Last updated: 18:00BST.

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TODAY: checking out the scenic roads of northern Germany on the Hamburg-Berlin Klassik.

Calais likely busy again today, passengers advised to arrive well ahead of departure (90min delays reported at 18:00). Continuing threat from volcano eruption in Iceland. Final day of first phase of major road works on the A16 Calais-Dunkirk, see below.

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CHANNEL DELAYS: P&O Dover-Calais delays up to 50mins.

WEATHER ALERT: Amber alert high temperatures Montenegro.

WEATHER: thundery Alps. Rain Germany. Hot Spain and Portugal.

GOTTHARD TUNNEL: queue northbound still 6km, delay 65mins; southbound down to 1km, 10mins.

MONT BLANC TUNNEL: delay Italy side down to 60mins.

MAJOR ROAD WORKS: A16 both ways Calais-Dunkirk, 20min delay westbound; 5mins eastbound, see more.

MAJOR TRAFFIC DELAYS: A10 northbound into Paris, accident, delay 1h10. A7 northbound Avignon-Lyon, total delay still 1h30 (at Orange and Lyon). A55 southbound into Marseille, delay 1h20, no cause given.

E42 eastbound at Namur, road works, breakdown, accident, delay 55mins.

A8 westbound Saarbrucken-Luxembourg, closed at Merzig, road works, delay 45mins. A14 southbound to Leipzig, lane closed at Halle delay 1h25. A61 northbound from Ludwigshafen, narrow lanes at Worms delay still 1h10.

Earlier: now no delay A73 at Roermond, A7 northbound from Hamburg. A7 both ways Hannover-Hamburg, road works, delay down to 20mins each way. A8 westbound to Munich, earlier accident lane blocked at Grabenstatt delay down to 20mins.

See Travel/Traffic/Weather for more.

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Schwerin: a stop on the Hamburg-Berlin Klassik, on the scenic roads of northern Germany. More later.

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GIBRALTAR FRONTIER WATCH: quiet overnight. Delay 1h15 at 14:30, quiet since.

CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS PETITION: 3,272 signatures since 15.7. See @Justice4Trucker. 

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TODAY: the Dutch government is to formally protest the upcoming German ‘foreigner toll’.

Also, driving around Berlin in a vintage Trabant. Estonia’s borders to be temporarily reintroduced this weekend. A good year so far for DFDS on the Dover Strait. e-Call delayed.

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DUTCH GOVT PROTESTS GERMAN ‘FOREIGNER TOLL’

No let up in campaign against the toll ahead of the new Commission announced next month.

Germany: currently only trucks pay to drive in Germany roads, and then only motorways. The new ‘foreigner toll (maut)’ for cars applies to all roads.

The Dutch government will formally complain to the European Commission over the upcoming German ‘foreigner toll’.

The toll, due in January 2016, will apply to all drivers but German nationals will have the charge rebated via discounted on road taxes.

Dutch transport minister Melania Schultz told parliament on Wednesday, ‘I will ask the Transport Commissioner (currently Siim Kallas) to look into whether this plan conforms with EU law.’

She said she has also held meetings on the issue with Danish, Austrian and Polish colleagues.

Last month the Austrians said they would also take legal action over the toll on the grounds it is discriminatory. However, it is understood cases can only be brought after the legislation has been passed by the German parliament and the new law is in operation.

Meanwhile, Dutch motoring club ANWB will present its 42,000 signature petition against the toll to the European Commission on Tuesday.

Much could depend on the identity of the next Transport Commissioner, due to be announced by mid-September. A Commissioner from Germany’s border countries could force the EU to take a harder line.

@DriveEurope was told by a Brussels’ insider recently that the post is yet to be earmarked, and might not be known until 24 hours before the nominations are made public.

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Trabi Safari: drive a Trabant through Berlin on organised tours of the major sights. Three to choose from: city centre and west, tracing the path of the Berlin Wall, or around the east. Duration 1h10-2h10, price €34-89 per person. See trabi-safari.de for more. Photo: Unter den Linden.

