Breakdown of the journey

         When i read other blogs of adventures i always like to see a breakdown of their journey like what you get normally on the first or last chapter distances time costs problems etc , So here"s my breakdown of this journey . first of all time i picked cammy up at 05:00 one saturday then the next saturday we got home to polmont around 8pm so just over one week for our journey .the distance is a little more tricky as we can't count the flight home the distance to cross the channel or josh driving us the 2.5hr journey from VT - Sofia , or buses trams trains (not even the one home from manchester ) &taxis in various cities ! but our shared driving only was 2430 miles in total ! the breakdown for that was

1. home to chunnel 479 calais to brussels 130m day 1 -609m
2. Brussels to Milan 576m day 2
3. Milan to zagreb 514m day 3
4. zagreb to sarajevo day 4 (forgot to check milage )
5. sarajevo to skopje 575 mile( split between two days ) day 5
6. skopje to veliko tarnovo 286 mile day 6

           the diesel for this journey was much cheaper than the petrol we spent driving the wee coupe the last time , And i did try and keep a note of all the diesel costs and amounts and here is a brief summery of those amounts i could keep account of 

32.43 lt redding tesco £35.32

46.71 lt shell services london £58.34

47.92 lt france £61.53

ltrs mising on reciept milan £61.78

44.65 ltrs 375.6 kuna croatia £37.50

£12 worth of diesel from angry attendant sarajevo

33.68 ltrs was 32 euros in kosovo

           so roughly speaking around 270 ltrs of diesel costing around £300 .londons diesel was by far the most expensive and surprisingly croatias was the cheapest  .other costs for the car where the tolls we paid ,2 in France £17 , 2 in Italy £34 ,1 in Croatia £8, 2 in Macedonia £2,then there was the road tax or vignette 40 euros in Switzerland then 15euros for Slovenia Kosovo called it insurance but it was 15euros and finally Bulgaria 15 euros ,so roughly £60 in tolls and around £75 in road tax 

  and speaking of expensive london when we got home a nasty letter popped through Bryan's door with a fine for £118 for the dartford crossing london he thought it was a wind up until he seen a photo of the mighty merc in the fine apparnly there is some toll charge you need to pay for crossing the dartford tunnel that we never even seen a sign for your supposed to know what the big C is for on the sign at the bridge ! so i am still awaiting the cost of that plus any speeding fines we got oh to get unclamped was inexpensive and there was overnight parking costs . 

bulgaria by road 2

Home

 The easy jet flight home was full and we were seated near the back so ,it was ages before the hostess trolley arrived for us to buy snacks and some long looked for brown beer for me ,I have only been drinking lagers since Brussels !

      When we got close to Manchester the captain made an announcement due to sever weather in Manchester we may be required to land in Liverpool ! But as we had spare fuel we would circle and hope for a weather window to land ! And that's what happened we circled for a bit and then landed without any further announcements , the weather seemed fine so God knows what that was about , at passport control there was a lane for the electronic passports and the lane for normal passports ,we both have new passports( European ones we shall need new ones again soon because of the brexit ) and can use the electronic passport control , Cammy says remember the last time dad the electronic que takes ages ,I said it should be quicker and the que looked smaller , we split and he beat me through by 10minuits !so 4machines plus two attendants was considerably slower than 4border police at desks again, flying home to Scotland via Manchester has never worked out well for me , this would be my 5th time flying home to here and only once it worked out ok , so I was thinking today will end in disaster like the other times ! 
   Next we had to find the easy jet desk and collect our train tickets ?! well done Bryan the bloke on the easy jet desk had our tickets and the joining letter Bryan sent with it magic , we were well early for our allocated trains and our tickets had times on them , manchester airport to Manchester Piccadilly was our first train and we just jumped on the first train at the station ,and of again at Piccadilly but while on that train cammy checked the web ,the last train out of Glasgow queen street was 19:02 because of the ongoing work !but our bargain £12.90 tickets got us in to Glasgow Central atv19:30 ! . We went to the ticket desk and asked if we could pay for an upgrade , after a fair amount of discussion as he could see our problem was genuine and not our fault the bloke said no chance ! but we could try the transpenine train information desk at platform 14 which we did ,but again after much chat with two attendants ,one who gave me the kind of condescending talk about buying cheap tickets I hate and I said to him look mate we have all bought bargain tickets before I bet you have ! His reply was that he always buys to the journey's end and reads the small print ( erse ) he said  It would be £140 for us to buy two new tickets to get to Glasgow on time for the last train to Polmont ! And no deals could be made ! Europe was starting to seem simpler and cheaper , we decided to risk it jump on the next train to Glasgow and play dumb if required ! We had a cover ticket saying Manchester airport to Glasgow Central  and 3 other tickets with times on , we would chance our luck and show the cover ticket ,  ! , we were nearly at Preston by the time our tickets got checked and we were lucky as the train was mobbed and I was giving the trolley dolly a bit of banter and the ticket checker joined in , I said lovely to hear a nice Scottish accent she gave our tickets a fleeting glance and we were safe , big smiles and beers ordered

