Snowy drive across the Europe

Wednesday, 13th of December 2023 [105]

I swear to God, I was naively hoping that as soon as I arrive at my parents place in Poland, miraculously my productivity will suddenly increase and creative juices will flow freely. That’s how it usually is when I come home for my holidays. After all, I have no work, all my needs are taken care of by my parents and apart from visits at the dentist, doctors and various beauticians I have days all to myself while I’m here and no worries in the world.

This visit seems very different. It started from overly long, 24h journey here. I left home on Thursday at 10pm, giving myself plenty of time to arrive at the port for 1am, ready for 2am ferry. My satnav estimated I will arrive in Toruń after 7pm. Including srops I should be there for 8pm max, making it 18-19h journey including the sail. Usually the drive takes me much less time for a few reasons. Firsty I have a 2h nap while I’m on the ferry and then drive through the Europe with just a few stops for fuelling and toilet, but no sleeping.

I arrived at the Dover port in good time before the sail time. In fact I would be there much too early, which I didn’t fancy, as with lots of time to spare it’s more probablity to be taken for a search by the customs. Not that I’m smuggling anything 😉 but it’s just extra hussle, so I took my time at the fuel station which I usually visit just before crossing to Europe. I purchased travelling kit and had some hiccups trying to attach the stickers to my car lights, but the cashier exchange the faulty ones without any issues and I was glad that I attempted sticking them on while still at BP station.

The passport check was taking much longer than usual, despite arriving in the middle of the night. Not sure why, maybe the cars in front of me had some unclear status or maybe there were more of them in each car, because when it was my turn it only took a few seconds, as usual. I said I was travelling home for Christmas and coming back just before NYE and that was it. Nice and easy.

Once at the port I played with the stickers again and had my sandwich and before I knew it we were allowed on the ferry. Unusually I fell asleep almost imediately. I slept throughout the 2h of sailing and someone had to wake me up once we arrived - I must have slept very deeply.

It was still dark when we arrived in France, but usually after 2h of sleep on the ferry I’m good enough to drive, but this time I felt so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. Sure, I could make an exception for this long drive and have a coffee, but everything was already closed when I woke up and I had a few sips of my pre-workout, but the effect was pretty much zero.

I drive for just over an hour, passed France and entered Belgium and around 7am I could not keep my eyes open any longer and decided that rush hour would be busy anyway, so it won’t hurt if I stop and have a little nap. I turned my heating on max and my seat warmers too as temperatures dropped below 0 already and sleeping in the cold would not be nice 😉

It was still dark and I wasn’t super comfortable, but I was warm and covered with my jacket and set the alarm for an hour and 1.5h later and drifted off to sleep pretty much straight away. I heard the alarms, but I turned them off and when I finally woke up, as I was getting cold it was completely light outside and… it was 3 hours later.

I couldn’t belive I slept for this long. Usually I’m ok driving without any extra naps, but like my auntie says it’s ‘pesel’, meaning I’m getting older. Maybe this or maybe my general low mood and fatigue is taking the toll on me. It seems to have an effect on my memory too. Head feels a bit foggy.

Belgium was still a bit jammed around Anwerp, but once I passed it, the rest of my journey through Begium was smooth and I entered Germany. What I love about Germany is that you can drive as much as you want on the motorways. Usually I would take an advantage of this to cut some time off my journey, but not this time.

I had no winter or even multi seasonal tyres fitted in my car and I knew I need to be reasonable if I wanted to arrive to Poland in one piece. The motorway were pretty good, not much snow, but the weather was pretty foggy and it was on and off raining. I had to be sensible and good side of it was that I burned much less fuel during this journey.

At some point traffic thickened a lot and both of my satnavs (built in car and in my phone) suggested taking a side road to avoid being stuck for too long.

I enjoyed a little detour to be honest, but that when I realised the winter really arrived here in full blast.

There was a lot of snow laying around and the smaller roads were not as well de-snowed as the little town roads.

I was driving slow and half stuck in smaller traffic too, so I could take a few pictures of the surroundings though. The colours and variety of buildings in main Europe is what usually strikes me as soon as I get here. In England most houses are made of bricks and there are rows and rows of almost identically looking houses. Here all houses are different shapes and some in cheerful colours.

As I approached the end of traffic I saw a lonely snowman on otherwise clear from snow field. That brought a smile to my face. In England there is rarely enough snow to ever make a snowman.

As I arrived back to the motorway there was still a bit of traffic, but soon enough I was able to see what caused the congestion.

I saw blue emergency light from far away. Fire brigade, police and tons of other emergency cars were on the other side of the road. It seems like the accident happened on the other side of the road, but there was only a skeleton left of one of the cars, so I’m assuming it must have caught the fire. Looking at the amount of cars/emergency services involved in clearing the accident it must have been very, very serious.

I guess seeing this was my warning sign. I love driving fast, but above all I wanted to arrive at my destination safely. My destination was another reason why this journey was much longer. Usually I’d stop by the German border and spend a day or two at my auntie’s or nan’s place and then drive for another 3h to my parents.

This time my auntie or uncle were not home. They were visiting my cousin in Toruń and that’s where my uncle Zygmunt had a heart attack and ended up in coma in the hospital there. I wrote about this and my uncle here so I won’t be repeating myself, but seeing that my uncle’s condition is extremely serious I decided to add a few 100 kilometers to my journey, so I can visit him and the rest of Sikora’s family.

It was almost 8pm when I finally crossed the Polish border. I didn’t need anymore fuel, but I stopped at the fuel station to use toilets and to ask about the tolls on the motorway. The mood at the station felt festive. There were tons of teenagers and crowds and laughter were filling the station. Kids were probably on some school trip or something. There were so many of them and the queues to toilets were horrendous, but the festive mood was very infectious.

I changed the radio to a Polish station and the remaining 3 hours of my trip went really smooth. I arrive at my cousin’s place after 11pm, on Friday night, which made my journey just over 24h (there is one hour time difference between UK and this part of Europe). The snow was covering the streets on Toruń and I had to park my car very carefully as my steering wheel was turning very fast on the slippery road.

I managed to find the last parking space right in front of my cousins block and that was the end of this very long journey. Despite the weather conditions and traffic, I arrived safely in one piece to Toruń. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll write some more about my bitter sweet time there. Now I’m off for a walk with my dad.