A guide to real time traffic, travel and weather information in France, also including tolls (or not), the auto toll tag, traffic forecasts, emergency contacts, news sources in English plus links to this year’s need-to-know driving news stories.

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The tolled motorway network in France, marked in blue. Notable exceptions include the A16 from Calais to the Belgian border, the A25 Dunkirk-Lille, the roads around Paris, all the motorways in the north west, the A20 Vierzon-Limoges-Brive la Gaillarde and A75 Clermont Ferrand-Montpellier/Beziers (except the Millau Viaduct, €7.50). The A63 Bordeaux-Hendaye/Spain is in the midst of a major renovation; it costs €14.40 to drive the 200km (120 mile) route. Picture via Telepeagelibert.com

Without doubt the best source of real time info on driving in France is autoroutes.fr hosted by ASFA, the association of French motorway operating companies.

As well as a journey planner which includes toll rates (and fuel costs) for motorways and tunnels and bridges, it also has real time traffic and weather, webcam locations and traffic forecasting on specific dates, times and locations.

It also links directly to the various 107.7fm radio stations around the country which broadcast traffic information every fifteen minutes, with a round up in English.

Autoroutes.fr also lists the motorway operators. There are twenty two in total of which the biggest are Vinci (four separate companies running roads in the west and most major roads across the south) and Sanef (north and east). All the operators have their own websites and, increasingly, Twitter feeds and information in English.

Sanef Tolling also runs the automatic toll tag service for British drivers, from the UK. See more. 

Useful in the winter is ATMB (Mont Blanc Motorway and Tunnel operator). Always useful is the link to Mont Blanc Tunnel for current delays and maintenance schedule. The SFTRF Frejus Tunnel site never seems to work properly. Check delays on the French side via autoroutes.fr and SITAF A32 for Italy.

Prix Carburants collects info on current fuel prices around the country.

The official French traffic information service is Bison Fute but it doesn’t work on all devices. However, the jam calendar showing the busiest days at a glance is essential reading when planning trips.

The @VinciAutoroutes twitter feed posts a brilliant hourly graphic of the delays on the major roads on ‘Black Saturdays’ (the busiest holiday getaway/return days of the year). Also see our guide to France 2015 Black Saturdays and Avoiding the Worst on Black Saturdays.

Very handy for driving through the mountainous Massif Central is DIR Massif Central with at-a-glance webcams. DIR (Direction Interdepartmentale des Routes) regions cover the whole country, and are linked to each other, but they are all different with varying levels of information, none of it in English. However DIR should be the first stop in emergencies, e.g. flooding or heavy snowfall on the roads in the Pyrenees or Alps.

Also useful in emergency situations are the local Region and Commune websites (French only).

As in the rest of Europe the emergency contact telephone number 112 should have an English speaker at the other end.

Meteoalarm gives notice of extreme weather events, as does MeteoFrance.

The three main news in English websites are thelocal.fr, The Connexion and France24.

The English language feed from the British embassy in Paris – @BritishinFrance – posts official advice on breaking news.

There are hundreds of websites and publications about France. Complete France seems to cover all the bases. The official tourism website is Rendezvous en France with links to all regions.

Keen drivers should see Drive Guide Guru from Julian Parish, the author of France: The Essential Guide for Car Enthusiasts. PassHunters.co.uk is a guide to French mountain roads in English written by locals. For the locations of the major mountain roads see our PassFinder.

For driving rules and regs see the AA, RAC, TISPOL police driving guides or the EU’s Going Abroad app. Bison Fute and autoroutes.fr also both have FAQ-style sections in English.

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FRANCE ROAD NEWS 2015:

18 June: road deaths rise again ahead of new road rules in July.

17 June: the mystery of the Lacets de Montvernier; A1 Paris bus and taxi lane appeal; taxi strike to paralyse major cities, booze cruise threat due to Calais migrant crisis.

16 June: Grenoble-Briancon road to reopen in ‘weeks not months’.

15 June: Le Mans, 943 out of 2000 (mainly British) drivers caught speeding.

9 June: new French eco-stickers upset car makers.

5 May: Paris pedestrianisation.

28 April: new Paris motorway bus and taxi lanes.

21 April: Tour Auto kicks off in Paris destination Biarritz.

6 April: Paris, recreating Rendezvous.

19 March: dust up over Paris pollution.

11 March: compromise on French road tolls.

10 March: sprucing up the roads around France. The end of the tree-lined avenue?

24 February: proposed Weymouth-Cherbourg ferry to beat Dover-Calais.

16 February: jam dodging A43 Lyon-Chambery.

11 February: progressive diesel bans Paris start 1 July.

10 February: half a million Brits dodge France speeding fines.

27 January: France road safety ‘crisis’.

12 January: concerns over new French eco-diesel.

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TODAY: Paris police advise drivers to avoid the city centre this evening, from 18:00 through the night, due to the 800 live music performances for the ‘Fete de la Musique’. Traffic problems in east central Brussels tomorrow for the European Summit. Glacial flooding Iceland. North stretch of H2 Gotthard Pass closed by rockfall until next month.

