank you for following us!

PS. In case you’re thinking of a similar road-trip, we have just one suggestion - plan more time for it! 😂 A lot of items were left uncrossed in the list for us in Spain and Portugal, and we would have loved the opportunity to just relax at a few more places. It was a really fast-paced trip.

Let’s see what life will bring to us next time!Meer informatie
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Het einde van de reis
22 mei 2022