Riga to Berlin
Discussion
I'm planning a journey in June that'll take me from Hoek Van Holland via Zeiderzee, Copenhagen and onto Stockholm. I want to come home via Berlin. One option is to get a ferry to Riga then drive through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and onto Berlin. Has anybody here driven this route?. Is it safe, what are the roads like, are they motorway type, or are some of them likely to make my hair stand on end (were I lucky enough to have any hair). Any route advice would be welcome, along with places to see and stay. I have to complete the road journey within 2 days.
any reason on going via riga, and the route you said? is it something you really fancy doing?
have you looked into options of ferries out of stokholm, down to northern germany, say rostock or similar, i'd imagine there must be a couple. i've driven through latvia and lithuania a couple of times in the lorry en route to russia, its ok, surfaces these days on the whole are pretty good. not much in the way of motorway/dual carriageway, but i found that most main route single carriageway was pretty good, and a decent width, and often slower moving trucks would pull over when the road ahead was clear enough for an overtake, so that you could see it was safe to pass.
that said, expect some crappy road surfaces at times, especially some big rutted sections in poland, and in all of these countries, expect some very random and, often dangerous moves by the locals, it can be an eye opener
have you looked into options of ferries out of stokholm, down to northern germany, say rostock or similar, i'd imagine there must be a couple. i've driven through latvia and lithuania a couple of times in the lorry en route to russia, its ok, surfaces these days on the whole are pretty good. not much in the way of motorway/dual carriageway, but i found that most main route single carriageway was pretty good, and a decent width, and often slower moving trucks would pull over when the road ahead was clear enough for an overtake, so that you could see it was safe to pass.
that said, expect some crappy road surfaces at times, especially some big rutted sections in poland, and in all of these countries, expect some very random and, often dangerous moves by the locals, it can be an eye opener
This trip is just a holiday adventure for me. The plan is to drive to Stockholm with my gf and have a few days rest. Gf will then fly to London for work, before flying to meet me in Berlin for a weekend. I am a bit concerned about driving through Poland; don't want to f/up my car on crappy roads. After waving gf off on a Sunday night, I am going to drive south to the Nurburgring and frighten myself sh#tless with a high speed hoon. I might then nip down to Tuscany before heading home via Nice.
ianash said:
This trip is just a holiday adventure for me. The plan is to drive to Stockholm with my gf and have a few days rest. Gf will then fly to London for work, before flying to meet me in Berlin for a weekend. I am a bit concerned about driving through Poland; don't want to f/up my car on crappy roads. After waving gf off on a Sunday night, I am going to drive south to the Nurburgring and frighten myself sh#tless with a high speed hoon. I might then nip down to Tuscany before heading home via Nice.
I regularly drive to Eastern Poland from London once or twice per year and have never had any problems. Some rural roads can be poor quality but the main trunk roads are generally OK. Poland is currently in the process of buidling a new motorway network, and the latest section to open recently connects the German border at Frankfurt a/d Oder (on the way to Berlin) to the city of Lodz in central Poland. This motorway has been been opened in sections over the past 5 years and is a nice quiet road becuase it is a toll road. I am usually able to cruise comfortably at three figure speeds (mph not km/h) when I travel between Berlin and Warsaw.The only real difficulty that you may encouter is overtaking on single lane roads if you are in a RHD car and on your own.
Edited by Mandat on Friday 6th January 22:19
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