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roundup: ESTONIA. Border controls will be temporarily reintroduced 31 August – 2 September month during the visit of US President Barack Obama, and the number of open crossing points reduced. See more here. FERRIES. Despite all the doom and gloom about excess capacity and unfair competition from Eurotunnel/MyFerryLink, new financial results from DFDS show the firm has significantly grown its business across the Dover Strait: freight volumes jumped by 7.6% – mainly on the Dover-Dunkirk route – and passenger volumes by 16.5% in the first half of 2014. It’s been a good year so far all round for the Danish operator with revenues up 8% in total and profit before tax up by a whopping 143%. eCALL. As we expected, the eCall device, which automatically summons emergency services after a crash, has been postponed for at least another two years, until 2017/18. It was to be mandatory in all news cars next year.

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GIBRALTAR FRONTIER WATCH: quiet overnight. Max 1h40 at 18:30.

CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS PETITION: 3,270 signatures since 15.7. See @Justice4Trucker. 

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TODAY: the Maserati ‘Road to Modena’ tour reaches Irkutsk in Siberia.

Also, a short profile of driving Italy’s Amalfi coast road. Moscow makes a start on its 150kmh ring road. Ferry safety under the spot light after ‘unnecessary’ regulations are abolished. A German driver gets away with a fine after arguing warning signs did not apply. Tampered fuel scare in Ireland.

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Ten days in, the Maserati intercontinental ‘Road to Modena’ tour has reached Irkutsk in south central Siberia, just north of central Mongolia. One hundred cars left Beijing last weekend on a 12,000km drive back to the company’s factory in Italy, part of Maserati’s centennial celebrations. They have around 8,000km and fifteen days to go. Irkutsk, one of the biggest Siberian cities, population 600,000, lies on the M-53 Transiberian Highway which heads due west to Omsk and eventually Moscow. Navigation shouldn’t be a problem. Photo: Church of the Kazan Icon Of the Mother of God, Telma, Irkutsk Oblast, @Maserati_HQ. See #RoadtoModena or #Maserati100.

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roundup: ITALY. The Amalfi coast road, south of Naples, is reckoned to be one of Europe’s most scenic. Italia.it profiles the fifty mile stretch between Salerno and Sorrento. RUSSIA. The first sod was turned today on Moscow’s Central Automobile Ring Road. Set to be complete in time for the 2018 World Cup, the 326 mile long road will circulate 20-86km outside the existing Moscow Automobile Ring Road (MKAD) built in 1961. The speed limit is likely to be 150kph (93mph). FERRIES. Safety measures introduced in the wake of the 1987 Herald of Free Enterprise disaster are to be abolished as part of the govt’s Red Tape Challenge according to the Dover Express. P&O agrees the requirement to weigh all trucks before boarding is irrelevant for ferries but says it will keep watertight emergency lockers on open deck. See more. GERMANY. Drivers taking the wheel after warning signs do not have to obey them says a court in Hamm according to thelocal.de. IRELAND. Drivers are being warned over contaminated fuel in the west, border areas and midlands after more than 100 cars suffered major engine damage. Vehicles with small petrol engines are most at risk. The fuel is diluted with 10% kerosene and is much cheaper.

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GIBRALTAR FRONTIER WATCH: quiet overnight. 1h40 delay OUT late morning. Quieter since.

CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS PETITION: 3,260 signatures since 15.7. See @Justice4Trucker. 

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TODAY: an 1100km motorway project along the west Balkan coast is likely to get German backing later this week. Rouen’s repaired A28 Pont Mathilde removes a bottleneck through western France, as work starts on the A29 Pont de Normandie in Le Havre.

Also, a horror crash kills three at a hillclimb event in the Pyrenees. A Norwegian trio is to make another attempt on the ‘most countries visited in 24 hours’ record. Galileo hits another snag, as does Finland’s alco-lock scheme, and Latvia’s speed camera project. But Portugal’s speed week nets a considerable number of drivers as does Zurich’s drive-in brothel. Meanwhile, Bosnia opens its longest tunnel and Elon Musk responds to criticism over the lack of Tesla Supercharger coverage in southern and eastern Europe.

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ATTENTION TURNS TO ADRIATIC-IONIAN MOTORWAY

Croatian motorway concession deal unlocks West Balkan coast road project.

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A meeting of the region’s leaders yesterday ahead of a Balkan Summit later this week in Berlin ended with agreement to press on with the Adriatic-Ionian motorway project.

The 1500km road will run down the west coast of the Balkan Peninsula, from Trieste in north east Italy to the southern Greece, likely at Kalamata, passing through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania.

It would be the shortest connection between western and southern Europe.

