From when I was young, my father has usually bragged about his automobile journey through Europe in 1986 in his old Ford Cortina. I’ve constantly wanted to do something comparable, and in 2006 I lastly got my driving license.

A year later and I was allowed by the law to take a auto into Europe. I spent all my time begging, insisting that when I got my license I would do the a comparable drive a little hopeful at the age of 13, but I was persistent. My pops would usually tell me yes, and I would usually reckon he was lying.

Nevertheless, issues changed when, on Sunday night, 22rd June 2007, I was sat at the dining table with a separate maps of European countries preparing my Eurotrip which began the next morning. I scribbled down each route I would go on: from Dover to Calais I would take the ferry. Then due East via France and Germany to take benefit of the lack of speed limit law on the highway, and then south via Zurich, Switzerland, where I would kip at my brother’s flat. I keep in mind rolling up to the ferry port about six in the morning, tired, waiting to get on.

I keep in mind following off the ship and arrive at my 1st roundabout, discovering I hadn’t even considered the reality that the roundabouts go anticlockwise outside the UK. Realising that, here I was, lastly beginning the road trip I had often wanted. It took just under 8 hours to make it down to Zurich, the weather was awful, not how the trip was going to last.

At initial our journey was planned to be from the UK directly to the Middle East in the least possible time. This was quickly altered when we were in the flat in Zurich, borrowing the web of the nearby residents. We could manage to pay a visit to Pisa, and then possible Venice, and Rome?! So, out came the sketched route and the felt tip to highlight the route, and we decided to reroute. In the old days, when my dad did it in 1986,  sat. nav never existed, and we had decided to do it the very same way. It is fairly easy (with a some widespread sense) to make sense of what the European road signs are saying, until you hit Greece.

Anyway, we spent a couple of hours in Pisa and I got a photo taken by the leaning tower, then hopped back into the auto and off we went to Rome. We had a two hour wander around Rome, and then drove to Venice, where we took in the sights and ate spaghetti bolognese and pizza. Gorgeous.

I need to note that this holiday was low spending budget expertise. Our evenings were spent in the car, so sleeping times had been short and we stank soon after completing the journey. It was worth it though.

Italy was HOT, and my right arm had began to burn (lorry driver’s arm), and I was PROUD! From there we took a ferry from an East coast dock, Ancona, over to a West coast port in Greece, Igoumenitsa. This took shockingly long at about 23 hours, and Greeks and Turks, like us, had not hired a cabin. I ended up sleeping on the floor on deck, right after watching at the sea outside for a although.

We drove although Greece and Turkey rather speedily. We had begun acquiring rather tired by now. The paths in Greece were a lot much more impressive than in Turkey, and the weather was nice. As far as I can bear in mind, we drove over a mountain range. I couldn’t tell you considerably much more. In Turkey I had accidentally driven into a bump in the road and damaged the left front  axle a bit. Even now, the vehicle axle is a small damaged and the vehicle drifts to the right.

The Turkish customs was effortless to pass through. I reckon the automobile price us roughly 50 euros to get across the country, and 15 euros every for the visa. I keep in mind it was over 1000km I spent driving that day. 18 hours of driving, from border to border across Turkey. The Syrian customs was entirely diverse. The officers were difficult to work with, and it took a couple of hours to drive through as soon as they had managed to get almost 400$ from us. We knew there would be issues there.

Driving around Syria is considerably worse than driving in Turkey, etiquette and the state of the roads. It was a various encounter, where the brave man is the one that gets to his home. We did, finally, make it into Damascus, and began our month holiday sight seeing there.