Week 1 - Setting out.
Day 1 - Germany
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
Start: Strassen (L) 07:00
Arrival: Rzepin (PL) 19:30
Total: 878 km
Monday evening at 8 pm we began packing. The idea was: if we start late enough, we won't waste hours agonizing over what to pack and just be done with it so much faster. Around midnight, this theory was thoroughly debunked. Our car proved just too small for all the myriad things we wanted to take with us. First the water kettle was discarded, then the warm just-in-case-our-car-brakes-down-on-an-icy-desert-night blankets. Dito the winter coats for the potential Caucasus freak snowstorm on our way home. Then Sonia started rearranging stuff and suddenly there was room for the coats after all. At 1 am, we were dead on our feet, but the car was ready. We retired to bed, until I remembered that we had forgotten to pack a knife and some spoons (which we could of course buy in any supermarket along the way, but ah well) and jumped out of bed again.
At half past six, I woke from a short and fitful sleep. Sonia had not slept much either, so we decided we might as well get up and get some mileage in. After some more back and forth, we were finally on the road.
The Mosella region had never seemed so charming and endearing to me. Was I getting homesick before we had even left? It didn't help that I was dead tired.
Three hours into our drive, we made a coffee pitstop at "our" Rewe just after Limburg. Sonia spotted the first mirabelles of the year and bought a basket. My favourite fruit! After a restorative coffee and a handful of mirabelles, I felt more or less alive. I asked my sis to preserve this memorable moment for posterity, like so: I bit into one of the delicious fruits, and tried to hold as photogenic a pose as possible. Sonia shook her head. "You look like a serial killer". I burst out laughing. She took another shot. A delightfully promising start to our road trip!
After 600 km, we stopped at a gas station on the highway. 2.70 € a litre! No way I was paying that much. I steered the car back onto the highway. "Strassenschäden. Gefährliche Ausfahrt!" a sign warned. The road was perfectly fine. "Gefährliche Abzocke" would have been more apt. I turned off the highway at the next exit and made for the nearest town. Helmstedt. Sounds like a decent town with decent prices. Sure enough, after only 2 km, there was a supermarket with a no name gas station. 2.00 € a litre. 15 euros saved, right there. Thoroughly pleased with my thriftiness, I filled up the tank.
Poland
We made good speed and crossed the border to Poland well before nightfall. Sonia found a hotel in a quiet little town called Rzepin (like the painter, with an added z). Before dinner, we took a stroll around the town square. After nightfall, the fountains were illuminated with colourful lights. Beautiful.
After a satisfyingly straightforward dinner (cutlet with fries and beet root salad), we retired to bed and I started my blog. Will I have the discipline to write up the day's events every night? Unlikely, especially seeing how much I just wrote down for a rather uneventful day just driving. At this rate, I'll end up writing not a blog, but a novel of Dostoevskian proportions! LOL
It's 11 pm, and tomorrow we intend to cross the whole of Poland and, hopefully, make it into Belarus before the first light of dawn. Fingers crossed. :)