‘The Adriatic-Ionian Motorway project is the common interest of four countries which has not been realised yet,’ said Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.

‘It is important for Croatia as a continuation of a route that connects this region, but it is also important for Montenegro, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and for Kosovo too.’

The project has been given extra impetus by Croatia’s recently announced plan to let its motorway network on a 30-50 year concession to help pay off its state road builder’s debts. The millions of extra vehicles using the route each year would significantly increase the deal’s value.

Nearly 90% of the roade is already built in Croatia. Funds to build the remainder, between Rijeka and near Senj in the north, could be released along with the concession deal.

Apart from Slovenia, the other countries would be starting from scratch. At this stage it seems unlikely the complete road will open before 2030.

The Adriatic-Ionian motorway would link with the mostly-complete A1 through northern Albania to Kosovan capital Pristina, and with the imminent Bar-Belgrade highway through Montenegro.

Angela Merkel and other senior German politicians will host the Southeast Europe Summit in Berlin on Thursday. Co-operative projects will be high on the agenda.

Update 28 August: after the meeting European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, without referring specifically to the Adriatic-Ionian motorway, that infrastructure investment must be speeded up because, ‘there are too many missing links in terms of roads, rail networks, or on the energy grid’ in the Balkans. He also said the EU would ‘continue playing a leading part through targeted financial aid.’ €20bn is available in ‘Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA)’ in the period 2014-2020.

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The key Pont Mathilde, on the A(N)28 in central Rouen, closed and rebuilt after a huge tanker fire in October 2012, finally reopens to general traffic at 17:00 local time today. Celebratory events are being held this afternoon, including a parade of historic vehicles. To the south east of the city centre, across the Seine, the bridge’s closure has been massively inconvenient at times for traffic heading south through the west of France, to Le Mans in particular. It was previously used by up to 80,000 vehicles each day. Meanwhile, maintenance on the busy A29 Pont de Normandie between Le Havre and Honfleur means just one lane open in each direction until 15 October, Monday-Thursday 08:00-18:00. Drivers are advised to leave extra time. Photo @SeineMaritime

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roundup: FRANCE. Three died and ten were injured in a practice crash at the Tillac-Laas Hillclimb on Sunday. The competitor, unhurt, lost control of his Simca 1000 during qualifying. The two day event is held on the D16 between the villages of Laas and Tillac in Gers, south west France, just north of the Pyrenees. DRIVING RECORD. The record-equalling attempt on the ‘most countries visited in 24 hours’ challenge – by a Norwegian trio in May – will be re-run. Travel writer Gunnar Garfors announced earlier today the same team will try again in September/October. He’s on the lookout for more sponsors. They visited 17 countries last time. GALILEO another setback for the EU’s satnav system when the two satellites launched last week – five and six out of thirty planned – failed to achieve the correct orbit. It’s not clear yet whether the trajectories can be corrected. FINLAND. 90% of offenders opt for driving bans rather than the hassle and expense of alco-locks. Drivers convicted of DUI offences have the option of, typically, a twelve month ban or eighteen month ‘supervision’, including paying €3000 for the device which blocks a vehicle’s ignition if a positive breath test is detected. BOSNIA. The country’s longest tunnel open today, the 3km March 1^st tunnel on the Zenica-Lasva section of Corridor 5c, along with another 3km of motorway. LATVIA’s speed camera project has hit another snag. After the original system was scrapped in December 2012 this latest attempt to procure a functioning network has been postponed for a second time, until 18 September. Latvia struggles with a high road fatality rate of around 85 deaths per million inhabitants, nearly three times that of best-placed Sweden and UK. Police currently have four handheld radar guns. PORTUGAL. Overall results of last week’s TISPOL-organised pan-European anti-speed week are yet to be published – police collared more than 720,000 drivers last time – but early indications from Portugal suggest the initiative has been a stunning success. Out of 6,600 vehicles subject to radar controls, 3,528 were found to be speeding according to Portugal News. SWITZERLAND. The world’s first drive-in brothel has also been a success says Zurich council. A number of ‘sex boxes’ were set up in Altstetten, west Zurich, last year at a cost of €2m.

