Scotland to Romania road trip
Discussion
I've been wanting to do a proper road trip for many years.
So, at the prime age of 41 I'm going for it.
Car: 2007 Elise S. (Which hasn't been seen for 10 months).
Stuff all our clothes into plastic carrier bags and use every available inch of space.
Route:
Scotland- Newcastle- Amsterdam- Eisenach,Germany- Ceske Budejovice,Czech Republic- Szolnok,Hungary- Cluj,Romania- all around Romania.
Unfortunately the Transfagarasan pass is closed from October till I believe March/April?
I will be taking plenty of photos and try to do some updates when I'm not enjoying myself. The route is up for adjustment and the timescale for the trip is undecided. The only thing in stone is that the car will be on the ferry for Amsterdam on Monday.
I'm rather excited
So, at the prime age of 41 I'm going for it.
Car: 2007 Elise S. (Which hasn't been seen for 10 months).
Stuff all our clothes into plastic carrier bags and use every available inch of space.
Route:
Scotland- Newcastle- Amsterdam- Eisenach,Germany- Ceske Budejovice,Czech Republic- Szolnok,Hungary- Cluj,Romania- all around Romania.
Unfortunately the Transfagarasan pass is closed from October till I believe March/April?
I will be taking plenty of photos and try to do some updates when I'm not enjoying myself. The route is up for adjustment and the timescale for the trip is undecided. The only thing in stone is that the car will be on the ferry for Amsterdam on Monday.
I'm rather excited
Getting the car was harder than expected. It was a few days late coming out of the repair shop. I was disappointed.
Paint on the top of the doors had started to lift when I purchased the car. Quite common on the Elises. I'd discussed this to be repaired with the new clam going on but it wasn't done.
One of the alloys were not repaired, which was damaged in the accident.
Also as it had been sitting outside for so long the roof has remnants of mildew on it, and I can see the jet wash marks where they tried to clean it off. This has probably taken all the waterproofing out of the hood.
The car has been away for ten months so I expected more.
I suggest to anyone else just to go with the coachworks your insurance company recommends. Taking my car out and using Lotus approved one has done me no favours. It left me without a courtesy car (10 months) and the car worse than pre-accident condition.
On another note, the morning the car was ready it was booked into get MOT'd. There were only two issues I picked up on the way to the garage. The horn and an indicator. I chose the first garage on google in Edinburgh. "123 car and van". They took the car immediately, fixed the horn the coachworks had not hooked up and the indicator. It was MOTd within 2 hours. The couple that run it are a Polish couple and were incredibly chatty and friendly.
So next stop was Newcastle. We were too late to get to the ferry so spent the night in a hotel on the Quay.
The following day we made it to the terminal. Newcastle to Amsterdam. The girl at the reception told us to queue for between 14:15 and 16:15, we were early so did some shopping and grabbed some bargains at the outlet stores net to it.
the Land Rover shop attracted me. But it was full of push bikes.
Sorry for the terribly over exposed photo.
We read some shockingly bad reviews about the ferry, from our experience it was great. The boat is old and a little tired but we found the staff excellent, the pre-booked meals were cheaper and worth it. We eat in the buffet room and were impressed with the food.
The rooms were clean and perfect for an overnight stay.
We were off the boat by 09:45 in the morning and in Amsterdam centre about 40mins later:
the parking charges in the centre of the City are 45euro for 24 hours!!!
Then as there was a big festival on all the hotels in the centre were fully booked... waste of 45 euros.
So we got into the Ramada Amsterdam central hotel. Worked out pretty cheap and only a 15 minute journey on the tram number 13 into the red light district. Already feeling a bit over done by alcohol we experimented with drugs and looked at girls wearing very little clothes.
Now its 08:50 in the morning here. We are awake and have no idea where we are going to end up today.- Germany I suspect, somewhere....
This is our view from the 16th floor.
Time to get dressed and squeeze everything back in the little car.
Paint on the top of the doors had started to lift when I purchased the car. Quite common on the Elises. I'd discussed this to be repaired with the new clam going on but it wasn't done.
One of the alloys were not repaired, which was damaged in the accident.
Also as it had been sitting outside for so long the roof has remnants of mildew on it, and I can see the jet wash marks where they tried to clean it off. This has probably taken all the waterproofing out of the hood.
The car has been away for ten months so I expected more.
I suggest to anyone else just to go with the coachworks your insurance company recommends. Taking my car out and using Lotus approved one has done me no favours. It left me without a courtesy car (10 months) and the car worse than pre-accident condition.
On another note, the morning the car was ready it was booked into get MOT'd. There were only two issues I picked up on the way to the garage. The horn and an indicator. I chose the first garage on google in Edinburgh. "123 car and van". They took the car immediately, fixed the horn the coachworks had not hooked up and the indicator. It was MOTd within 2 hours. The couple that run it are a Polish couple and were incredibly chatty and friendly.
So next stop was Newcastle. We were too late to get to the ferry so spent the night in a hotel on the Quay.
The following day we made it to the terminal. Newcastle to Amsterdam. The girl at the reception told us to queue for between 14:15 and 16:15, we were early so did some shopping and grabbed some bargains at the outlet stores net to it.
the Land Rover shop attracted me. But it was full of push bikes.
Sorry for the terribly over exposed photo.