THE WEEK AHEAD: the two day EU Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) ‘Connecting Europe’ conference starts at 13:00BST in Riga, Latvia, tomorrow (Monday 22 June). Sessions include ‘Building transport infrastructure to fuel Europe’s economic engine’, ‘Facing the challenges of Europe’s new trans-European networks’ policy’, ‘Core network corridors: Putting work plans into practice’, and ‘Innovative Financing of Transport Infrastructure and Financial Instruments – From Theory to Practice’. The conference is live-streamed here.

Belgium: work starts tomorrow (Monday 22 June) on the Brussels E40 between Gent and Aalst. The carriageway between Wetteren and Erpe-Mere is being replaced, and the Wetteren exit widened. Until 3 July, only two lanes will be open in each direction, possibly one lane overnight, with speed limited to 70kmh.

On tour: the Modball Rally left London on Saturday heading for Barcelona for Thursday via Paris, Milan, Rome, and Monaco. Follow @ModballRally. Meanwhile, Rico Rally left the UK today heading through France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany via major mountain roads Mont Ventoux, Col de l’Iseran and Grand Saint Bernard, Nufenen & San Bernardino Passes, plus the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart. See @RicoRallyTweets. Thursday is the final day of the Honda Real Fuel Challenge. Two drivers from the European Research & Development (R&D) team set off in a Civic Tourer from Aalst in Belgium on 1 June to drive a clockwise route through 24 EU countries and more than 13,000km, hoping to claim the Guinness World Record for fuel efficiency. See @FergalandJulian.

Strikes: as yet unconfirmed is another motorway fuel strike in Italy from Tuesday to Thursday (23-25 June). The minimum service is a filling station open every 100km. Drivers can carry ten litres of fuel in a jerry can. Also, French taxi drivers are threatening to ‘paralyse’ major cities around the country – particularly Paris, Lyon and Marseilles – with sit-ins outside railway stations and airports on Thursday.

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Radstadtler Tauern Pass, central Austria. See more in PassFinder.

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WEEKEND TRAFFIC: the last quiet weekend in Germany and Switzerland ahead of the summer’s first two Black Saturday’s next week. Busy both ways on the A22 Brennero motorway Italy. No warnings for France (next Friday will see raised traffic levels) or – Grand Prix excepted – for Austria. See below for weekend road closures in Germany.

WEEKEND WEATHER: best in the Southwest according to BBC Weather with cloud in the North and showers in the East Mediterranean.

WEEKEND ROAD CLOSURES GERMANY: all roads shut in both directions. A3 Nuremberg-Würzburg, overnight Friday until Sunday morning. A5 Karlsruhe-Basel in Weil am Rhein/Swiss border, Saturday evening to Sunday evening. A7 Flensburg-Hamburg in Hamburg, Friday night until Monday morning. A46 Dusseldorf-Wuppertal in Dusseldorf, Saturday lunchtime until Sunday night. A293 Western Bypass Oldenburg, Friday morning until Sunday evening. All via ADAC.

See Traffic/Travel/Weather for more.

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Is the postponement of the German ‘foreigner toll’ a tactical retreat or the start of a long climb down?

Also, for the first time, Coupe des Alpes drives all three of France’s 2,500m+ mountain roads, Galibier, de l’Iseran and Bonnette. Road deaths rise again in France ahead of new rules on driving and cycling with earpieces and headphones. Slovenia wins road safety award as ETSC calls for comprehensive safety kit to be fitted as standard in new cars, including speed limiters. Spectators advised to turn up early for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix (and check out our guide to the best roads around the Red Bull Ring).

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EU ‘RESOUNDING SLAP’ FOR GERMAN TOLL

‘Foreigner toll’ postponed in face of EU legal action.

Resounding slap: German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt (left) with EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc and Slovenian Infrastructure Minister Peter Gašperšič. Photo @Bulc_EU

‘It’s the beginning of the end for the maut [road toll],’ said German MEP – and chairman of the European Commission’s Transport Committee – Michael Cramer on twitter today.

Later he said the EU deciding today to take infringement proceedings against the controversial road toll was a ‘resounding slap in the face’ for the transport minister Alexander Dobrindt (see update below).

The Commission has two objections. Firstly, that the toll is discriminatory because – thanks to a reduction in road tax for German drivers – it will effectively only be paid by visitors and, secondly, that the short term vignettes are disproportionately expensive compared to the full year price.

The government has two months to respond ahead of a ‘Reasoned Opinion’ then referral to the Court of Justice.

Dobrindt is not taking this lying down. In an interview with Bild published just ahead of the Commission’s decision – and re-posted on the Transport ministry’s website – he vowed a ‘real battle with Brussels’ on the issue.