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As Toddinton Harper – @Toddington_H – claimed at the weekend to be the first Englishman to drive to the South of France in a Model S using Tesla’s emerging Supercharger networ, the company tweets a picture of what the Continental network will look like by the winter. Founder Elon Musk responded personally to criticism that Portugal and Spain were sparsely covered – ‘Expansion to Madrid already underway. Map is being updated. All of Spain & Portugal by end of 2015’ – and that the company unaware the ‘Iron Curtain crumbled 20 years ago’ – ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘We are fixing this plan. Updated map coming soon.’ There is currently just one Supercharger open in Eastern Europe, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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GIBRALTAR FRONTIER WATCH: quiet overnight. Max 1h15 delay today, at lunchtime.

CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS PETITION: 3,253 signatures since 15.7. See @Justice4Trucker. 

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Short but sweet SS242 Sella Pass in the High Dolomites, north east Italy.

11%, 2240m. South to north in pictures. See map below.

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Sella Pass shares the SS48 southern approach road with Pordoi Pass.

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After a frustrating drive up a traffic-clogged Route Nationale 6 and 7 from Lyon to Paris some years ago, expectations were much lower for RN5 between Geneva and Dijon. In the event it was as much as anyone could have hoped for: a rolling drive through beautiful rural France on an almost completely empty road, even in early July.

Poligny and Dole were lovely as expected but who new Dijon was so pretty?

125 miles. See map below.

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Geneva can be awkward to drive around what with cycle lanes, bus lanes, trams, vigilant police – don’t throw a fag out of the window – and a comprehensive one-way system.

Navigating is easy however. Sooner or later you find yourself by the lake and everywhere is pretty much from there really.

Strictly speaking N5 continues across the Swiss border and into Geneva from the north (past the Hadron Collider at CERN). Instead we head up the left (west) bank of the lake towards Nyon to pick it up from near there. Note the sign for Dijon. The idea had been to take it easy on the lake road but we found ourselves on the A1 motorway (it’s complicated). It didn’t really matter because we already had the vignette and we know from prior experience that the waterfront is pretty much all bought up and blocked off anyway. Gland BTW, twenty miles up from Geneva, is where Michael Schumacher lives.

JURA MOUNTAINS: a 360km arc stretching from near the western edge of Lake Constance down via Basel to the west of Lake Neuchatel and Lake Geneva (Leman), between the Rhine and the Rhone. Higher in this southern part, topping out at the 1718m Cret de la Neige, 15km north west of Geneva.

It’s nice. What can we say? Not spectacular, or incredible or amazing. Just a hilly, twisty road lined with trees and, above all, quiet. It pretty much sets the tone for the day. The only disappointment is that there isn’t anywhere to catch an overall view of Geneva and the Alps opposite.

We were searched pretty thoroughly at the French border, the guards on the look out particularly for documents.

It’s not until we’re over the French border that, a few yards on, we pick up N5 proper.

Lunch. Just off N5 was a signed picnic place for the cascades at xxxxx. We thought we’d really lucked in here but, in early summer, it was little more than a trickle and the viewing platform was a precariously perched steel scaffold. But it was still nice.

Dole, Haute Ville.

Navigation note. Route Nationale mostly passed to local authority control a few years ago and many were re-numbered, especially up to and around towns. However, the new number will always end in the old number, e.g. D905 is the old N5.

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Also see Driving Route Nationale 6 and 7: Chambery-Lyon-Paris.

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TODAY: the incredible story of the WW2 bomb found just underneath the surface of the A3 at Frankfurt. Also, the Sachsen Classic kicks off today, through a mountainous part of eastern Germany.

Also, Finland’s fancy new road toll system might not happen (and neither might Russia’s electronic truck tolls). Moscow police investigate a motorway serial killer. New acoustic sensors could save lives in Austria’s road tunnels. Continuing truck queue misery at the Serbia-Croatia border. A short documentary on the floods in Bosnia.

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EXPLOSIVE DANGER LURKS 20CM BENEATH THE AUTOBAHN

Luck and judgement averts Frankfurt autobahn disaster.

Many drivers will be familiar with this exact stretch of road, just a few miles east of Frankfurt’s futuristic airport on the A3 autobahn just south of the city.

This is one of the Germany’s busiest stretches of motorway. On average it sees more than 150,000 vehicles each day, a mix of local and transit traffic, on southern Germany’s major east-west link.

Built in the late 1950s, A3 runs nearly 500 miles from the Dutch border near Arnhem to the Austrian border near Linz via Cologne, Frankfurt and Nuremberg.

