1st April
An uneventful trip across Europe. After spending the Friday night with our Dutch friends who once again embarrassed us with their generosity to the point of vacating their bed for us, we left Druten mid morning Saturday 29th. We stuck to the motorways as much as we could, boring but useful when you want to get places in a hurry. Mind you the German ones make you keep your wits about you: here we are travelling along at a sedate 110kph in the slow lane with the cars in the middle one tearing along at, I would say, between 120-150kph while in the fast lane I would suggest they would be hitting 200kph and faster. Pulling out to pass means keeping a good eye on the mirrors. We slept the nights parked in the parking lots of the road houses that are placed regularly along the highway, the weather was warming a little and becoming more agreeable.
In the 5 days after leaving the UK we passed through 8 countries the landscape and people varying a little each time. Seeing a horse and cart slowly crossing an overpass with its two elderly occupants huddled up against the frosty morning while below 4 lanes of mostly modern cars flew past is a pretty good sign that we were now in less affluent areas for some of the locals.
We decided to not stop in Istanbul, we had been there before, I wasn’t sure where the camp site was and the traffic was a shambles. Instead the Lonely Planet spoke about this Heritage Listed town 250kms north east of Istanbul, called Safranbolu, it has retained much of its ancient character, we are taking a few hours off, staying in a pension where we can recharge all our batteries, have a good wash and relax a bit.
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