We read some shockingly bad reviews about the ferry, from our experience it was great. The boat is old and a little tired but we found the staff excellent, the pre-booked meals were cheaper and worth it. We eat in the buffet room and were impressed with the food.
The rooms were clean and perfect for an overnight stay.
We were off the boat by 09:45 in the morning and in Amsterdam centre about 40mins later:
the parking charges in the centre of the City are 45euro for 24 hours!!!
Then as there was a big festival on all the hotels in the centre were fully booked... waste of 45 euros.
So we got into the Ramada Amsterdam central hotel. Worked out pretty cheap and only a 15 minute journey on the tram number 13 into the red light district. Already feeling a bit over done by alcohol we experimented with drugs and looked at girls wearing very little clothes.
Now its 08:50 in the morning here. We are awake and have no idea where we are going to end up today.- Germany I suspect, somewhere....
This is our view from the 16th floor.
Time to get dressed and squeeze everything back in the little car.
We totally skipped Germany. We couldn't think of where to stop so we just kept going and reached Prague last night around 20:30. Hotels are cheap here, 31 euros for a 4 star through lastminute.com. That was the deal breaker.
First time in Prague, its stunning in every way, and the girls are fabulous. Nearly as hot as Ukraines!
Well, I never drove on the Autobahn before, I've been driven on it a few times before as a passenger. The shear speed of the traffic was mind blowing. Even the small 1.0 mini cars are blasting flat out at a ton or more.
Some lovely cars, I managed to talk her into taking a few photos of some a few of them. The Duetto was like a new car, the ML63 was brutally quick and annihilated me.
Didn't manage to take any photos of Prague last night, too busy enjoying ourselves. Time for some sight seeing again in daylight
First time in Prague, its stunning in every way, and the girls are fabulous. Nearly as hot as Ukraines!
Well, I never drove on the Autobahn before, I've been driven on it a few times before as a passenger. The shear speed of the traffic was mind blowing. Even the small 1.0 mini cars are blasting flat out at a ton or more.
Some lovely cars, I managed to talk her into taking a few photos of some a few of them. The Duetto was like a new car, the ML63 was brutally quick and annihilated me.
Didn't manage to take any photos of Prague last night, too busy enjoying ourselves. Time for some sight seeing again in daylight
Prague really was amazing, the following day we made our way early to the Castle on the hill. It was, as the rest of Prague is, utterly stunning with great detail to architecture and very well maintained to the highest standard.
The plan yesterday was to stop at Budapest and spend a night there. Instead we decided to keep going to Cluj in Romania, we'd heard many good things about it. We were having a great time. The car was running sweet, booking hotels over the internet was getting us into 4 star accommodation for 3 star money. Before we left Prague a new Discovery drove past our restaurant, the roads to Budapest were brilliant condition, then when we drove past the ring road and overtook a girl driving a CLA shooting break lightly disguised.
From Budapest into Hungary the roads were terrible. It was like driving over the speed bump paint approaching round-abouts- over the whole of the motorway. But about ten times worse. I hate doing this but had to drive in the outside lane as is it wasn't quite as bad.
You feel everything in the Lotus. We'd been tag driving with a new Peugeot 3008, the undertray fell off the Peugeot. The Lotus pretty much stayed in one piece apart from a slight rattle developing.
We'd left Prague at 13:00, with a few stops for coffee and fuel we past Hungary/Slovakia and made it into Cluj (150klms inside Romania) at 23:45. We never once had to worry about fuel, the lotus has a tiny tank but there have been ample amounts of filling stations.
All our hotel booking was done online during the drive between countries. We never had any issues and it was always cheap. We are now holed up in a stunning hotel in Cluj (Sunnyhill Hotel) another 4 star, 31 euros per night. We are going to stay for a while, it really is a nice place with plenty of nightlife.
The weather is wonderful, roof off mountain road over-looking the City of Cluj.
Found a secluded hill with lovely views
Autumn with weather like this truly is fantastic.
The plan yesterday was to stop at Budapest and spend a night there. Instead we decided to keep going to Cluj in Romania, we'd heard many good things about it. We were having a great time. The car was running sweet, booking hotels over the internet was getting us into 4 star accommodation for 3 star money. Before we left Prague a new Discovery drove past our restaurant, the roads to Budapest were brilliant condition, then when we drove past the ring road and overtook a girl driving a CLA shooting break lightly disguised.
From Budapest into Hungary the roads were terrible. It was like driving over the speed bump paint approaching round-abouts- over the whole of the motorway. But about ten times worse. I hate doing this but had to drive in the outside lane as is it wasn't quite as bad.
You feel everything in the Lotus. We'd been tag driving with a new Peugeot 3008, the undertray fell off the Peugeot. The Lotus pretty much stayed in one piece apart from a slight rattle developing.
We'd left Prague at 13:00, with a few stops for coffee and fuel we past Hungary/Slovakia and made it into Cluj (150klms inside Romania) at 23:45. We never once had to worry about fuel, the lotus has a tiny tank but there have been ample amounts of filling stations.
All our hotel booking was done online during the drive between countries. We never had any issues and it was always cheap. We are now holed up in a stunning hotel in Cluj (Sunnyhill Hotel) another 4 star, 31 euros per night
. We are going to stay for a while, it really is a nice place with plenty of nightlife.The weather is wonderful, roof off
mountain road over-looking the City of Cluj.Found a secluded hill with lovely views
Autumn with weather like this truly is fantastic.
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