What I Wish I’d Known before I Drove to Greece
Breakdown cover is never enough: Your Dad is going to brag about the fantastic deal he found online for the next ten years, which meant the van would receive free breakdown cover in all European countries. You’re going to let him brag; because when the van breaks down the first time in the middle of a motorway in Germany, that deal will be a godsend and you’ll be back on the road within forty minutes. When the van breaks down for the second time on a country road in the middle of nowhere Croatia- you’re going to try and beat your Dad round the head with his bloody breakdown cover and then spend the next four hours going through the same three tolls, your cousin will be held hostage by the nice Croatian mechanic because he wants to show him his garden and your dad will then almost drive you all into a ditch.
Food poisoning is very real: You’re going to have a lovely innocent meal at a Burger King somewhere along a German motorway (right before you break down) and that one burger is going to ruin your entire road trip. You won’t know why it picked you and not your cousin (sometimes bad things happen to really good people) but for the rest of the trip you’re going to utterly abuse any toilet you come across and you’re going to desperately try not to shit yourself 24/7.
There are tolls everywhere: Tolls are going to rob you blind. There’s no way around it and you’re going to be feeling significantly less smug when that twenty euros in change you thought you were so clever in bringing is gone and you’re having to risk your bank card on mountain roads in Slovenia. It’s ten times worse when you get lost and end up having to go through the same toll THREE TIMES because it’s taken you that long to realise that the blonde woman at the toll wasn’t smiling the first time round but by the third she could have been a Cheshire cat impersonator.
Countries can be petty too: You’re going to go through Serbia and they’re going to give you all the wrong paperwork. You’re then going to drive to the Serbian/Macedonian border and be refused entry because you need special insurance to drive in Macedonia and obviously you don’t have it. Your Dad is going to be taken for a routine border patrol check and won’t come back for two hours because he didn’t have enough cash and had to be driven an hour into the nearest town by an officer to get to a cash point at 11pm. However in that time of course you’ve obviously googled the nearest English embassy in case your Dad has legitimately been kidnapped with all of your money. Once he finally returns and you’re daring to feel smug again about all the paperwork you’re on top of, you’ll get to the Macedonian/Greek border and everything will go to shit. That paperwork you were given in Serbia? For an empty van- not a van full of furniture. Macedonia demands receipts for everything in the back of your van to prove it was bought in England and not for cheap in Serbia. Because the Serbians and the Macedonians aren’t on speaking terms right now. You’re then going to be turned away from another border and told to drive back through Macedonia and then into Bulgaria to try the Bulgarian/Greek border.
Not showering for four days is harder than it sounds: Ever wanted to know what you’d look like as a meth addict? Don’t sleep or shower for four days and almost shit out your intestines and you’ll have a pretty good idea.
Merry travels.
With thanks to Louise Parker and Toby M-S.