As expected he cited Brussels’ lack of objections to the spookily similar-in-concept UK HGV Levy. Due to a commensurate cut in Vehicle Excise Duty for British firms, in practice this is also only paid by foreign vehicles.

More than that, considering the torturous – but so far successful – progress of the foreigner toll it would be unwise to write it off just yet.

It went from a highly popular local initiative of Angela Merkel’s sister party in Bavaria to deal breaker in the coalition negotiations after the German general election in 2013.

Since then it has passed through the Bundestag parliament and Bundesrat upper house. It has now been signed off by the President despite facing the severest criticism at every stage.

The stakes for Dobrindt personally are very high. Described as ‘fiercely ambitious’ – and something of an aggressive, divisive character – transport minister is his first post in national government.

Thanks to its high-profile passage through parliament, the ‘foreigner toll’ is not something he will be able to shrug off and quietly chalk up to experience.

The delay in the toll’s implementation he announced today – until at least 2017 – is certainly more tactical retreat than the start of a long climb down.

Update 19 June: in further comments Cramer says he is ‘sure the discriminatory German road toll plans are dead’. He also told business paper Handelsblatt previous attempts to introduce a similar scheme in 1990 and 2004 both failed. ‘The European Court will decide, as it did 10 and 20 years ago, that it is wrong,’ he said.

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Coupe des Alpes, a three day festival of French mountain roads, kicks off today in Evian on the southern shore of Lake Geneva. The event covers 1000km and twenty passes via Megeve, Courcheval, Col de l’Iseran, Alpe d’Huez and Cannes. Now in its 26th edition, thanks to a later start date than usual the rally takes in the three peaks over 2,500m: Galibier (2,645m), Iseran (2,770m) and Bonnette (2,715m). The 200 competitors drive cars built 1945-1986. The competitive element is based on penalties rather than speed. All those without penalties at the end earn the ‘Coupe des Alpes’ diploma. See here for more on the route and rules or follow along at @RallyStory. See all these roads at PassFinder.

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roundup: FRANCE. With mobile phones apparently implicated in ten fatal and major road accidents each day, road safety organisation Securite Routiere is hoping that new rules from 1 July banning earpiece kits and headphones – for drivers and cyclists – will help improve safety stats. All those caught face a €135 fine. It was also announced today that fatal accidents rose by 1.9% in May compared to the same month last year. ‘The year 2015 remains unfortunately for the moment on the trend of 2014,’ said Securite Routiere boss Emmanuel Barbe. Road deaths rose for the first time in a decade last year. ROAD SAFETY. Slovenia won the 2015 Road Safety award from the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) today for ‘substantial long term progress and high level political commitment to road safety’ after road deaths fell by 14% last year (and 61% since 2001). At 52 deaths per million inhabitants, Slovenia is just ahead of France. ETSC also published its annual report in which it notes last year’s 0.6% reduction in overall EU road deaths was ‘the worst annual reduction since the first common EU target was set in 2001.’ Annual cuts of nearly 8% will be needed to meet the EU target of cutting road deaths in half 2010-2020. ETSC also calls for Automated Emergency Braking (AEB), over-rideable Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), intelligent seat belt reminders and alcohol interlock devices to be made standard on all new vehicles. It will make a proposal for revised vehicle safety standards later this year. AUSTRIA. Spectators for this weekend’s Formula One race at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg are advised to arrive by 07:30 says roads manager ASFINAG. Finding the way should not be a problem; drivers will be guided by overhead signs and in some cases special F1 road markings. See the traffic management map for around the circuit. Traffic during last year’s sold-old event was extremely busy on the first two days but eased over the weekend. According to F1 journalist Joe Saward it is much improved so far this year. Also check out our guide to the big name mountain passes in the area ‘Five Red Hot Roads Around The Red Bull Ring’.

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Details of Pagani’s exclusive Vanishing Point tour prove elusive.

Also, a round up of France news: the mystery of Les Lacets du Montvernier; government to appeal Paris A1 bus and taxi lane suspension; a taxi strike threatens to paralyse major cities next week; and, coach operators consider scrapping booze cruises due to the Calais migrant crisis.

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Buttercup leads the Pagani ‘Vanishing Point 2015′ tour. Photo Pagani Automobili

A Pagani Huayra nicknamed Buttercup was a high profile participant in last weekend’s ‘Vanishing Point 2015’ tour.

Described as ‘one of the most exclusive automotive events held anywhere in the world’, restricted to Pagani owners and named after the 1971 hot pursuit film, the event is now in its eleventh year.

One man apparently shipped his one-off Huayra Mona Lisa over from Singapore especially.

So exclusive is Vanishing Point in fact that details of the actual route are impossible to find.

All we know is that it kicked off last Thursday night with a dinner at the maker’s brand new factory in San Cesario sul Panaro near Modena.

