Tea in Istanbul!
 

Hi All!
I have been a member of the forum for a while now but this is my first post, so here goes:-)
Myself (I´m English) and two of my Danish freinds are busy planning a trip from Denmark to Istanbul. We´re leaving on the 31st March 2015 and returning on the 14th April, that gives us 15 days.
Our route will be taking us from Denmark through Germany over Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovania, Austria and then back through Germany to Denmark.
I'm on my Tiger 800xc and they're on their GS1200's.
We are planning on an average of approx 500kms a day. Some days a little more and some days a lot less. Most of the roughly 7000kms will be on tarmac but we will also be covering some gravel and offroad riding aswell. The first day on the way out of Denmark and the last day on the way back home will be high kilometer days so that we can cut the average per day down on the remaining 12 or 13 days that we have left. The majority of the time we plan to wild camp but some nights I expect we'll be lured by the luxury of b&b
If anyone has any helpful hints as regards border crossings, weather problems we can expect, visa problems, places to stay, must visit destinations etc....I / we would really appreciate it.
Thanks for reading :-)

I went down to Turkey last year on my own, from UK. I took the direct motorway route, through Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria (my 3rd night was in Sofia). The next day I was at the Turkey border by 13:00. It took me about 1 hour to get through the border including getting a visa and getting the bike x-rayed. Your papers are checked many times!
The other borders were easy, one police guy asked if I had beer in my camelback. Oh on the Bulgarian border after clearing all the paperwork a big dog decided to bite my boot as I rode off but he could not keep up with a 1200GS:D.

I stayed in Istanbul a couple of days and then rode down to Cappadocia (where I camped) and then to the Eufrates river, and then back along the south coast. Generally riding was easy in Turkey, a litle busy in the towns but no problem, but Istanbul is very busy and drivers were impatient, no fun. I stayed in small hotels which were cheap outside Istanbul. After Turkey I came into Greece by road and again the border was easy, and later I took a ferry back to Italy.

However from travelling around the Balkans on earlier trips you will need to get insurance(green card) at the border of Montenegro and Bosnia. For Turkey I got a green card before I left for Uk. I believe I also got a translation of my driving lisence.

As for distances, I was doing just over 500 miles per day down to Sofia. In Turkey where the roads were of a mixed standard, then 250 - 350 was more normal. I took 20 days for the total trip for just unded 6,000 miles or 10,000km.

If interested, and sitting comfortable you could scan my trip report on another site - Candover Valley UK to Euphrates Valley Turkey - Updated with pictures.

Hope this info is some help. Enjoy your trip.

Hi Jim Lad

Just finished reading ur travel blog. Sounds like an amazing 20 days away & would love to do it myself sometime. Brilliant reading and will have to look at it again from home as my work tinternet bocks all the pics!doh

And RADDZZ, goog luck with the planning and look forward to hearing about ur trip :scooter: bier

Thanks Bones. Glad you enjoyed the read. Hope you get down there yourself sometime.

Just viewed again from home so I could see the pics this time. Even better read with a beer or 2 on board!. Fair play you certainly crunched some daily miles...

I did Balkans and Southern Europe trip on MC in September/October incl. Slovenia, italy and France.

Two point you must be careful is: 500 kms/day bit much. 15 days for such big geography is not enough. Most of your time will be spend on roads. No time left for local culture and sightseeing. Add a possible malfunction. May be better to narrow the geography if not possible to widen the time...

If you are going to leave late March and return mid April, weather conditions will be freezing in some places... Especially Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and austria... Do you aware of that?

Just got back a 30 day trip around Bulg, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, etc with Turkey as a starting point.

Travel is slow in most of the countries you intend to visit. From experience Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia were particularly slow. 500kms in a day would be a 10-12 hour day allowing little time for sightseeing.

As Samy says the weather will still be fairly grim in a lot of places and that will slow you down too.

Why not break the trip up into bite sized bits over a few trips. Most of those countries are worth a week at least on their own.

Cheers,

Dicky

Radzz
I agree it takes a hell of a lot longer to travel anywhere than you might think, from my experience. But It does depend on what you want to do. If you want to see a country and its people etc... the real deal so to speak, the motorways are not where it's at. If you are just going through ( transit) a country or two then that's fine I guess.

For me off the beaten track appeals even when I transit a country, slow roads / bad roads / local speed limits and so on all add up to make it take longer than you think, longer than Miss Tomtom or Mr Garmin think.

Personally looking at your plan and the miles you "hope" to do in a day it would be my idea of a wasted trip anywhere. What do you hope to see in this time? It looks to me like all you will be able to do is ride your bikes on a road, eat some dinner, drink some beer, go to bed. I would pick a country and spend some time in it. I suggest Croatia, it's a fab place to explore. Then next time pick another country. 15 days actually is not much time for your plan, as pointed out already.

If however all you want to do is ride and tick off a few countries........then it looks like a plan.........

Thanks for the answers guys and JimLad that is a really nice read, your RR..special thanks for that.
I hear what you are all saying as regards the distance and under normal circumstances would also agree. It is definaltly a bit of a mental idea, but hey ho:-)--- We would normally only do about 300kms / day but this ride is different... Yeah we're doing about 15 countries in 15 days but we just love riding and wether the 7000kms is done touring Norway or crossing borders it's still the riding we're in this for. The marathon element is helping us hopefully to get more sponsorship for a charity aswell so that's also pushing us. As I mentioned normally I would spend less time in the saddle and more on the sights but this tour is intented to be a different kind of ride and the challenge is all part of the fun:-)
Having said that we are planning that the last 2 days of the trip from Slovania up through Austria and back through Germany will be via better quality transport roads where we will cover about 800kms / day which will give us more time in the other countries which are new to us. Likewise we will be doing approx 800kms the first day from Denmark, through Germany and into Poland. This means that of the roughly 7000kms we have planned we can dispatch about 2500 of them in these 3 travel days. That leaves us with approx 4500kms left for the other 12 days ( roughly 400kms/day) which should give us a lot more time to enjoy:-)
Again many thanks for your answers and the time you have used on them. As the trip develops I will put up a few updates:-)

Dont want to rain on your plans but forget high miles in germany , certainly across the middle of the country - did that last week and the autobahns were nothing but roadworks , will be nice when finished though . We mainly used 3 from Leuven thru to the Austrian border - tailbacks were appalling too . Romania will be slow going as well im afraid ............... we met three Polish guys in Hungary who were heading to Istanbul and reckoned they could do it in two days incl the transalpina and transfaragian passes doh They are probably still not there !! I think three hundred miles a day is a big day in eastern europe - and i am usually a mileage monster ( 600 - 700 miles at a time ) but there are no motorways , or those that are there arent finished and there are tons of trucks too . As everyone else has said , less will be defintely more :scooter:

Thanks for the answer Chris.... I travel a lot in Germany with my work and the I've done the Munich to the Danish border trip twice in the last 3 weeks and yeah there are plenty of roadworks and tourist traffic, but Germany in April is a different story and the 1100kms from Munich to Odense (Denmark) takes roughly 10 or 11 hours that time of year both on in a car and on a motorcycle.
As for Eastern Europe yes this will be a challenge but roughly 400-425kms a day will be doable that we will make sure of one way or the other and that is why we are doing are best to iron out as many potential problems and hold ups as possible before we leave. I really appreciate your answers thanks. :-)