Driving to Istanbul

[jackal]

anyone done it ?

thinking of creating a bona fide driving hols out of it

any tips, ideas, hints would be most appreciated



Calais
Black forest
best of Austria (stopover in Vienna)
Hungray (Mways are good there i'm told and there are some great roads, stopover in Budapest)
Romania (roads crap but have to try and do the Transfagarren and a stop in Bucharest)
Bulgaria (get through it ASAP ??)
Istanbul (x8 porsche 911's turning up there would be a riot !)
Greece
Albania ???
Montenegro coats road
Croatia coast road (im told its lovely)
Slovenia ???
Venice (stay in lido de jesolo and catch the water ferry)
Switzerland
Calais

[anonymous-user]

I have done that journey, albeit in reverse, and all thanks to an Icelandic volcano .

Along with my wife, a number of work colleagues, and their spouses ('twas a work jolly spent at the Four Seasons in Istanbul when said volcano's dust cloud stranded us there), we spent three days driving pretty much non-stop on a hastily hired Romanian bus from Istanbul, through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, France, and finally to the UK via Eurostar from the Gare du Nord.

Not much to report other than the guitar, card table, and copious amount of wine and beer we bought prior to departure fuelled a non-stop 3-day party and made for some very interesting events which shall remain with me for a long time! I can also confirm a 3-day diet of Ginsters (or whatever the Serbian/Slovenian/etc equivalent is) does nothing for the waistline.

Sorry that's no help, your request just brought back some great memories

[fivetenben]

I drove there in a Porsche 944, a few years back now. Your route looks a lot of fun...

Here's a few fairly dull considerations from my trip which you've probably looked into already, but just in case:

Turkey - this is where your UK insurance will probably run out; the usual procedure is to buy insurance at the border, which is dirt cheap but about as limited as you can get - not ideal for a shiny, valuable '911. If it were me I'd try to find a broker who'll do fully comp insurance before leaving home...
Other than that, rest assured it's very straightforward to take a car into/out of Turkey, you'll have no trouble. It's about 4 hours on the motorway from the border to Istanbul.

The Balkans/Albania - on my drive, we followed a route through Slovenia/Croatia/Serbia/Bulgaria. The countries in the EU were obviously fine, however in non-EU countries we had some insurance issues (being charged £135 for 1 days insurance to cross Serbia, for instance) so check the paperwork side of things for this part of the route carefully before you go. We found the main roads in the countries we crossed to be generally fine, however I can't comment on Albania, etc.

Hope this helps a little...

Ben

[Rach*]

I have too, Croatian Coast is an absolute must! Stunning!


Albania was very sad, really run down, obviously struggling to recover from the atrocities there. Although the country has been in a recent Wanderlust for amazing walking.

Crossing the border from Greece - Turkey took 4 hours.
Had some bother because our green card wasn't actually green too.

[911Viking]

jackal said:

anyone done it ?

thinking of creating a bona fide driving hols out of it

any tips, ideas, hints would be most appreciated



Calais
Black forest
best of Austria (stopover in Vienna)
Hungray (Mways are good there i'm told and there are some great roads, stopover in Budapest)
Romania (roads crap but have to try and do the Transfagarren and a stop in Bucharest)
Bulgaria (get through it ASAP ??)
Istanbul (x8 porsche 911's turning up there would be a riot !)
Greece
Albania ???
Montenegro coats road
Croatia coast road (im told its lovely)
Slovenia ???
Venice (stay in lido de jesolo and catch the water ferry)
Switzerland
Calais

Looks a cool ride mate, done loads for Alp ride in 911's and on bikes, but this is big big and exciting stuff.... Might be interested if you got an extra spot, can bring air cooled or mental turbo