The holiday
I decided not to write everything about my holiday in Hungary, because it would be just too much, so I will tell it briefly. The week has passed very quickly, we had many official documents issues with the new car, and it was not sure if we could have got that by the date it was promised.
Also we have visited friends, family, which took most of our time, so we could not get to lake Balaton, just only to a smaller lake, but only for an hour bath. In the meantime, I had to repair our current "home-car", the East-German TRABANT, just before of a long trip to Mrs. Smith's brother. The water pipe burst, so it was a struggle to repair it in 35 degrees. The days passed quickly, and apart from meeting up people, we did not do any rest.
>On Thursday evening we picked up our cat, and got him ready for the trip the following day. I got in bed at 22:30 on Thurday, and woke up at 2:30 am on Friday.
1/ We picked up my Dad at 4:00am, and got on the Highway at 04:30
2/ Long driving thru Europe
3/ Hungary - Austria - Germany - Netherlands - Belgium - France
4/ Our ferry was due to depart at 21:00 on Friday
5/ Due a lot of road construction work, and speed limits on the European highways, we missed the Ferry, however we could change the ticket to get a later ferry.
6/ After driving 1600km, the trouble found us at the border. We went thru the uk passport check, but the animal declaration.
7/ The french officer has checked the cat's passport, and as there were two treatment incorrectly filled, he restricted the cat to get on the ferry. He advised us to find a french Vet, and then contact the two doctors who made the incorrect entries in the passport, and get them to correct it with sending faxes to the french vet. I can not tell how disappointed we were. He gave us a list with addresses and numbers of the Vets in Calais, and turned us back.
8/ Using the GPS we went to the first address, and in the meantime Mrs. Smith was trying to contact the vets which was very difficult considering it was already 22:30. The first address was closed, the number they stated as emergency was set to Voicemail. By that time we could get the two vets (from Prague and from Budapest) on the phone (by miracle) and they were waiting for further instructions. On the czech Vet, Mr. Jandak was a huge help for us I would like to say thanks for him this way too.
9/ I have called all of the vets in the list, but all I got were voicemails. I could not have been more disappointed.
10/ Suddenly two men were passing by, they were walking their dog. I have crossed the road and asked them to help. Luckily one of them could speak english well. HE checked the list, and called one vet which had an private clinic quite close to the place we were. Of course it was on voicemail, but what I did not understand before, the voicemail said another french number to call in case of emergency. This french guy, has written down the number for us, so I could call it up. Finally it was ringing and were answered by a vet, who spoke very good english.
11/ Half an hour later, we went to her clinic, what she opened for us, and checked the cat's papers. It turned out, that even if the doctors confirmed they mistakes it would not have been enough, as these treatments has had to be given 24-48 hours before travelling. And of course these were much older than that.
12/ So we asked the vet to give the necessary treatment and fill the documents, than we had to wait 24 hour before we could enter to the uk.
13/ We went to an IBIS hotel where they allowed pets also, so we could spend the night there.
14/ the following day on Saturday we had to leave the hotel at 12:00 am. Then we had another 12 hours for sightseeing. We went to see the coast of France, which was really beautiful.
15/ I was lucky, as I could modify the ferry ticket for Sunday morning at 00:45am, with not paying any differences, and we could enter to the UK easily, the cat papers were ok by that time.
16/ From that time another 500km driving still remained.
17/ On the whole way We drank around 16 Red Bull, 6 coffees alltogether, ate lots of chocolates, spend lots of money for petrol, but finally, after 2150km drive we arrived to Manchester at 09:00
Pictures to come soon....
