Destination Europe


Mar

14

Driving to Budapest

Filed Under France

Last time my parents were here, we spent 2 or 3 weeks driving around Germany, visiting most of the country’s biggest cities as well as many smaller cities and villages. The plan was to visit Budapest and Prague as well but it was a bit too much driving for them so we just stuck to Germany.

This time I planned it a little better and got them to fly to Budapest instead of Paris and we met them there, driving the 1500km from Paris. This way we can visit Budapest, Vienna, and Prague and then slowly make our way back to Paris.

I allowed two days for the drive to Budapest which was perfect. We left Paris quite late in the day because we had a problem with the hire car but we still managed to easily do 750km which got us to Nuremburg. We stayed at a little hotel by the road and then left first thing the next morning, arriving in Budapest at 2:30pm.

The drive was pretty uneventful. As usual there were very high road tolls to pay in France, none in Germany, and it was 6 or 7 euros to drive on the Austrian freeway (you need a sticker to show you have paid).

Another thing I noticed that the roads and petrol stations got progressively cleaner the further away you got from France. Toilets in French petrol stations are filthy and to be avoided at all costs. In Germany you have self cleaning toilets which you pay 50 cents to use but you get that money back if you buy something at the shop. Austria had the cleanest toilets I’ve ever seen in my life and the eateries at their petrol stations were amazing too – a great choice of freshly prepared food and the place was spotless. I like Austria.

Comments

2 Responses to “Driving to Budapest”

  1. Leesa on March 14th, 2010 8:30 am

    Hi Andrea,

    I’m going to have to differ with you here… I’ve been ALL over France (except to Brittany, perhaps) and I have had nothing but CLEAN toilets in the public restrooms at big gas stations … In fact, they are so clean, that I refuse to use the ones in the local aires in between (also b/c I don’t like Turkish toilets).. In the public restrooms at big gas stations the stalls are alway clean, filled with toilet paper and there is always soap to wash your hands..
    On the other hand, in the bathrooms when you stop at the aires, there are disgusting smells, turkish toilets, most of the time no toilet paper and most of the time no soap…

  2. Andrea on March 14th, 2010 9:38 am

    There’s always toilet paper and soap, that’s true but I can’t believe you would say they are clean! I don’t think they are cleaned very often and they have a lot of people using them unlike in other countries where they clean them more or less after each use.

    But I agree the aires are pretty bad, I never stop there for that reason.

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