When it opens in September the new facility will be capable of producing 300 vehicles each year. Production will be capped at 45 cars initially however to maintain the all-important exclusivity.

The initial run is all said to be the new Huayra Roadster due to be unveiled at next March’s Geneva Motor Show.

Vanishing Point finished with a Pagani-only parade at Parco Valentino in Turin on Sunday, an open air show enjoying a new lease of life after being first established in 1900.

Direct, the distance from Modena to Turin is just 310km across the south of Milan through Piedmont and the Ligurian Apennines, some of the ground covered on Lamborghini’s 2013 Grand Tour.

Bobbio, 75km north east of Genoa, in the Trebbia River Valley – described by Hemingway as ‘the most beautiful in the word’ – is said to be one of Italy’s finest villages.

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Few drivers seem to tackle the D77b Les Lacets du Montvernier (we can’t blame them it looks absolutely horrific). There’s only one video on YouTube, albeit a good one. Cyclists seem to enjoy it however. It was a feature climb on the Criterium du Dauphine bike race at the weekend and this year, for the first time, it will be included in the Tour de France. Built in 1934, it rises in seventeen hairpins – lacets means hairpins – over 2.5km between the A43 and the tiny village of Montvernier at the top, less than 10km north of Saint Jeanne de Maurienne in the French Alps.

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roundup FRANCE. PARIS. Unsurprisingly, the French government will appeal the recent ruling suspending the new A1 Paris bus and taxi lane it said today. The reserved lane southbound between Roissy/Charles de Gaulle and the peripherique ring road opened in April, initially for a period of three years. It is barred to all other vehicles between 06:30-10:00 during the week but was struck down earlier this month after a complaint by the VTC chauffeur’s association. Another new bus and taxi lane, on the A6a northbound into Paris, remains in operation. TAXI STRIKE. The statement also updated taxi drivers on various legal procedures around the country – 420 in total – against the controversial Uber operation, a day after taxi unions threaten to ‘paralyse’ major cities next Thursday (25 June), particularly Paris, Marseilles and Lyon (update from rFI English: the drivers plan an ‘unlimited’ sit-in outside major airports and railway stations). CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS. Coach firms consider scrapping ‘booze cruises’ says the Daily Express due to the risk of migrants secreting themselves inside vehicles during stops at hypermarkets near the Channel. It comes two days after a YouTube video emerged of a coach full of passengers witnessed gangs of migrants trying to break into trucks while waiting at Calais during last month’s bomb disposal. Commercial vehicles have so bar borne the brunt of the problems at Calais but regular vehicles, particularly motorhomes, are at risk too. The Foreign Office advice is to ‘keep vehicle doors locked in slow moving traffic and secure your vehicle when it is left unattended’.

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A photo exhibition of crumbling border posts opens in Berlin to mark thirty years of the border-free Schengen Agreement. But why are so many of these buildings still standing?

Also, next year’s Gumball 3000 is 5000km from Dublin to Istanbul. Legal action on the ‘foreigner toll’ could have implications for the UK’s HGV Levy warns German Transport minister. The Bulgaria-Romania New Europe Bridge across the Danube actually beats expectations. The Grenoble-Briancon road to reopen ‘within weeks rather than months’.

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‘AFTER SCHENGEN’

Photo exhibition marks thirty years since border-free agreement signed.

The former Rattersdorf-Köszegcs crossing between Austria and Hungary, Ignacio Evangelista.

As the EU celebrates this week the thirty years since the border-free Schengen Agreement was first signed, photos of crumbling border posts go on display in Germany.

Evocatively titled ‘After Schengen’, the set of sixteen prints by Spanish photographer Ignacio Evangelista is on show at Stiftung Mercator in Berlin.

‘Border crossings have a function of geographical boundaries, but also a coercive role, since they prevent the free passage of people between one and another state. So, they are places that, along with a cartographic dimension, are provided with historical, economic and political reminiscences,’ says Evangelista.

He might have asked why so many of the border buildings remain.

To be fair there are practical reasons, as well as perhaps the niggling thought that they may be needed again.

Involving as it did months of motorway disruption, even Luxembourg, an original signatory, only got round to removing the Zoufftgem border buildings on the French border last year. It still has no plans to take down those in Sterpenich, on the Belgian border, nor the A1 crossing towards Germany.

Meanwhile, Hungary only joined Schengen in 2007, along with the Baltic States, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Despite its undoubted convenience for trade and tourism, the zone is a source of continuing controversy.

Just this weekend, French police were involved in a standoff with North African migrants at the Italian border at Ventimiglia.

The Schengen Agreement was signed in the small Luxembourg border town of Schengen, hence the name, on 14 June 1985, initially between the three Benelux countries, Germany and France. It celebrated its twentieth year in operation in March this year.

See more of Evangelista’s ‘After Schengen’ photos here.

