From Porto to Budapest and back Day 9

Day 9

Neuchatel, Switzerland to Clermont-Ferrand, France -- 470km
 
Leaving Switzerland was no problem, and entering France and the European Union was no problem either. Funny to see side by side the highway signs in blue for France and green for Switzerland.

The highway was easy, through 'la campagne' till Clermont-Ferrand.
After checking in we went see the town. As the hotel was outside I took the car and parked in some street. As usual memorize where the car was and go on.
I liked to walk there and see the old buildings in lava stone - there was a volcano in the surroundings! Nowadays is just a curiosity with field trips to the border, but the stones used in old houses and monuments are typical.

As usual in Europe there's allways beautiful churches.

I just love stained glass windows.

Small shops help create an atmosphere in a city.

Then have dinner in some restaurant -- I think the meat in France is excellent -- and go back to the car and to the hotel.

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 8

Day 8
Innsbruck, Austria to Neuchatel, Switzerland -- 450km

After a delicious breakfast with Austrian mountains in sight, time to drive. We started by driving thru Innsbruck to see it but it is nothing special, probably a busy city during winter but not now so we kept going. 

As Switzerland is not in the European Union, crossing border to Switzerland is really crossing border, and an officer stopped us and asked for papers. No problem, so we entered the country and went in a highway in a industrial valley, not much sight seeing. Perhaps I should choose a road not a highway. Oh well, let's keep going. 

Time to get some Swiss Francs from a cash machine during a stop for gas. Although there are 3 official languages, german, french ant italian, as I speak french I tried to speak in french about toll but the lady there only spoke in german; no good. This time there was no need to pay just to go to the toilette, in some countries there was someone at the entrance of the toilette (rest room) collecting money. Annoying, but not here in Swiss.

Arriving in Neuchatel we kept following the GPS but no success in finding the hotel - a problem with the hotel street name -  so we stopped and tryed to figure out a different way to find the hotel. As we were there a local worker stop by and asked in portuguese if we needed help. He was a Portuguese working in Switzerland. As we were a little far away he volunteered to show us the way so we followed him till the hotel. Thanks! 

So as usual after checking in and asking the office to keep the giant bag so we wouldn’t carry it to the room neither leave it in the car, we went see the town. It is by a lake, is very nice, old well kept houses.

A light dinner - the nice restaurants were just too expensive - and back to the hotel.

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 7

Day 7
Budapest, Hungary to Innsbruck, Austria -- 730km
 
Next morning it was a problem - well, not a big problem - to pack everything my daughter had put together during the school year. Being in arts doesn’t help, either, lots of materials. One bag was supersize. 

With everything settled we left Budapest for the journey home. Of course we had a lot to talk so I followed the GPS instructions to leave Budapest and get on the highway in Austria direction, not paying much attention. But after a while I noticed the signs were not saying Austria as before and my wife noticed the huge amount of km shown in the GPS - we were heading to Slovenia! Stop in the next service area, time to study the Europe paper map, decide to go back following the road signs and not the GPS. We lost 2 hours with this error. That was going to cost us the typical dinner I was willing for as we arrived at the hotel up in the mountains after the kitchen was closed. At the time I couldn’t figure out why that happened. 

But the highway was nice, as we entered Austria there were more and more mountains, no more problems with directions, and as we kept going we discovered that the highway inside Austria from east to west cross a bit of Germany. I hadn’t downloaded that map! That was why the GPS tried to send me by a different route - it had no way of knowing the route in Germany. Well, it was a way of trying the 'No speed limit' in Germany... nice!

The hotel is a typical mountain hotel full of charme. The view from my room was beautiful.

One thing I enjoy in hotels is breakfast although sometimes a bit expensive. Here it was worth, a breakfast with a view.

It was a long day driving all the time and after a sandwich and using the hotel free wifi, time to rest. 

In the route I put gasoline in the car in an area and it was the only petrol station that didn’t accept my cards; I had to pay in cash; I didn't understand the problem as the lady there only talked in German. So a tip - always carry enough money to pay for the gas or else you may be in trouble!

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 6

Day 6
Ljubljiana, Slovenia to Budapest, Hungary -- 460km

So in the morning was the usual - breakfast then pack then leave the hotel. Define my daughter’s address in Budapest as new place to go in the GPS and drive. 
No big problem but I couldn’t understand how the Slovenian highway toll system worked, it is different from the other countries I drove in.

Anyway the drive was calm, Slovenia and Hungary have cities then countryside so from the highway it was just countryside. We stopped by a road service area in Slovenia to have a coffee and we were surprised with the quality of that area, new, complete we everything - it even had a woman dressed in folk clothes cooking bread and cookies. Lots of regional stuff. Really good. 

Then Hungary, more countryside, rain again, and following the GPS we arrived... at nowhere! After phoning my daughter we figured out the problem - in Budapest they have what might be called as districts and they may have the same street name in each district. So I defined the street in the GPS as the first choice and it was the wrong district. Time to change that, and this time all went well.