    As we crossed the border into Scotland it was raining ! Cammy said that's the first rain we have seen since Switzerland! But we both agreed the scenery was lovely and the Scottish roads looked great to drive ,  It's a quick walk from Glasgow Central to queen street and I got a fish out the chippy to eat as we walked it ,after our trek across Europe I was thinking there's nothing wrong with Glasgow as we walked right passed the horseshoe bar , we bumped into Sneds and Sharon at queen street and had a pleasant train journey to Polmont together, it's been a great trip but it was nice to be home with all the usual suspects in the black bull Saturday karaoke

Now there's the best head you will ever see on a pint lol 
           

flight home

     Sofia was ok it has a lovely big shopping boulevard with plenty nice street cafes bistros and  restaurants but the bars are dotted along the side streets and thats what we were looking to do on our last night , We found a decent Irish bar after a bit of research while using the internet in one of the restaurants , the Irish bar was much more what we were looking for and we enjoyed a few beers there while watching rugby and using the wifi , if you drank the local lager it was around £1.30 if you wanted magners cider or Guinness it was £3 cammy wanted cider he has had enough of the local lager , i tried a guinness but the local lager was better or maybe I've just got used to it !
  the hotel breakfast was lovely and so was the short drive in a taxi to the airport to catch our 12:15 flight home , so our driving adventure for this year is nearly over ! i am typing this while in the airport at sofia . cammy is away buying his girlfriend some perfume ( i don't need to bother with that !)

        When i say the adventure is nearly over its because when we originally booked flights the chunnel etc and we decided to fly home to manchester ,I got a cracking deal from the trainline.com on a train from manchester airport to Glasgow for £12.90 , Now thats great if you remember to bring the train tickets with you !! I've roped my brother Bryan via Brian macateer ( spell check came up with macerator lol sorry mate )  Gav and the black bull to get those train tickets sent first class recorded delivery to the easy jet desk terminal one manchester airport ! so heres hoping ?! cheers for the effort though lads , its a 4hr flight but we put the time back 2hrs so we should  be in manchester just after 2pm UK time the train is at 3 to preston then to Glasgow ,we will then need to walk from central to queen street and its the tunnel work just now, so it will be a long train home to polmont arriving roughly 20:30 , So the journey should be ending in the black bull around 9pm ! cammy has a flight to catch to paris tomorrow morning at 06:30 so there will be no black bull for him
    tomorrow i shall try to piece together a short film of our journey from the go pro footage we took , i forgot to mention that while we were getting hassled by the speed cops in Bosnia the cop was standing hand on holster and told us to switch of the go pro and put it in the glove box and was still worried that the sat nav was a camera and wanted that off also ,