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After two trans-Atlantic rallies the past two years, Gumball 3000 plans an adventurous 5000km route from Dublin to Istanbul in 2016 according to @Shmee150. Specifics are not available yet but the high profile event also visits Edinburgh, London, the Swiss Aps, Budapest and Bucharest. The latter stage might have included Jeremy Clarkson’s favourite Transfagarasan but Romania’s famous road only opens July-November. Next year’s Gumball takes place 30 April-7 May. Work started last May to extend Tranfag’s opening times to nine months of the year but is expected to take until 2018.

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roundup: GERMANY. Transport minister Alexander Dobrindt cites the UK’s HGV User Levy ahead of a European Commission meeting on infringement proceedings against his ‘foreigner toll’ reports EurActiv.com. The UK truck charge – which raised £46.5m in its first year it was announced yesterday, twice as much as expected – is effectively paid only by foreign hauliers. Domestic firms have Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) reduced to compensate, the same principle as the German toll, due next year. Dobrindt warns any legal action would have far-reaching consequences for other country’s tolling systems. The Commission reportedly meets tomorrow (17 June) to consider the issue. BULGARIA-ROMANIA. Despite widespread misgivings, the Danube Bridge 2 between Vidin and Calafat, opened on 14 June 2013, has performed ahead of projections says Novinite.com. It was expected to carry 450,000 vehicles each year but has in fact seen 1.1m in total, around 45% of them HGVs. Called the New Europe Bridge, it is only the second fixed crossing along the two countries’ shared 280 mile Danube border. Tolls range from €6 for cars to €37 for trucks 12t+. FRANCE. The D1091 between Grenoble and Briancon in the Alps is still shut at Lake Chambon though it should reopen in ‘weeks rather than months’ according to local reports. The provisional open date is 20 July. Works to repair the tunnel, severely cracked in a landslide on 10 April, took a major step forward last week when the damaged wall was successfully removed. Plans to start a bypass ferry service – which would take six weeks to get up and running – are on hold until the end of June. In the meantime the – lengthy – detours are the N85/N84 via Gap, or the A43 Frejus Tunnel into Italy and back to Briancon on N94 Montgenevre (or the D902 Col du Galibier (2646m) from A43 Saint-Martin-d’Arc).

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Either the British drivers heading to Le Mans this year were exceptionally well behaved, or some major incidents are yet to come to light… updated.

Also, the Classic Marathon kicks off in ‘tourist free’ southern Italy. Truckers upset over new toll system to strike in Brussels on Thursday. MyFerryLink services cancelled at short notice, without explanation. French minister floats idea of transit truck tolls in the regions.

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A TROUBLE-FREE LE MANS?

Very few visiting spectator incidents reported – initially – over Le Mans 24 Hours weekend. Updated.

The Le Mans 24 Hour Race on Saturday night. Photo @Porsche

There were ‘no major incidents’ during the Le Mans 24 Hours weekend say local police.

Of 876 breath tests, thirty resulted in prosecutions while 38 drug tests saw 26 positives according to a statement.

Up to a third of the 263,500 spectators came from the UK to see Porsche claim its 17th overall victory, seventeen years since it last triumphed at Le Mans.

Many of them will have made the 260 mile journey from Calais under their own steam.

‘The Gendarmerie line the motorways on the route down from Calais, with number plates from the other side of the channel their target,’ said the Daily Telegraph.

However, @Gendarmerie reported just one major speeding offence: a Lamborghini Murcielago driver lost their driving licence and was fined €750 after being caught at 210kmh on the A28 near the circuit on Thursday afternoon.

This pales beside the seven Brits flashed at more than 190kmh two years ago, including one man clocked at 250kmh in an Audi R8, and legendary tales of McLaren F1 convoys heading to the race at more than 180mph in the 1990s.

Our twitter feed, which was full of police encounters last year, was more or less quiet on the subject yesterday.

Meanwhile, despite delays of more than an hour into the circuit even as the race started at 15:00 on Saturday – and reports from @RadioLeMans of major jams in and out of the circuit on Saturday night – the major roads around Le Mans in the hours afterwards were almost completely congestion free.

The only notable incident was this morning, an accident northbound on the A28 from the city but delays never reached more than thirty minutes.

Update 16 June: according to LegisPermis.com, out of 2,000 drivers checked by police in the l’Orne region to the north of Le Mans, 12-14 June, 943 were found to be speeding and that ‘many of the offenders were of British nationality’. 291 of the offences were recorded by mobile cameras and 652 via radar cars. Eleven licences were withdrawn for drivers caught at more than 50kmh over the limit. However, police say there no accidents or casualties.