After arriving at my daughter's we verified the sooo many suitcases and odd things to carry to the car the next day (one year studying art and design and animation) and went check in at the hotel. There I could park the CR-V in a side street and I could see it from my bedroom window. Good. There was a white line defining the parking space on the sidewalk, not on the street. Odd.

One more hotel and once more a bit different, this one was old style Cotton Club.

The room also had an old style decor.

 

It was raining a lot. Off we went to a local tour and have tea in a just marvelous tea house, grand, large, high, old times look, just beautiful.
Then a nice dinner in a boat in the river Danube. A pity it rained so heavily. No photos!

Back to the hotel for a good night sleep and next morning when we went have breakfast we were surprised because it was served in the Club area in the basement after a large stair covered in velvet, with music instruments area, bar area, and so on. Amazing.
The only photos were taken by my wife with a cell phone; it was a bit dark.

There's a man at the piano... a dummy!

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 5

Day 5
Padua, Italy to Ljubljana, Slovenia -- 270km
 
The day started as a normal day, breakfast at the hotel then get the car and hit the road. I wanted to arrive early in Ljubljana as it was the first really different country for me. 
The road was near Venice but this was not the time to go there so access the highway and... stop! Some accident somewhere and the police shut the highway so we had to get out of it. Now what? The GPS kept saying something like ‘go back to the highway’ so I turned it off and as I had a Europe paper map I figured out a different way. Just go north and then on to a different highway going east. Only the scale of the map didn’t allow me to see there was no connection between the two highways... 
Lots of time and money in toll and gas to go till the end of the highway up in the Alpes, turn back without finding the way. But finaly I turned on the GPS (I'm a man, I don't ask for directions!) and it recalculated the route so we finaly got the correct road to Slovenia. My wife told me that if we went to see Venice as she wanted it would have been a much better spent time...

It was amazing to try to read the city names in the road signs and not be able to because of the different language. No more problems till Ljubljana and driving there was easy. We checked in in a penzion (kind of hostal) as I couldn't find any good price hotels there and off we went see the town.

It’s a beautiful town, lots of people out enjoying the good weather, nice restaurants, good walking areas by the river with many bridges, a castle on top of a hill.

Castle entrance from the funicular

To go up to the castle we took the funicular. It was a good way of having a general view of the city.

Interior area of the castle

We had dinner in a restaurant specialized in fish and as the weather was good we got a table outside. So far we were lucky, rain only on the road not on cities so we could appreciate the sightseeings. Lots of people enjoying the good weather here in Ljubljana. 
It was good to use the same currency, euro, also here in Slovenia. And once again to verify that English is the de facto standard international language.

Two separate beds...

This night my CR-V stayed in the street because there was no garage near by. As it was a calm street I hoped for the best and nothing went wrong. Till the end of the trip there were no more garages, only parking areas.

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 4

Day 4
Genova, Italy to Padua, Italy -- 350km

The north of Italy in highway is not much interesting. But I never saw so many trucks! As the highway was a 3 lane, the trucks formed a compact and orderly line in the right lane, no problem for the cars.
Lots of rain, as it was a small distance no problem, and as our journey approached end the sky cleared.

Arriving in Padua (Padova in italian) was not a problem, and I was amazed with the difference from Genova. Everything was old but nice, clean, not much traffic, on the whole very pleasant.


After checking in the hotel and parking the car in a garage near by again having to let the car key in reception we went see the surroundings and see the famous Scrovegni Chapel. Beautiful interior.

Scrovegni chapel

Then time to walk around and enjoy all the city.

The problem now is to choose the photos to post here. So many!
An amazing church, not S.Antonio.

Torrichelli bridge - made me go back in time to high school...

When dinner time arrived, we went to one of the restaurants in this 'piazza'

And so ended a good day, time to go back to the hotel

Our hotel room had a somewhat strange picture hanging on the wall over the bed

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 3

Day 3
Cannes, France to Genova, Italy through Monaco -- 220km
 
This day we had a smaller amount of road to go as we had two places to see, Monaco along the way and the destination city, Genova.

Another nice road, no problems, and we arrived at Monaco when they were preparing things for the famous Monaco F1 GP. Driving through the city I ‘put my CRV wheels on the GP track’! 

It’s amazing how they are able to organize a F1 GP in a city so full of buildings and narrow streets, specially because the modern F1 cars are so fast!

Monaco: Yachts, buildings, mountains

The streets are typically mountain streets. The mountains are the reason why France always let Monaco be, I think.

Time to walk around the big F1 trucks and different structures, lots of people and of course so many super cars! Ferrari, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, RollsRoyce, and even Tesla. I never saw so many together.

And off we went to Italy by a nice coast road passing by Nice - a much more nice beach than Cannes - having lunch in a small place along the way after crossing border to Italy. More small towns like SanRemo and then we took the highway to Genova. It’s an amazing highway across the mountains with lots of tunnels and bridges. 

After so many small and nice towns Genova - or Genoa like the Italians call it - was a bit of a chock. Big, many lanes streets, a terrible traffic, lots of small motorcycles, and again it was difficult to pay attention to that Italian traffic and follow the GPS instructions. Anyway I did it and after many turns we arrived near by the hotel I had booked previously. There was a garage near by where I could keep my CR-V out of the street and safe. I was surprised with one thing - I had to let the car key with the garage keeper so he could rearrange the cars according to the order of departing, next morning. The garage was really full.

