Day 10: Belgrad -> Graz

Today we left Belgrade - a really young and energizing city - Belgrade you will see me again, you are simply wonderful!

Afterwards 3 pictures from the Holiday Inn Belgrade - were we charged the car as well. They are offering 3 EV parking lots including 2 times 11kw and one 22kw red socket ( 3phase 16 or 32 amps).

Since Ivo and Toni are staying in Jajce for some more days abroad, a short drive to the border of Bosnia was done :)

Originally we thought about driving to Banja Luka to the Tesla Hotel and charge there before driving back but since of the long border waiting times we had before, we said good by on the border to Bosnia before I drove on to Zagreb alone in one row.

 The idea was to charge at Ikea Zagreb again but ... closed :/ Although opening 7 days a week, it is closed on a holiday ;) Happily with 6% left in the batteries I drove on to the City Center One shopping mall, which was closed as well but I was able to activate the charging via the Plugsurfing app on my cellphone :D - two 22kwh chargers :)

The charging lots are easy to find for someone new, there are nearly everywhere arrows showing the way :D Thank you City Center One - Team :)

After charging to 40% I drove on to the Croatian -> Slovenian border. To prevent long traffic jams again, I drove via Varazdin and Zavrc to Slovenia :) The hint from Ivo was awesome - instead of traffic jams in front of the border there I had only 2 cars waiting :D I did the border crossing within 2 minutes :D

And finally again, after nearly 3.000 km of slow charging we reached the SuperCharger in Maribor :D

11 Minutes later and with 33% in the batteries we drove on to Graz our final destination :D

Half an hour later we reached Graz :) First thing to do - washing the car in a passive way :)

and then finally with 6% left in the batteries charging again in Graz:

Thank you all for this wonderful trip :D See you soon somewhere on the road!

And stay tuned - in 3 weeks we go off for our Great Britain and Ireland road-trip :D

Have a good time everyone :)
Siegfried

Day 9: Thessaloniki -> Sofia -> Belgrad

Thessaloniki is like Athens a really wonderful city. Although we had only a very short stop here again, we really enjoyed it a lot.

Since we had 700+km to go for today, we started quite early and we made very good progress till the Greece -> Bulgarian border. The crossing itself was really well organized and fast.

This time we had success with the DC charger close to the border to Greece, which is located within the private property ground of an Peugot dealer :D

Since we were able to quickcharge the car several times via ChaDeMo we moved quite quick through Bulgaria - meaning we were able to drive the allowed 140km/h on Bulgarian highways :D

Next stop was 60km later to charge a little bit again :)

In Sofia itself we decided to charge at eldrive again - 50kw stations - (the charge and drive chip from the Skandinavian countries is needed) to have no waiting times because of this local company which is charging all their electric cars at Lidl - the only free to use 50kw station in town. There are a lot other stations as well but only 22kw as far as we know. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)

After 1,5hours we were finally ready to start the last part of our journey for today - Belgrad :D

The crossing of the border took us nearly 3 hours :/ but we made it into Serbia without any furhter troubles :)

A funny thing to know: Tesla's Internet is not working in Serbia. We recognized this already on the way down and it was the same on the way back. We tried as well a reboot of the center console but without success. So only FM radio and the offline navigation.

In the end we made it with 0% / 0km to the Holiday Inn Belgrad - what a ride in the end ;) And directly when we entered the underground carpark a power failure within the whole area happened ;) One hour later everything was fine again and the car is charging with 11kw since :D

Best whishes from Belgrad - I really love this energizing city!!
Siegfried

Day 8: Tolo -> Athens -> Thessaloniki

Tolo: After some relaxing days in Tolo we've started today with our way back. Based on the charging problems in Tolo itself, we traveled first to Athens with only 40% left and reached Polis Park Rizarri in Athens successfully with 10% left :)

 

Initially we used the DC charger to rise the battery up to 40% before we switched to the AC charger. The idea was to let the car perfectly charge with 17kw while we were visiting the Acropolis and the surrounding :)

Quite late, at around 16:00 we traveled on Thessaloniki. By mistake we missed a junction and we had therefore a special hypermiling drive - initially with 85km/h and at the end with 70km/h.

But all in all we did it, we reached Thessaloniki with 2% left in the batteries :D
A Model S 100D would have helped a lot - since the real usable battery is ~14kw/h bigger.

Based on the charging difficulties we've decided to travel home directly and to skip Meteora until next year when there are more chargers available.

The goal for tomorrow: Reaching Belgrad again :)

Thank you for reading and all the best,
Siegfried

Day 4 - 7: Impressions from Tolo and surroundings

Day 4: A short visit of Akrokorinth was necessary - although multiple times seen - still a wonderful place to walk arround. Afterwards some impressions :)

After this journey only relaxation on,in and by the sea of Tolo took place :D

Day 6: Visit of Epidauros and driving to Athens

What a day... Since charging via the different hotels didn't work out at all for me, I had to drive back to Athens for charging the car :/ Normally I stay at the Meraki Hotel in Tolo, where charging is easy and no stress at all, but in August where all Hotels are nearly completely booked you have to switch each day. So one decision for sure: Next holidays in Greece before July or after August but not in the main season again ;)

Afterwards some impressions from Epidauros:

As sad before, since charging is/was quite difficult here in Tolo I decided to drive back to Athens to charge the car completely. More or less it worked out that way although I had some troubles with the AC and DC chargers ;) the ChaDeMo charger slowes down after ~20min to ~8KW and you have to stop to let it cool down or simply wait and pay for the time as well since the plug becomes too hot and the AC charger did not accept my charging card initially - no more money on my prepaid card - so my fault ;) The problem with the DC charger is in my opinion only based on the very high temperatures within the Polis Park garage and not the fault of the charger itself. Or maybe it is only a Tesla problem?

But I had a really nice talk with Dimitris from Fortisis (the only local and only private financed charging company). The are currently planning to install DC chargers next to all Greece highways until next summer (2018) :D and AC chargers as well all over Greece :D

Very good news :D

Thank you Dimitris for your time, the very nice and good talk we had and your support!

Until tomorrow more sun and the sea is on...

Have a nice and good time everyone :)