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The Classic Marathon 2015 kicked off yesterday, from Lecce in ‘largely tourist free’ southern Italy. The ‘heel to head’ route from HERO (Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation) heads up the Adriatic Coast and through the mountainous spine of central Italy. See here for an overview, or follow @HERO_CRA. Photo F&R Rastrelli

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roundup: BELGIUM. Truckers upset with the new electronic toll system due to start next month will hold an authorised demonstration in central Brussels on Thursday (18 June). It starts at 10:00 at Havenlaan, departing at 11:00 on a set route – avoiding tunnels – around the city finishing back at Avenue du Port by around 15:00. Organisers stress the intention is not to block roads. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Late last night all MyFerryLink Dover-Calais services were cancelled until 13:30 this lunchtime. The company is yet to give an explanation though 300 people later reportedly joined a funeral procession in Calais for MyFerryLink boss Didier Capelle who died recently. It comes a week after Eurotunnel finalised a deal to sell the firm’s ships to rival DFDS. MyFerryLink subsequently announced it would cease operations on 2 July. This afternoon’s services resumed on schedule. FRANCE. Trucks in transit could be charged by individual regions suggested Ecology minister Segolene Royal in a TV interview this morning (via AFP). It would be most useful in places like Alsace she says where trucks divert through France to avoid German tolls. The plan would also mean the – very expensive – charge gantries erected for the aborted Ecotax truck toll scheme could be pressed into service.

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Driving two connected mountain roads in south central Austria: Nockalmstrasse, an impressive twin-peak mountain road through a nature reserve, topping out at 2024m and 2042m. With lots of activities included in the €17 toll it’s ideal for families.

Also, the fearsomely steep Turracherhohe, proving ground for Audi’s original four wheel drive quattro.

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Turracherhohe and Nockalmstrasse, two mountain roads in Austria. More later.

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A lack of preparation leads to a string of embarrassing errors on our trip to the Black Sea and back. But if we had known what we were getting into we probably wouldn’t have gone at all.

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Overlooking Maidan Square in Kyiv (Kiev) from high up in the €45 per night Hotel Ukraine. More photos and map below.

Not noting the mileage before we started was a beginner’s mistake.

It means we can’t say exactly how many miles we covered in the sixteen days it took to drive from London to Odessa via Berlin and Kiev and back via Chisinau, Prague and Wurzburg.

Retracing the route via Google Maps totals 4375 miles but doesn’t take account of all the wiggly back roads across northern Romania, or up through Hungary and across Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria.

Overall it can’t be far off 5,000 miles. That makes it by far our longest trip though – actually – the average for the thirteen driving days at 385 miles is a long way from the 580 miles per day on last year’s Race Around the Baltic.

In truth we came closer than ever to biting off more than we could chew this time.

Busting a tyre, food poisoning and the slow dawning that we hadn’t planned the way back from Odessa very well – what do you mean you can’t cross from Ukraine to Romania without going through Moldova? – all conspired to make us feel like amateurs, vulnerable and a very long way from home.

Saying that, driving to Ukraine is far from an Amazon-type expedition. It would be ridiculous to turn up at the border with spare tyres on the roof, for instance, or a stock of water purification tablets (though we do now feel rather cool with our Ukraine-supplied spare tyre on the back seat).

Aside from all that there were lots of highlights: the Sauerland in western Germany might not touch the Alps as a skiing region but with its smooth, race track roads it does a mean impression of the Black Forest; Wroclaw (if you haven’t already been there with Ryanair for €1) is a must-see with its massive historic main square, as is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of central Lviv in Ukraine, just fifty miles from the Polish border; magnificent Kyiv (Kiev) and historic Odessa; idyllic northern Romania with groups of locals sat in the evening sun along endless one street villages with the odd horse and cart bring stacks of hay back from the fields; Levoca, another UNESCO site, in the shadow of the hugely impressive Slovakian Tatras; dozing beside the Orlice River in Pastviny coming down from the mountains into Prague; and, a night overlooking the – heated – Woerthersee Lake in Austria.

Let’s gloss over the wild wine festival in the centre of historic Wurzburg, beside the Main, which was little more than a rutting, knocking shop. We made our excuses and left fairly early on.

Despite the fancy hotels in Berlin, Prague and Austria, the final bill came in a just under £3,000, all-in for two people for a fortnight.

A week after getting back we’re only just starting to experience the euphoric post-trip ‘burn’. Heavy-duty road trips are famously most enjoyed in retrospect, this one more than most.

We might be embarrassed by our lack of preparation but the consolation is, planning the trip like we should have would likely have put us off going at all.

See more on the drive through Germany, across southern Poland and down through Ukraine.

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Secure parking outside the Bristol Hotel in Odessa.

The outskirts of Chisinau, capital of Moldova. For the most part, thanks to loans from the European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the roads are very good.

Romanian babushkas chewing the fat at the end of the day. While some Romanian roads off the beaten track leave a lot to be desired, up here to the west of the Carpathians, just to the south of the Ukraine border, they are brand new.

