Just back from a shorth sharp trip to Germany via Tunnel, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany itself.
In Belgium the National 100 KMPH limit has reduced to 90, off motorways
In Holland the National 100 KMPH limit has reduced to 80, off motorways.
Diesel is the same price in Euros as it is in £s UK ie about 1.21. Found one place selling at E 116.9 and brimmed the tank!
Unleaded is ruinous everywhere! E1.56 in Germany and less elswhere but always more than the UK price converted at £1= E1.16
Some items very good value in supermarkets, particularly ground coffee and washing powders and liquids, brand names too! Pub type meals out a bit cheaper than UK, both food and drink. Good small town B&B E35 per night. Public smoking in pubs etc permitted.
No visible police presence of any sort and about 6 cameras in 1000 miles of M way driving.
Feel free to e mail me with queries specific to these countries if you wish to.
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>> about 6 cameras in 1000 miles of M way driving.
If this was in Germany, be careful of the cameras you can't see, hidden in the bushes. But if you have a UK reg car they can't fine you anyway
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Germany tends to put them in the central reservation next to Maut cameras for driving too close and in the restricted zones by the bridges. As you say though Bagpuss UK car will not be troubled. Belgium have put quite a few in the central reservation on the run from Brussels out to the coast.
Edit: Unmarked German Police cars are everywhere...especially at the moment.
Last edited by: gmac on Wed 6 Oct 10 at 22:37
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On a recent visit to Luxembourg I bought diesel at just over €1 (i.e., under 90p) per litre.
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Yep, Luxembourg's always been a lot cheaper, thanks to their tax regime. Worth the detour if you're travelling across that region. And whilst you're filling up the petrol stations sell cheap booze too :-)
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Certainly Luxembourg had been for me until a few weeks ago synonymous with cheap fuel and nothing else. However, we stayed a couple of days just north of Luxembourg city, which we visited, and saw a little of the surrounding countryside.
It was all most impressive. The city has a dramatic setting, with its huge ravines and fine architecture. The village we stayed in (Steinsel) is characterised by dense forest and lush pastures. We loved it.
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Are you aware, PP, that yr thread title is the same as the heading for Denis Jenkinson's monthly column in Motor Sport in the fifties and sixties?
Gave me a moment of sentimental deja vu... well done.
:o}
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AM - no I wasn't but I do remember Jenks. TT sidecar passenger and then Moss's co-driver/Navigator in the Mille Miglia. There was a man with steel round objects!
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>> There was a man with steel round objects!
Indeed. Or total nutter, to put it another way.
Had a formative influence on my own jalopy addiction, along with William Boddy, Motor Sport editor, still alive and in his nineties.
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Cheapest diesel I found in France last week was at E LeClerc -EUR 1.09. Average town price was EUR1.15 Autoroute typically EUR1.27.
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I live in Germany and super is today max 138.9 with the lowest at 132.9 I don't know where the 156 comes from unless its some super duper rocket fuel.Don't forget here in Germany we pay a lot less tax on petrol engines because they are much cleaner, diesel car tax makes owning a diesel carvery prohibitive unless you meggag mileage.
A slightly different note the head of VW was put on the spot after tests by the TUV and ADAC showed the very latest blue motion stop start golf was no more economical round town than the very first Golf petrol thats progress.
Last edited by: Collos on Thu 7 Oct 10 at 20:06
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I didn't think 247€ road tax & 1.159€ a litre was too bad for diesel and it's got a green umweltplakette which should be good for a few years.
I wonder how economical the original Golf would be if it had to tow another one around behind it. Original Golf was what ? 7 or 800kgs a new one must be 13 or 1400.
Last edited by: gmac on Thu 7 Oct 10 at 20:12
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>> A slightly different note the head of VW was put on the spot after tests
>> by the TUV and ADAC showed the very latest blue motion stop start golf was
>> no more economical round town than the very first Golf petrol thats progress.
The Golf Mk1 weighed around 780kg, the Golf Mk6 around 1,300kg. The only thing more astonishing than the fuel economy of the 55bhp Golf Mk1 (non turbo) Diesel was the noise level. A mate of mine had one in the early 80s and the engine sounded, as Car Magazine so eloquently put it at the time, like skeletons bonking in a biscuit tin.
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The E1.56 unleaded was in a very small village, just across the border from Venlo. It was what I saw but I accept that it was probably not representative of prices overall.
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We also paid EUR 1.09. in Reims last week and at a very rural garage on the French/Swiss border crossing over to Neachatel. We noticed that fuel was CHf 1.60 in Switzerland but didn't need any.
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€247 how much would it be in the UK probable nothing while my neighbours petrol ford is tax free for two years.When you use them for business a diesel is essential put like us old pensioners a petrol is no problem.I have a BMW 520 and I think I fill it up about once every 3 months whereas my son travels to Berlin from Dresden 3 times a week and uses a loaded BMW coupe petrol Alpina it uses more in petrol than my pension.Germany fuel can chanch 10cents a day up and down unlike the UK, it always goes up at the start of school holidays and then goes down when they have ended one good thing is the autobahn services are not allowed to profiteer on cost unlike the UK but like everywhere else in europe the trend is upwards and I don't see it changing.
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It wouldn't be free in the UK the emissions are around the 150g/km mark.
The car's not used for business it's a family bus, it was the lowest emission 7 seater available at the time.
I know what you mean about fuel prices my wife usually fills up with the pensioners Tuesday lunchtime as it drops Tuesday morning in the town where we live after everyone has filled up on Monday heading back to work.
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Continental Notes - Bagpuss