Valieko tarnovo to sofia

  It was great to arrive at our destination and think of some rest time , Our drive yesterday was 6 and a  half hours !and all our previous days were all more than that ! if you can imagine us driving or being passenger for an average of 8 hours a day one driving the other choosing the music for 6 days 8hrs a day ,The choice of music is important and I've got to admit it cammy won that battle his CD collection was much better than mine! even though i still stuck to my guns and used my CD's when i was passenger his music was much better ,

        last night the plan was to have dinner in the gurhka restaurant which has lovely views out over VT its monuments and monastery . But we parked up the merc and walked to city bar just in case  there was some footy on ! There was no footy but we were enjoying the beer and the menu was excellent we had tried the local food previously in this bar, this time we went for some new stuff from their updated menu it was very tasty, we ordered a third plate of chicken fillets as we were very hungry but although we finished the lot we didn't really need a third plate , we went to the other bar we liked the last time called rock an rolla but it was shut, so we had a beer at a terrace bar with a view over the town with a cracking night sky and blood moon , then ended the night in vogue the young persons disco bar as it had the late licence !

       by the time we got up in the morning josh (Bryan's mate ians son ) was already round and when we told him we had just parked the merc up for the night in town ,he said we had best go get it as it may have been clamped !sure enough the mighty merc our battle cruiser was clamped ( i bet she was growling when they clamped her ) fortunately josh lives here so speaks and reads the language. he phoned a number a van turned up we paid a 17LEV fine ( about £8 so fair enough for an overnight park ! ) to get the wheel clamp off

      The choice we have today is have a nice days rest floating around Bryan's house in the sun ?or get packed and organised to catch our Saturday midday flight and have our last night out in sofia tonight ? i would have loved to have had a walk up to VT's monastery and a nice dinner and night out here but it would be an early rise on Saturday to get to sofia for 10;00 am (its a 2.5hr drive), Josh is driving us to the airport, he doesn't care which day he takes us ! cammy is not wanting the early rise as he is heading to paris with his girlfriend on Sunday and is worried about how little sleep he is going to get ,(he has a ticket to go watch germanys v Slovakia in the quarter finals of the euros) , apparently according to josh midday is beer o'clock in Bulgaria and we all should have a lunchtime beer ! who are we to break a tradition ? so we sat around the table in the sun of Bryan's drive and made our decision , 

       we opted for the night out in sofia and longer in our bed in the morning , no rest day for these boys !
         Josh dropped us in VT while he went and got things ready for our airport drive ,we had a couple of beers and a lunch in the centre of town 

     

     josh came and got us to our hotel in sofia for 8pm , the hotel is called central hotel sofia and its a good hotel at a good price we don't need to think about the mighty merc she is now based in her new home safely delivered maybe needing a wee wash some oil and TLC but not a scratch ! 

  Look how much she has been taxed and certificated ! , today Britain voted out of the EU , I will keep my political thoughts out of the blog, also I'm not entitled to an opinion as i didn't vote  , I don't think The rest of europes even noticed yet , here's hoping it will not stop us from doing a drive like this again 

       

Skopje - BA's Hoose

          Skopje was lovely although a little bit warm for us northerners  ! we stayed right in the centre of town it was 30degrees and clear sky's , by the time we got unpacked and organised then went for a stroll around the centre it was 21:00 ,i don't think I've ever spent as long sitting down as yesterdays drive so it felt a bit strange walking at first !, There is some lovely statues, buildings, bridges and a big fortress ,its a city famous as the birthplace of alexander the great and mother Theresa ,but although the buildings and statues where impressive they looked a little clean almost modern ! but we enjoyed our night out and dinner was lovely all reasonably priced, i spent around £40 in total we had dinner in a nice restaurant centre location overlooking the main square ,after 5-6 beers each in some nice bars,

     You couldn't help but notice that lots of the statues where paint bombed there was spllodges of multi coulored paints on loads of the statues !! I said Cammy we must research why ! The video footage of the protest against the dictatorship riots is quiet impressive ! And from only a few nights ago no wonder the paints still colourful and there was a lot of guards around ! There was thousands out protesting and paint balling ! 

I took this pic to remind me to research but you can hardly see the paint on my photos ,maybe if I had checked the FCO website and read this we may have chose a different route lol ! - Most visits to Macedonia are trouble-free. Occasional acts of criminal violence occur, although foreigners are not generally targeted. 

