Speedy88 wrote:I'd love to do an epic trip like this, how do you find all these backroads?

We travel with paper maps - not GPS, so sometimes when we decide to take some "shortcuts" they apperas to be such wild roads.

Hi mate.
Another epic trip.Well done.Mine usually just takes me to work and back.
Approx 4 miles there and 4 back.
Cheers Mark.

atroch wrote:

Speedy88 wrote:I'd love to do an epic trip like this, how do you find all these backroads?

We travel with paper maps - not GPS, so sometimes when we decide to take some "shortcuts" they apperas to be such wild roads.

Ah I don't think we have roads like that here, must be because "they" want "us" to stop messing about and get to point B

How does the suspension cope with those rocks?

Amazing pics, as always ... More please

Tom

simply stunning,

Ian.

Brilliant pictures, as ever - any more of the Vilnius trip ?

Looks like an amazing trip - and you are obviously very handy with a camera!

I'm inspired - going to plan my summer holiday doing something similar to your Scandinavian adventure, but maybe not in the Volvo

nomashedswede wrote:Brilliant pictures, as ever - any more of the Vilnius trip ?

Hi, thanks

more of the Vilnius trip you can find here:
http://albums.atroszko.pl/litwa2009/
maybe not too much from the town.

Speedy88 wrote:How does the suspension cope with those rocks?

Not so bad. My wife was up set on this roads, because you feel sometimes lika all car wil break apart soon. Than I ask her (she was driver than) to drive faster. Than we realized that speed ca.60-70 km/h is best for such road. You just jump on the tops of stones and you do not feel this small odds. Of course than you need to be carefull for this really big holes that sometimes happened on that roads, because you may loose the wheel.

And when we talk about bad roads, let me show you some fotos from my 2008 adventure. It was trip: Poland - Slovakia - Hungary - Romania - Bulgaria - Greece. 6300 km. There, especially in Romania and Bulgaria some roads we toke, was unbelievable bad condition. On such road high sped is not an option and you must drive very slow on 2nd gear, ant though watch for holes in road.
The distance was 1000 km shorter than in Norway trip but Volvo get much more damages.

Once we hit something (rock, or piece of concreet that was part of the road many years ago) in Bulgaria we needed to fix the silencer in Greece:


Here is one of the roads


And another


but scenery is worth of it (this is Greece)


sometimes cows


and farmers


ruins of vine farm


blue rocks


Black Sea (is actually blue)


there was really hot


so we went to the beach, however it looks like quite solid stone-sand there was some problems to get out of there.


Some bridge in Romanian mountines


some romanian roads are quite nice too


and some are narrow


campings as usually


Greetings

dude, i wish youd taken a film crew with you.
it looks better than The Long Way Round!

Apart from the muffler, have you needed to replace anything else?

atroch wrote:And when we talk about bad roads, let me show you some fotos from my 2008 adventure. It was trip: Poland - Slovakia - Hungary - Romania - Bulgaria - Greece. 6300 km. There, especially in Romania and Bulgaria some roads we toke, was unbelievable bad condition. On such road high sped is not an option and you must drive very slow on 2nd gear, ant though watch for holes in road.
The distance was 1000 km shorter than in Norway trip but Volvo get much more damages.

Once we hit something (rock, or piece of concreet that was part of the road many years ago) in Bulgaria we needed to fix the silencer in Greece:

Those pics are astounding, make me want to set off in the 343 straight away ...

We knocked our exhaust loose on bumpy Moldavian roads two years ago, it was just a rubber ring which had snapped, and a Romanian garage later fixed it back up for free ... "welcome to our country, have a good trip!". I love that ...

Tom

Hi,

Speedy88 wrote:Apart from the muffler, have you needed to replace anything else?

In Bulgarian travel i didn't, only the muffler. It did not need replacement, only some weld. It was small crack in front part of pipe, but we heared noise. Man in small garage in greece did it in a moment.

But bigger problems I had in Norway this year. In Lofoten, that was more than 2000 km plus baltic Sea from home. I realized that my brake pedal goes to the floor with no effect. When pedal was on the floor only front brakes did work a little. Brake fluid was running out from rear right wheel. Than we was looking for some help. It was friday evening and no chance for anything. Than I cut the pipe with pliers, break it and crush to close it. Later with help of some Polish man I meet there using one clamp we closed also the rubber pipe of brakes, and we came back to Poland only with front brakes. Luckily no surprises on the road.

I found out some difrences between scandinavian countries and Poland than. Probably that same situation would be in UK, and another western countries. I mean if you have some problems with car here in Poland, especially with such old car like Volvo 300, than every mechanic you can find in every small village can do something. If he dont have original Parts he know someone who have, or he try to use another, or figure out how to fix it another way. It does not matter what type of car it is everyone can fix it. While in Norway, they said if this is Volvo, than go to Volvo garage, if mazda go to mazda garage. We have in poland also authorized Garages in every bigger town, but in every small town are few auto mechanics or just some autodidacts who are wery useful. I think it is easier here.

So I was happy there was no technical problems in Norway that I could not repair myself.

atroch wrote:I found out some difrences between scandinavian countries and Poland than. Probably that same situation would be in UK, and another western countries. I mean if you have some problems with car here in Poland, especially with such old car like Volvo 300, than every mechanic you can find in every small village can do something. If he dont have original Parts he know someone who have, or he try to use another, or figure out how to fix it another way. It does not matter what type of car it is everyone can fix it. While in Norway, they said if this is Volvo, than go to Volvo garage, if mazda go to mazda garage. We have in poland also authorized Garages in every bigger town, but in every small town are few auto mechanics or just some autodidacts who are wery useful. I think it is easier here.

I can say this for Finland:

Garages in smaller villages are actually more likely to be able to fix any cars, especially if the problem is such that it doesn't require make/model-specific parts, tools or information. But Finland is a bit sparsely populated, so it can be a long way between villages, especially up north. And then there's still the problem of finding that garage.

Even in larger cities, the small garages can fix pretty much any car, unless they're specialized. One place I've used for the last 10 years has fixed my Peugeot 309 (sold), my Opel Omega (scrapped), Seat Toledo (scrapped) and Volvo 340... with no problems. And don't expect going into the garage of a VW dealership and getting a Volvo serviced there... But the problem with these smaller garages tends to be, they're usually a bit hard to find, in the middle of some industrial area, or some small street away from the traffic. And they can also have a fairly full book so if you're in an immediate need of service, it may be hard to find one that has time for you. Even places that advertise "express service" (tip, in Finnish "pikahuolto") have queues for more complicated jobs than changing the oil or spark plugs or something simple like that.

Gas stations generally don't have anyone with much repair skills. They're busy selling coffee and hamburgers. If you're lucky they have someone who can check tire pressures, and the exceptions to this rule are getting fewer and farther between all the time.