In news:_4GdnSfEpoX4B9XfRVnyjA@giganews.com,
mo <nospam@nospam.com> decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant
as follows

Dead easy.

Insurance is easy, just tell your insurance company you're thinking of going
to Europe for a few days / weeks whatever. Most will issue a 30 day "Green
Card" for free, this will cover your car. For Spain it's normally a good
idea to get a bail bond as well.

Yup, done it a few times. Highly recommended.

The Euro is a great help as well. First couple of times I went were before
Euros, and having pockets full of Guilders, Belgian / Swiss / French Francs
etc isn't handy when you need Liras, for example.

Mine covers me in Europe by default, a handy extra. Other insurance companies
will charge extra to change cover or to add a temporary Europe cover. Check
with the insurer.

Similar question for breakdown cover, you can get RAC or AA cover extended to
Europe, although the van that comes will be whatever they use, rather than RAC
livery, at a guess.

Dunno. Wouldn't like to find out the hard way, TBH.

Yeah. Quite fun.

Firstly, are you thinking of taking your Fiesta or a BMW E30?

Most insurance co's will give you a free 30 day green card. My insurer
Barclays charged me about £20 to be free to roam Europe for up to 90
days at a time. I remember one insurer I've used in the past, despite
me being only insured TPFT in the UK, provided fully comp cover whilst
abroad!

As for the speeding ticket thing, I got flashed by at least two cameras
on the way here (currently in Hungary) so I gues I won't know about any
fines till I get home.

My journey wasn't so much chillng out seeing different stuff, it was a
race against time to make it from Manchester to the posh hotel in
Budapest I'd stupidly booked in advance on the advice it'd only take me
16 hours to get there. It took me 36 hours thanks to a delayed ferry,
torrential rainstorms/gales with bits of tree all over the road all
through Germany and Austria, getting pulled over by the Austrian police
and getting rather lost about three times. Got to the hotel at 7am.
Being a posh hotel they were very nice to me and let me use the room to
get some rest despite having me down as a "no show" - i'd only managed
4 hours sleep during the whole journey, and that was on the ferry from
Dover.

In 1991 we did our first driving holiday to Eastern Europe. Left here
(Preston, Lancashire), drove to Dover and did the Dover-Ostend crossing,
then drove through Belgium and Germany, and on into Czechoslovakia. We took
a nice, leisurely, 4 days to get there, 16 days driving around the country
and 4 days to get back. We didn't have any hotels booked or anything, just
looked at a guide book and just went wherever we fancied.

The following year we went to Poland using the same "technique" (if you can
call it that). In fact, we've been doing the same holidays ever since, and
we love it. We've been to Italy, Austria and a few other places but the vast
majority of our time has been spent in the Czech Republic and Poland (mainly
Czech - it's just fantastic).

Insurance-wise, just tell your insurers which countries you're visiting and
it won't be a problem (we list about 8 countries just in case we make a snap
decision to go there). Speeding tickets - I've never had one so I can't say.
Over the years there has been a huge increase in Gatso's but I just tend to
do what the locals do (can't be arsed squinting at the tiny kmh numbers)
and, up to now, I've been OK. Mind you, if the cops are operating manual
speed traps, you don't argue with them - they've got guns on their hips.

Do it, you'll love it.

Mogweed.

If you have a decent insurer you should be covered fully comprehensively
for every country "west of the Urals". Some policies also include full
Europ assist packages for breakdowns. If your insurance doesn't meet
your needs, shop around a bit.

Yes, thanks. Every year.