The ruins of Spis Castle seen from the under construction D1 motorway in eastern Slovakia, just a few miles from Levoca, a UNESCO World Heritage village, and the windscreen-filling Tatra mountains. We stopped for coffee at Hotel Stela, in Levoca’s central square, which boasts a galleried open air dining courtyard. Rooms from €59.

Lovely Linz, on the Danube, thirty miles south of the Czech border in north central Austria. Although mainly pedestrianized there is a one-way road through Hauptplatz in the city centre and a couple of parking places in the south west corner. A perfect spot for lunch on the way to the mountains.

What were we thinking? Instead of heading to the Channel on the much quieter E42 via Charleroi – the same way we came out – we decided to head back via Brussels, on the notorious R0 ring road, on a Friday afternoon – at 36⁰C, the hottest day of the year so far – and duly paid the price in a massive traffic jam. Sharing the E40 to Ostend with thousands of jostling Belgians desperate to escape to the coast for the weekend is not an experience we ever want to repeat, but it was a fitting end to this trip.

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How to take your car outside of the EU, including buying ‘Green Card’ insurance, and getting back in again.

Plus, some major mountain roads in Italy shut on Sundays over the next few weeks. ‘Drug tourists’ nabbed in operation at Luxembourg services. Free, super-high speed wifi on France A8. Condor Ferries staff ‘verbally and physically abused’.

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DRIVING CARS OUT OF THE EU

‘Green Card’ insurance; driving licences and border queues.

‘Green Card’ (Carte Verde) portacabins on the Ukraine-Moldova border. Photo @DriveEurope

At 3000km wide and 5000km top to bottom, the European Union is big, but not that big.

As demonstrated by yesterday’s Record Road Run, it doesn’t take that long to reach the outer edges.

Beyond there, the big issue is insurance.

All EU policies must have the minimum legal level of cover required in all Member States (plus Switzerland and Norway).

Other countries might be included depending on the insurance company. Ours covers Serbia, for instance. Aside from that, drivers are left relying on so-called ‘Green Cards’.

By that we don’t mean the official scheme, a – green – document issued by an insurance company which shows the driver has at least the minimum legal insurance for a particular country.

That is steadily dying out, in Europe anyway (our insurance company only issues green cards for Turkey).

Otherwise, ‘Green Card’ (or Carte Verde) is a universally understood phrase meaning the policies sold from (typically) portacabins within a few yards of border crossings.

Buying is often a time-consuming, hand written process, but not expensive. We paid €15 for a week in Bosnia, and €10 each for Ukraine and Moldova.

You might have to cross the border on foot first to buy a green card, then go back for the car. However, the only border guard interested in whether we had insurance was in Bosnia, and he let us park up beside his booth for few minutes.

Generally the only documents the border guards are interested in is your passport and the car’s ‘passport’, the registration document.

Exactly what Green Card policies covers is another matter. We haven’t ever seen an English translation, or bought insurance from a seller who spoke English.

We assume, possibly erroneously, it means just third party liability, i.e. it does not cover fire or theft…

This means we only ever stay at hotels with secure parking, generally in major cities (though finding suitable places to stay has never been a problem).

A lesser issue is the driving licence. The EU photocard is increasingly recognised (the paper version less so). The only European countries we know where drivers always need an International Driving Permit (IDP) are Ukraine and Russia.

The only other thing to bear in mind are border queues. Do not ever expect to cross in an instant. It can take several hours at major crossings on busy days. That applies not just on leaving, but also getting back in again.

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After the Giro d’Italia interfered with the opening of some of Italy’s mountain roads after the winter, two smaller scale bike races this month and next will see some big roads – all to the east of the A22 Brennero motorway – shut to cars again reports ADAC. The ‘Sella Ronda Bike Day’ on Sunday 21 June sees Gardena, Sella, Pordoi and Campolongo shut from 08:30 until 15:30. The ‘Dolomite Cycling Marthon’ on Sunday 5 July closes Campolongo, Pordoi, Sella, Gardena, Giau, Falzarego and Valparola from 05:00 until 17:00. Photo Sella Pass, @DriveEurope. See more mountain passes in PassFinder.

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roundup: LUXEMBOURG. Capellen services on the A6 west of Luxembourg City saw spot checks on 5-6 June by police looking for ‘drug tourists’ reports Wort.lu. The action was dubbed ‘Operation Hazeldonk’ after a village on the Belgian-Dutch border. Fifty cars were stopped and 89 people questioned. Eight were found in possession of various types of marijuana. Police will also be carrying out document checks 15-22 June says Wort.lu. FRANCE. Autoroute operator Vinci has signed a deal with Wifirst to provide super high speed wifi – at one gigabyte per second – at ten service stations along the major A8 motorway between Aix-en-Provence and Nice. Starting 1 July, the fibre optic based service will be free for the first hour then €4 for an additional twelve hours. If successful, the scheme will be expanded to the rest of Vinci’s network of 170 rest stops over 4400km of motorway. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Passengers apparently upset about the difficult introduction of Condor Ferries’ new ship Liberation have ‘physically and verbally abused’ the operator’s staff according to BBC Jersey. The firm has posted prominent notices around the ferry and ports saying it will not tolerate ‘abusive, threatening or disruptive’ behaviour. Aside from poor weather – Liberation runs with reduced wave height capability until later this year – problems have centred around loading. Condor has been reminding customers via social media to correctly categorise vehicle dimensions on booking to prevent delays at check-in. Meanwhile, the Channel Islands operator insists the stats show a ‘steady improvement’ in reliability with 92% of sailings operated, two thirds of which have been on time or early.