Take particular care if you travel to the north of Macedonia near the border with Kosovo. See Crime and Local travel

Oh well it all worked out well 

our hotel bill for the night was 85 euros which on my receipt is 5164,00 MKD plus 80MKD tourist tax ,we are working it at 80MKDens to the pound ,breakfast wasn't unto much it was mostly cheese and dairy and I'm still of milk for the month ,

        At 10:30am we drove past mother Theresa's house with our special pedestrian pass and headed up alexander the great avenue past alexander the great airport , on the last leg of our journey to Velike tarnovo Bulgaria (well my bros house on the suburbs)  ,
       the landscape around skopje is very arid dry scrubland and as we were driving along a big snake was sidewinding across the main road ! I've seen adders and grass snakes in Scotland , but this was a proper big and fast snake , fortunately for hissing Sid he managed to slither between the wheels of the mighty merc, we hit the first of the last two toll roads in Macedonia you could pay in euros or MKD it was only 1.50euro but half that price if you paid with MKD so at 60mkd our last tolls where easily the cheapest. before long we were back winding up and down lovely mountain passes not as beautiful as the Serbian mountain passes but still a pleasant and scenic drive. and we came to our final and longest border crossing between Macedonia and Bulgaria at midday .first stop was Macedonia customs the woman here was asking me lots of questions about where had we come from and why at first i thought she was interrogating me for security reasons turns out the woman was amazed by our 2000mile trip and loving the chat ,next was the border police stop which cammy nearly drove past ! he was a bit grumpy about that and took ages over our documents i thought we would get trouble but no problem , then it was Bulgarian border police same deal hand over passports hand over car documents ,then at last Bulgarian customs open car boot what do you have in there ? where have you come from ?where are you going ? and for the fourth and last time of this trip! we have drove from home in the UK and going to my brothers house in Bulgaria to visit him, of course i can't tell them the motors his and I'm leaving it there , I put my watch forward an hour as Bulgaria is two hours in front of the uk , and got the usual txt from three mobile about rates I've had mobile data switched of the last couple of days as mobile data is good in some countries but not in others yesterday for example in Macedonia it was £6 for a MB of download today in Bulgaria it was only 4pence a megabyte ! slight difference from one border to the next and most countries its free . Bulgaria was our 13th country in 6days of travel not a world record but not bad ! Bulgaria also has a vignette system for car tax so we bought a weeks worth turns out we waste that money as Bryan had some in the house but we may have been stopped after the border and the 4hr 45mins drive from the border to Bryan's house past sofia !the drive through Bulgaria was not new to us so we weren't our usual touristy selfs , although it was nice to see the storks standing on their huge nests on the town telegraph poles , the rest of the drive we were just wanting to arrive , 2430miles we had done from my house by the time we parked up at Bryan's house in Bulgaria

I stopped to far up the street to get a decent picture of the stork in its nest 

 .

Sarajevo to Skopje

      The choice to choose a hotel near to the city but not at the centre worked out ok ,even though we never used the facilities like the bowling alley pool etc  parking was easy and the taxi into town and back was around a fiver each way .we could have taken the ancient looking tram in but we had no change for our 100 Bosnian note ( About £40) it's hard to work out how much money to get for each country , I've now left Bosnia with about £30 of there cash by lifting more at the cashline later , A great amount of the  buildings around  the streets of sarajevo are still riddled with bullet holes ! and it reminded me of jerusalem in a way with its distinct islamic area around the mosque and the christian area filled with bars and restaurants , so no prizes for guessing where we spent the night ! the bars were good and we got a nice dinner in a pleasant restaurant called cheers bar aimed at American customers , it was roughly £2 a pint and it was good cold beer ,there was even a grouse bar and a celtic football club bar we only went into one of those bars , but we enjoyed our night out in sarajevo . we did stroll through the islamic section and it was busy with well lit streets and small shops and cafes open late selling shishas (hubbabubas with flavoured tobacco ), this place is well known for its wars and battles its even the place franz ferdinand was assassinated .heres hoping the don't start any wars soon

      we had a good nights sleep and breakfast was included in the price although it wasn't that great .the receptionist sought us out at the breakfast table , his colleague had made a terrible mistake and accepted a £20 Scottish note from a previous client which the banks would not accept ! would we be prepared to buy it from them ? of course we did i had plenty Bosnian money left i had to get shot of it so it worked out ok I bought some diesel with some more 

      on leaving sarajevo we thought we were heading the wrong way as this steep winding road into the mountains could not be the main road ! could it ? the answer is yes it is the main road between bosnia and serbia is seriously narrow winding mountain passes and its like that all the way through Serbia also , but it easily by a country mile ( pun intended ) the most awesomely scenic road i have ever driven, i would have loved to have done it on my big Africa twin motorbike amazing scenery , 

