Hi we did this trip last August and planning to do it again this August. Travelled with 2 girls (10 and 13 years) went into Turkey via Hungary, Roumania and Bulgaria. Went home via Greece (car ferry to Italy) and through Austria into Germany and back again via the Channel Tunnel.
The roads through southern Europe are in a somewhat state of disrepair. The roads through Romania were the worst with the pot holes being the size of dustbin lids!
The drive through Romania was the worst day, due to the roadworks where they are updating the roads. The road along the gorge along side the Danube was under serious re-construction with stop and go boards. All the locals were jumping the stop boards and it became a bottle neck! It took us 8 hours that day to just travel 200 miles.
Going home via Greece we prebooked our car ferry from Igominitsa to Brindisi (even though our friends did say just turn up). In hindsight we should have just turned up. The roads through Greece were good almost motorway all the way with some fantastic tunnels. We got to the ferry port in good time but then had to wait almost 16 hours to board the booked ferry. If we had just turned up then we could have jumped on the next one!
Italy motorways are very expensive, burned as much diesel as we did toll fees!
Day 1 - Waterlooville - Ravensburg 688 miles (via euro tunnel)
Day 2 - Ravensburg - into Austria, (90 miles) purchased a 10 day vignette (road tax), crossed into Hungary 290 miles
Stayed overnight southern most town Szeged.
Day 3 - up very early to do Romania in a one hit. (advised to do this by Bulgarian friends) Crossed over at Calafat 258 miles from the hotel. 1453 miles from Hampshire so far.
Arrived at Sofia, Bulgaria worn out. 417 miles on the day,
Day 4 - left Sofia and crossed into our beloved Turkey at lunchtime so far 1804 miles from home. 192 on the day.
Crossed at Cannakale 341 miles on the day. 23 lira to cross.
Over night at Ayvalik 2067 miles from Hampshire. 454 miles on the day.
Day 5 arrived at Ciftlik after 46 driving hours total miles from home 2355.
The journey down took 4 and a half days. We know it can be done in less time but as I say we travelled with our daughters and always made sure that we had good hotels to stay in overnight and 4 good stops on the day to refresh our legs. We never drove in the dark.
What a feeling it was though when we crossed into Turkey.
Travelling home
Ciftlik to Andro (spilt a cup tea and can't read the town name) was just over the Greek border. Spent a night in hotel lovely walk along the front.
Arrived Igominitsa at 3pm had to wait till 7am following day for ferry - could have paid more to get on earlier ferry - decided not to and spent the day in the town and then sleeping!
Car ferry to Brindisi (via Corfu) was lovely. Had pre booked aircraft type seats. Hardly used them, spent the day on deck watching the sea and the dolphins.
Now I stopped keeping a diary as I took ill and slept for 48 hrs. The journey home was a total of 5 days including the car ferry and the delay waiting for it.
But we enjoyed it so much we are doing it again this August - even our girls are up for it - so it can't be that bad.
We have a good size car and they were comfortable in the back.
We froze some bottled water and each day as it defrosted we added orange to it for fluids.
Few moments when we fell out with each other - but overall its a good experience.
This time we will avoid Romania, but still do a similar route.
We did 5850 miles in total, this did included driving up into Seki and doing several other long days whilst we had the use of the car.
The boot space is already full - its a good time to bring out heavy objects and items for the Animal Aid and Childrens Charities.
Good Luck - if we are doing it again - it can't be that bad.
I have the names and numbers of all the hotels we stayed at in the diary - I can post them if anyone wants them.
We had a rough idea of where we wanted to get to each night and at 5pm if we had not reached our target made a point of coming off the motorways and finding a bed.