So it wasn’t just dangerous when workman uncovered a 250kg WW2 bomb on Tuesday night but massively inconvenient too. Eastbound drivers faced delays of up to two hours yesterday, picking their way across local roads on diversion, with the prospect of the same continuing indefinitely.

After initial attempts to dissolve the 70 year old fuse failed, the bomb was covered with a ‘flexi-pack’ containing 30,000 gallons of water to muffle the controlled explosion – but it still left a 65ft wide hole in the road.

Impressively, the damage was repaired in less than two days and the eastbound A3 returned to service at 05:00 this morning.

It could have been much worse. According to the head of the state bomb disposal service, interviewed by Frankfurter Rundschau, the bomb lay just 20-30cm below the carriageway.

Luckily it was under the fast lane, else – as he admits – it could have been set off, at any time, by a heavy truck.

Thanks to an archive of 55,000 wartime aerial photos made available by the Allies, road builders are aware of the high risk areas. Accidents can still happen however. In October 2006 a workman on the A3 further east at Aschaffenburg died after uncovering a WW2 bomb.

Chillingly, up to 30% of WW2 explosives failed to detonate. Considering the US Eighth Air Force dropped 12,197 tons of bombs on Frankfurt it means a considerable amount still lies in wait. Twenty have been found in the area so far this year but it’s not just Allied ordnance causing problems. Last summer several tons of German WW2 arms were found buried during the construction of the Carl-Ulrich Bridge over the Rhine, less than 5km away.

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The Sachsen Classic kicks off today in the little known southern part of eastern Germany, around the border and Erzgebirge Mountains it shares with the Czech Republic. Classics of all kinds are welcome but the three day event specialises in vehicles from former Eastern Bloc countries – Ladas, Trabants and Wartburgs, but also Horch, Wanderer, EMWs and, interestingly, Rootes Group Hillman Minx and Singer Gazelles. The British manufacturer sold cars in the former GDR from 1960. The oldest car is a 1925 Skoda Laurent and Klement 110. VW is the main sponsor and Porsche has a presence too. The Erzgebirge top out at the 1244m Keilberg, not so high, but the route includes the 12% Steile Wand through the centre of Meerane. Since 2012 the local attractions have been strung together in the 140km Silberstrasse – Silver Street – highlighting the region’s silver mining and jewellery making history. See en.silberstrasse.de or #SachsenClassic.

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roundup: FINLAND. Plans for the world’s first GPS pay-as-you-go all-roads toll system are under threat after the incoming transport minister said she was not keen. The idea emerged after a high-profile independent report last year as was intended to replace all other motoring taxes. A large scale trial was being worked up to leverage the country’s experience in IT and mobile phone technology. RUSSIA. Moscow police are currently investigating a series of motiveless highway murders. The number of victims varies depending on the news outlet but varies from four to fourteen, since May. Most of the apparent attacks have taken place on or around the M-4 highway south east of the city though the latest, on Tuesday night, was on the A-108 road near Forminskoy in the south west. Spikes are thrown in the road forcing cars to stop whereupon the driver is shot. No valuables have been stolen. Meanwhile, according to Austrian road toll operator Kapsch, the tender for a 12t+ truck tolls system has been postponed again, until at least 22 September. ‘The realization of the project currently appears uncertain,’ it said in a statement. AUSTRIA. Following a successful trial in the Kirchdorf tunnel on the S35 at Frohleiten near Graz, acoustic sensors will be installed in 32 of the country’s 150 road tunnels over the next five years, starting in autumn 2015. Having built up a database of typical sounds the sensors can alert operators to abnormal events much faster than video surveillance, and locate people in dense smoke. SERBIA. Trucks queues at the Banovci border crossing with Croatia reached seventeen hours today. Delays have steadily built up since the weekend. Queues at the nearby Sid crossing are at two hours. Cars are waiting one hour at Batrovci. Max 30mins at other border points.

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BOSNIA. A video showing the impact and aftermath of the devastating floods which hit in May:

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GIBRALTAR FRONTIER WATCH: 60mins midnight, 4h40 at 12:15, max 30mins this afternoon.

CALAIS MIGRANT CRISIS PETITION: 3,229 signatures since 15.7. See @Justice4Trucker.

CONDOR FERRIES rescheduled services, Commodore Clipper on course to return 22 August.

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