Yes that is sheep in the boot of his car !! 

      we were cruising up and down hairpins and ancient mountain tunnels loving the scenery the drive and the weather ,and  i said to cammy maybe i should separator all my different cash out of my wallet just in case we get stopped by a crooked cop . no more than ten minuets later cammy hit a police speed trap ! And yes we were definately speeding !!  the coppers couldn't speak any english they asked for all our documents and checked in our car boot , they were trying to say something about me going back to a bank for a stamp i thought it was an on the spot fine and pulled my wallet out ready for a euros bribe ! he looked offended then smiled gave cammy the waggy finger saying in Serbian take your time young man and waved us off !!

     they stamped our passports into serbia our first passport stamps and we crossed a wooden bridge just before the border to Bosnia ,and got our passports stamped out of Serbia, then pulled to the side of the road in Kosovo and boot checked papers checked we now knew to bring out the insurance document and ownership papers its my bros car in his name and our insurance is Bulgarian ! I can't read the cerylic writing it's multi country insurance , my brother Bryan had researched it and said it would be ok for the countries we were heading , but apparently not Kosovo they made me buy an official piece of car insurance from a fancy wee office for 15 euros ,even though we had told them we were only driving through kosovo en route to skopje ,so our drive through Kosovo cost us 15 euros but it was worth every penny the scenery was awesome from where we had come, 

The tunnels where ancient and shitty but also exhilarating 

     we left Kosovo and entered Macedonia . the birth place of alexander the great at 19:50 and it was a short drive into skopje where as we had no hotel booked i told cammy to punch in the best western in the sat nav and we would go into the best western see what they had and try to cut a deal ! we got a deal 85 euros for the night parking and breakfast included ideal location and thats where we are happy as larry . its been a long hard days drive but awesome and cammy has a drivers tan well a burnt arm !  We have been sitting for about ten hours ! The mighty merc got a certificate from the best western to drive up Skopje pedestrian zone and park , what a day it's beer o'clock and Cammy needs his footy fix 😉

Zagreb to Sarajevo

      we had a really good night out in Zagreb its a lovely little city it seemed much more affluent than i was expecting , the hotel free map said that the beauty of the city is only beaten by the beauty of it's woman and i would agree , we fond the bar and restaurant area easily and it didn't disappoint there was plenty good bars and restaurants to choose from we went to a bar called oliver twist as it had a big screen and was showing the football for cammy , england were playing slovakia it was a boring game ending in a no score draw but it was 26kuna for two pints and it was pints ! and at 10 kunas to the pound it was only £1.30 a pint , we then ewent for dinner and i went for chicken skewars with a side salad cammy had schnitzel and we had beers our very tasty dinner including the beers cost us 136 kuna roughly £13.60 .

       my stomach problem now gone and i slept like a log at our apartment and in the morning i expected a fine a few euros for the lamp cammy burst but the reception is said with a smile don't worry about it we will fix it , it was a beautiful sunny morning we had a few kuna left as i had withdrew roughly £44 worth out the cashline the previous night you don't want to be left with a bag of notes you can't use anywhere else , so we never had enough to get us a nice cafe breakfast and after a bit of a chat about currency exchange for some euros to kuna , we decided to just get the car from the car park and grab something to eat on route, we went to the car in the underground carpark and somebody ( cammy )had left the sitting all night with the parking light on PANIC  ,first turn of the key and the mighty merc roared into life ,we headed out the car park and it was 85 kuna to park overnight we had forgot to check if they would take a card or euros first so had to cut a deal with the car park attendant and got ripped of for 15euros ,still it was cheaper than our official price for overnight stay in Milan
      Theres something safe and comfortable about a Mcdonald's sign and with us not having had any breakfast at 11 am we passed the golden arches sign it says nice coffee quick safe food , But what i would recommend is if you are planning a stop at a Mcdonald's where english is not the first language do not attempt the drive through ! we kinda got what we asked for in the end !( i repeat myself enough into those things at home ) minus the coffee and payed by card , all was well though its a beautiful sunny day lovely scenery and not a long drive today, sat nav says 4hrs easy for us we have been a minimum 8 hrs every day

