Week 25 - They see me rollin' & my first breakdown

Personal new record: 4 countries in 4 days. And then I drove through them.

On Sunday I started in Italy. On Monday I stayed in Austria and arrived in the Czech Republic on Tuesday. Here I stayed in the parking lot of a shopping center in Brno. Not nice, but practical at the highway junction. On Wednesday I reached Poland.

Toll topic: In Italy, I didn't pay a cent in tolls in 7 weeks, but I have to say that there are no toll roads on Sardinia ;-) I bought an e-vignette for Austria and the Czech Republic. This allowed me to use the highway without worry and of course I made faster progress. In Poland, there is a toll road and it is paid for at the machine with a ticket. However, the A1, which runs from south to north, is free in the southern area. So I also made good progress here on Wednesday and Thursday.

Besides driving, I didn't do anything on those days.

Tourist mode started again on Friday. I went to Toruń. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After the visit, I sat in the motorhome for another 2 hours because I wanted to arrive in Malbork on Saturday. That's the name of the city in Polish.

I apologize for not being able to correctly reproduce many of the Polish names. I can't even pronounce most of the words :-) I gave up trying to remember please and thank you here.

Marienburg Castle (Polish: Zamek w Malborku) is considered the largest castle in the world and was built by the Teutonic Order 900 years ago. For 15 euros admission, you get an audio guide that takes you around the grounds for nearly 3 hours. Various exhibitions are housed in the castle, such as an amber exhibition.

On Sunday I continued towards the Baltic Sea. I ended up in Łeba. Tomorrow I will visit a wandering dune here, which moves up to 12 meters per year. The dune has already swallowed one village. The village of Łeba is expected to be reached by the dune in 100 years.

I must say this week was really exhausting. The driving was exhausting, the different countries were exhausting. And then there was the fact that the Czech Republic and Poland don't use the Euro. So, now I had to do the conversion as well. But I don't want to complain, it's not supposed to be boring :-)

So far, Poland has definitely surprised me positively. I didn't know there was so much to see here, and I wonder why it's not on people's bucket lists. Maybe I can inspire a few people to consider Poland as a travel destination.

By the way, I had my first breakdown of the trip this week. My exhaust pipe fell off at some point. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I noticed it on Thursday. But it must have happened days or weeks before. Probably the many potholes in Sardinia were a bit too much ;-) Anyway, I went straight to a workshop. They didn't speak English or German there. They assured me that they would take care of it immediately. The old pipe was removed and simply replaced with a new one. The new pipe was then welded to the old exhaust. 40 euros and 45 minutes later, the problem was solved :-) In Germany, they probably would have replaced the entire exhaust and I would have gotten an appointment in 4 months haha.

Just a quick note about fuel, because it's on everyone's mind at the moment: In Italy, there was a tax reduction until the end of April. When I arrived in Sardinia, the price of diesel was 2.34 €. It then dropped to 1.75 €. Austria was at 2 €, the Czech Republic at 1.86 €. But Poland can't beat 1.57 € :-)