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British drivers set the Guinness World Record for driving a car through the most countries on a single tank of fuel.

Also, an artist decorates peripherique during road works. Upset as EU abandons road safety target. Dover-Calais operator MyFerryLink ‘admits defeat’. More than seventy drivers fined after foggy 130-vehicle fatal crash in Belgium.

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WORLD RECORD ROAD TRIP

Standard Audi drives 1155 miles through fourteen countries on one tank of diesel.

Andrew Frankel and Rebecca Jackson in Hungary after 1155 miles. Photo @RecordRoadTrip

‘It’s amazing how far you can go’ is the @DriveEurope tag line but we might have to change it to, ‘It’s amazing how far you can go on a tank of fuel’.

A completely standard Audi A6 Ultra diesel has just completed an incredible 1155 mile journey through Europe after a single 73 litre fill-up.

Piloted by Daily Telegraph motoring writers Andrew Frankel and Rebecca Jackson, and supported by motoring organisation RAC, by passing through fourteen countries the drive has set a new Guinness World Record.

The attempt started yesterday morning at 09:30 in Maastricht in the southern Netherlands before heading south through Belgium, Luxembourg and France then across Switzerland to Liechtenstein and Austria.

Apart from the inevitable fatigue, the only issue seems to have been the detour around the S16 Arlberg Tunnel in western Austria which is closed for refurbishment until November. The drive over the 1793m Arlberg Pass, in the dark, was dogged by thick fog.

The pair then headed into Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia before the finish in Hungary.

The route was designed by Simon Hepinstall (@SHepinstall) who previously held the world record for driving through the most countries in 24 hours (twelve).

After the Record Road Trip Audi was briefly stuck in a traffic jam in Luxembourg yesterday, Hepinstall told us, ‘It’s all about optimising mpg: any deviation from 56mph is problem. I devised the route/timetable to minimise risk of jams.’

An extra headache was having to negotiate through the Alps while keeping on the flat as much as possible. The drive also had to be continuous to prevent the car cooling down during stops and consuming extra fuel on re-starts. The drivers took breaks in a RAC support vehicle.

The finish was truly nerve wracking. As the car approached the Serbian border the fuel tank already showed empty. Despite this, the drivers managed to coax it another nineteen miles to Hungary.

More: a Norwegian trio claimed a new world record for visiting the most countries in 24 hours – nineteen – last September. Meanwhile, another British pair, @FergalandJulian are currently attempting to set a new Guinness World Record for Fuel Efficiency – on the Honda Real Fuel Challenge – with a 13,000km drive through 24 EU countries, expected to finish on 25 June.

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German artist 1010 was called in to paint one of this characteristic ‘trompe l’oeil’ craters during the recent realignment of the peripherique at Quai d’Ivry in south east Paris. The road has been moved to make way for new apartment and office buildings. Photo: 1010 Art, Facebook.

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roundup: ROAD SAFETY. Considerable upset this morning after it emerges the European Commission is preparing to drop an expected new target to cut serious road traffic injuries. The European Transport Safety Council has written to EC President Jean-Claude Juncker to complain. It says life changing injuries rose by 3% last year, to more than 200,000 people, even as road deaths continue to fall, and calls the target ‘simple, cheap, non-controversial and necessary.’ It is not clear at this stage why the EU wants to abandon its well-flagged plans. An earlier ambition, to cut road deaths in half 2010-2020, remains. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. In the words of one observer, Dover-Calais operator MyFerryLink has ‘admitted defeat’ and says it will cease operations from 2 July. Bookings after this date will be transferred to another operator it says. Backer Eurotunnel finalised a deal at the weekend to sell two of the firm’s three ships to rival DFDS. It will keep the third to supplement its service through the Channel Tunnel. BELGIUM. Seventy two drivers have been found guilty after the 130 vehicle pile-up in thick fog on the A19 near Ypres in December 2013 reports Flanders Today. Three people died and nearly seventy were injured. Most of the drivers received fines of between €120 and €600 but two truck drivers were given six month suspended sentences. The judge said they had all failed to adapt their speed to the conditions and leave a safe distance to the vehicle in front.

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