        there is a toll rd just outside Zagreb which we took and stayed on it all the way to the border of Bosnia it was a modern good road with good scenery 77kuna £7.70 on the fantastic plastic and we headed over the border passport checked leaving Croatia and passports checked entering Bosnia even though both are in the EU now and for the first time this trip i was asked by Bosnia border control for vehicle papers and to open the boot ! then the roads went back 50years , very scenic beautiful place but bad roads and bad drivers , i had to tell cammy uncle Bryan's car was a battle cruiser not a speed boat again ! we had to accept that if you have an automatic car your not overtaking much on these roads and enjoy the scenery , people working their land by hand using rakes and scythes and selling there farm produce on tables at the side of the roads was pleasant to see but we were glad to hit a nice toll road after 70mile maybe more of winding two lane road through some ancient narrow dark tunnels ,it was time for a nice toll road but i have no idea how much the final toll road today was as i don't know what the Bosnian currency is yet or it value to the pound i just paid it by card

      after a search on the web last night for a hotel here for tonight we think we have worked out our mistake of trying to find a city centre hotel with parking that was two night running we had to pay for overnight parking because the hotels had misinformed us , we have decided for tonight you get better deals on hotels a slight distance from the city centre and the hotels in city centre the few that do have parking are vague about it IE free parking nearby etc , so we have opted for hotel hollywood a big 4 star hotel on the outskirts of sarajevo we arrived her at 17:20 its got a big outdoor pull and all the facilities you would expect for a 4 star place it is a bit dated but will do us fine and at only £50 for the night we don't grudge the fact we are not going to use the pool gym or sauna we are going into the city tonight and have a big drive tomorow  

  Room view for tonight 

 

Milan - Zagreb

     On first impression Milan looked like a lovely place much better than what i remember from my previous visit here when big mikey got escorted back on the flight at gun point for having no visa, and i spent an afternoon taking in milans sites before an overnight train to rome , it was sunny for a start and we had directions down to the river area for the bar and restaurants ,there was big screens up for the football and it was very busy which was good , but the beer was rubbish in all the bars we went into I'm not keen on waitress service and the cafe scene well its just not me , and we made a poor choice for dinner it was just pub grub and very poor quality at that , I was feeling the cold although cammy wasn't and i was tired, turns out i had some kind of bug ,its like death and taxes we all have to deal with it at some point and i had bad diarrhoea, i couldn't take any more beers and was trying to man up but it was just no fun ,so we went back to the hotel earlier than normal and i spent an uncomfortable night , I've not had it as bad as that since i got dysentry in china
     breakfast was included with the hotel price and i was starting to feel slightly better so we had breakfast ,cammy was disgusted that i put fresh orange in my muesli because I'm off milk for the month .but i enjoyed breakfast and went to the local pharmacist he tried to sell me a suppository ! I was like no way we just don't do that in Scotland exit only for my bum some Imodium will do fine  ,we were on the road for 11and cammy done a great job of driving us out of Milan,s winding old streets and we hit the motorway and our first toll in gorgeous sunshine and the alps in the distance , we stay on that toll road nearly all the way out of Italy and it cost 29.30 euros  ,but it was a decent road the scenery was nice
         once we arrive at the Slovenian border i made sure we didn't forget the vignette ( road tax ), you have to buy at least a weeks worth it was 15euros .Slovenia is a much more beautiful country than i imagined and the roads were also of a high quality and quiet not what i expected at all ,when we arrived at the Croatian border it was the first time we had our passports checked since getting into the chunnel ! Zagreb is near the border crossing and we were in the centre for our perked hotel in plenty time as it was only 5pm , but the booking was vague about directions and the sat nav wanted us to go up a pedestrian street in short we were nearly 2hrs getting the car parked and strolling round the plaza looking for our hotel eventually we phoned and the receptionist came out a side street to meet us , this hotel is nowhere near the location it is advertising itself on the hotel APP , the elevator to the apartment looks like its been in use since 1950 ,the actual apartment is lovely right up until cammy broke the bedside lamp ! so we shall see what they charge for that in the morning ,on the upside at least the toll roads are cheap here at 1euro and we are right at the heart of this beautiful city its sunny and my stomach problem appears to be nearly over ! I'm off to the coastline now to withdraw enough croation Kunas to buy some beers and a decent meal

