Vienna – Maastricht – Vienna, the long way round :)

3032km, 8 days, 5 countries, 11 cities, 4 churches, 1 wedding.

Trip itinerary: Vienna > Wels (overnight stay-OS) >Rosenheim > Stuttgart (OS) > Liege (OS) > Maastricht > Liege (OS) > Stuttgart (OS) > Innsbruck > Verona (OS) > Lazise > Verona (OS) > Cortina D’Ampezzo > Lienz (OS) > Vienna.

Here it goes:

1. A good car helps. And by good i mean comfortable, easy to drive, economic not necessarily fast.  I am sure you knew this, i just feel i needed to emphasize it a little more.
2. Don’t expect too much from German no speed limit highways. They exist, don’t get me wrong, they are not a myth, but they are so packed with cars and poor drivers that you barely get a chance to flex your engine’s muscles.
3. Dutch drivers are a menace. Yes, you know yourselves, the ones with the yellow license plates and the big ass campers. They are not trucks, sure as hell they are not cars, but they think they are Ferrari’s. If you see one on the slow lane on a highway, the driver must also be eating or playing cards while driving cause otherwise they only use the fast lanes. In the mountains, if you find a block it’s usually caused by dutch cars. Apparently they do not like to (to be read: know how to) drive uphill or downhill. If they see a curve, they almost stop before engaging. They also stop to cool their breaks at the bottom of the mountain because they do not understand the concept of engine breaking.
4. Sneezing at speeds greater than 180km/h should be on the list of Extreme Sports. Catching a cold on a road trip isn’t a great idea. Be careful of what you take for your cold :)
5. Get off the highway as much as you can and take the winding road. Use the GPS as a guide to check your current speed (5-10km/h less than the on-board meter), to know where you are, not as a step by step instructor. Doing this will take you to places so amazing you will end up thanking yourself. I got so much energy from the off the map (off the reservation :) ) places.
6. If you road trip for the pleasure of driving, Tirol (both Italian and Austrian) is the place to do it. No highways, civilised drivers (with the exception of one or two slow dutch drivers), good roads, high incredible vista points (2239m high Pordoi Pass-mind blowing), the Dolomite’s owe inspiring peaks, fresh air, full of small places to stop, eat, drink, stretch a muscle. Don’t take your kids on these roads unless you want to put them through a lot of vomiting. As a child i think i would have died, had i gone through this.
7. Get a road map atlas for the entire Europe: Europe, Road Atlas. It will save you a lot of time. It gives you an overview of where you are traveling to, that GPSs cannot offer.
8. In my opinion driving 300kms per day is an optimum. You can do more but then you should pause one more day before continuing. We had a much higher average and combined with the colds we had, it made for some pretty tiring days.
9. Having a joker friend in the car with you can shorten the trip considerably. You know, the ones curious about every little thing, prone to saying or doing silly things, never quite sure what the hell they are doing.
10. This is probably the most important thing i learned this trip, so make special note of it: 50kms before your end destination for the day, switch drivers. The last minutes come with a feeling of relief that drops your concentration and it can be very dangerous, or in best case scenarios, it will result in traffic contraventions (jump red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, enter one-way streets, parallel parking near disasters / close encounters, etc.).

Below are a few photos we came back with:

I will come back in the next post with a few highlights of the trip. You can read more about Belgium vs Holland, Verona, The Dolomites, Lienz. So do not forget to subscribe :) or leave a message if you want more or if you don’t.

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