The hotel was a small one in an old building but recently updated. The room, a suite, was just wonderful, the best in this trip. The garage and the hotel were near the old town center so we could walk there and see the sights. Not a very nice town, a bit too old and not well kept. Some nice monuments, though.

This palace is just plane, everything we see is painting, even the 'stone' in the base. The windows are real.

A 'nau' in the port. A pity they let cars park there, somehow blocking the view.

At dinner time there was just a few people in the streets and we could not see any nice restaurant so we decided to follow a couple about our age that looked like going out for dinner... and they went to a nice large restaurant! It was in a very narrow street, almost unnoticed from the main street and only visible by some window light. We wanted to have a typical italian meal with 2 courses so we ate the pasta as first course then the meat as second course, Italian way.

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 2

Day 2
Pau, France to Cannes, France -- 710km
 
After the stress of the first day, a nice and pleasant road, not much traffic, fine weather and we arrived at Cannes when they were preparing things for the famous film festival. Lots of traffic, I had some trouble in following the GPS’voice instructions. I choose and booked hotels near the center of the towns so we can leave the car and easily walk. After parking the car in a garage near by and checking in at a nice but good priced hotel we went for a walk see the famous beach and all the people in the streets.

The famous beach getting ready for the film festival

And people getting ready to see the famous

The beaches were not very large, well, rather small compared to most beaches in Portugal. 

There was an extra movement of people because of the film festival. Many nice and expensive cars just cruising.

We had dinner in a small but nice french restaurant with a retro look that suited the place.

More walking, clouded but fine weather, fine town.

War monument

Back to the hotel, we noticed the entrance and elevators with film related decoration. Very nice.

Elevator’s doors at the hotel

From Porto to Budapest and back Day 1

Snow over the Pyrinees

Day 1
Porto, Portugal to Pau, France -- 950km

To prepare things for a journey like the one me and my wife were preparing to do is always stressing - do we have all we need? And if there’s a health problem? And if we don’t find a decent and not expensive hotel? And if the car brakes down? And if we have an accident? And how long each leg of the road? And we can’t start too late in the day!

Well, just leaving home I took a road that was not the best one! I planned everything so carefully and didn’t think of the roads in Portugal because I know them so well. Only after one hour driving I noticed I was in a secondary road, not the highway. Oh well ‘let’s keep on going’, it just took a little more to arrive to Spain border. Nowadays there’s no real border, only the area and facilities that can be used if needed.

In Spain there are two ways of going from the Portuguese border Chaves to the French border, in going out I took one way and a few days after when returning home I took the other one. No real difference, not much traffic. The Spain landscape is a bit boring, at least in this area. Also time to fill up the CR-V as gas in Spain is much less expensive than in Portugal or France. France will be the country with the worse gas prices in this trip.

From Spain to France across west Pyrinees, lots of mountains and tunnels. In France lots of traffic but all going north so as I turned east just a few cars, lots of time to watch the snow in the Pyrinees in the distance. Nice road and nice view. From time to time signs indicating a ski area.

Then Pau, a small French town where we stayed in a small hotel. The only one I didn’t book in advance because I was not sure if I could make it there from Porto in one day, mainly because I was not sure the time in the morning I was going to leave my house. But no problem at this time of year. There was no reception just a machine, everything was done typing a keyboard in the ‘front desk’ machine outside the hotel, paying by credit card then receiving the paper with a code to enter the hotel and then enter the room. Of course there was no restaurant or even a bar but vending machines. Luckily we had some things for sandwiches. I inserted coins for a warm tomato soup that made me feel good!

From Porto to Budapest and back

Is there a better way to travel than by car? Of course not. The independence, the rhythm, the comfort, the space are things you don’t find in any other mode of transport.
Of course the cost is important and perhaps it’s not cheap.
There’s also the details varying from person to person. I like even the packaging of suitcases, sacs and all the small things to take on a trip.

To prepare things in advance, to define the road, the goal of the trip, the cities to stay in and visit, also the alternate routes in case something goes wrong and you have to change the timetable or get back sooner than preview. I decided to drive in the morning till an interesting city then stop to visit it, have dinner at a restaurant and rest till next day.

I’m pretty sure the best area to live would be in the middle of a continent so it would be easier to drive to different areas. Not my case, though.

A few years ago it was worse because we didn’t have all the international highways or motorways as we have now. The secondary roads are much more scenic but it takes ages to go somewhere. So I defined the trip mainly with highways and a small amount of secondary roads. Also now we do not need a lot of different maps - paper maps, that is - I just downloaded and installed the maps I was going to need in my GPS or Satnav, my Nokia E75. At least I thought so - more on this later - I also had a Europe Map in paper just in case.

And there always is a reason, an objective. The objective was to pick my younger daughter who was studying in Budapest, Hungary for a year and was coming back home. So it was me and my wife from Porto to Budapest and me, my wife and my daughter on the way back.