The glass elevator ! You should see it inside stairs for us 

A room with a view ! 

Brussels to where ?

        last night was a good night the bars and restaurants in brussels were packed and not just because the european football was on and Belgium had beaten Ireland 2-0 ,there is a lot of flags and people dressed up and painted for the football the Belgians are obviously very patriotic and big football fans .an speaking of which Cammy needed his football fix so we were i a famous bar called delirium , (http://www.deliriumvillage.com ) which was officially certificated by the guinness book of records as the bar with the most choices of beer commercially available with 2004 beers being available, there was over 30beers on tap ,the place was bouncing and it is spread along a busy alleyway where the bars spill out into the street , its a very cosmopolitan city brussels with all races of the world sharing beers along that wee street , its a shame its still in high alert from the recent terrorist attacks and there was also soldiers with automatic weapons patrolling the streets , we got a few beers and Cammy got to watch Austria v Portugal in the euros,i started out trying to order pints at the bar, then just asking for big beers and ended up just pointing and getting two beers as the staff were so busy that getting served involved mobbing the bar area , then we had a steak dinner at a nice restaurant not a bad night out

                    it was a much bigger decision than normal trying to decide where to go from brussels as it really determines where we are heading after tonight ( if that makes sense but west east or straight to our destination ) i wanted to go to Liechtenstein ,cammy had looked at it no nightlife and not through the alps on route to Zagreb .so we opted for Milan , we never booked a hotel like we normally do we just put Milan into the sat nav and headed off, i wanted to just drop of the room card and leave ,but i had totally forgot about city tax or tourist tax whichever way each country names it and brussels was 7 euros a night , cammy did the first leg of driving out of brussels and out toward Luxembourg we drove through Luxembourg to France in 15mins@ 11:30 and not far into France ,cammy got a flash from the speed camera he blamed the sat nav for not telling him there was cameras (but i couldn't moan as i got flashed later by another camera and may also have been snapped in Switzerland sorry bro ) .we hit our first toll road in France the first of two in France and two in Italy 20 euros i was in toll charges for todays drive

    we left France and entered Switzerland (after passing two Scottish touring bikers and the biggest group of bikers I've ever seen out on the road )at the city of basel which was cool .they never even looked at our passports even though they are not in the eurozone but they did demand 40 euros !!!! for vignette or car tax even though we were just driving through ,right after that we drove over the rhine and into a tunnel which was over into Germany then back into Switzerland ,which made total countries visited by us today was Belgium Luxembourg France Switzerland and Italy 6 ! the drive through Switzerland was awesome really beautiful through the alps , me and cammy are no strangers to the alps we ski there every year ,but the alps looked even nicer in summer and we found ourselves stopping to take photos and driving slower to enjoy the scenery ! yes today we were Sunday drivers , and it being fathers day i got a card also so maybe he will buy the first round tonight , we drive through so many long mountain tunnels it was impossible to count , 

      we arrived in Milan at 7pm and it was a mistake not booking a hotel before arriving , we wasted a lot of time driving around looking for the centre searching hotel options then eventually we chose a place called hotel canada and it had no parking , so the price should also include overnight at a city parking multi storey park another 20 euros for the night and 100 euros for our room ,a bit of time researching yesterday and we would have got hotel and parking for 60 half what we paid ! oh well lesson learned time to head out its a pleasant evening here in Milan and France and Switzerland are playing each other in the euros