Refried Neurons

It all started with us trying to… Let’s be honest, save on tax and fuel price! And possibly the lungs of Londoners.

We got ourselves an EV!

As much as I would love to say it was all because we are eco-warriors, it was not. Not that I don’t care about the environment, I really do. I’m simply not fully convinced how eco-friendly EVs actually are. If you drive one in Iceland, then yes, you can say it is powered by green energy, but we don’t drive ours in Iceland. We drive it in the UK, where around 55% of electricity comes from green sources. Also, how green is green?

Then comes battery manufacturing, its lifespan and what happens after it has died… It’s not like it will magically evaporate or turn into a new battery without any impact on the environment.

Either way, we have an EV.

After three years, I finally managed to get rid of the range anxiety that was driving me mad for the first year or two. Naturally, having finally achieved this remarkable state of psychological stability, we decided to drive the bloody thing across half of Europe.

London to Poland. Via Denmark and Sweden. How hard can it be?

It all started brilliantly. Fully charged, we left London on Friday afternoon, heading for the Channel Tunnel. No traffic, yet we still arrived late for our departure (which was entirely our fault), so we needed to wait.

The French, as usual, took their time, but at least we had a seagull to watch.

Once we were off, we were driving full speed ahead (for the first time faster than 70 mph for our EV) towards the Belgian town of Mechelen.

Why Mechelen? A town most of us have never heard of?

It wasn’t for its not-so-world-famous beauty, although it was actually quite beautiful. There was a brocante, an antiques warehouse and I was on the hunt for some chandeliers and cabinet handles.

I found us a lovely hotel in the city centre that had an EV charger, which, considering we arrived with 30% battery, was supposed to be a massive time saver.

Checked in, we got into the garage, found the charger, plugged in the cable and then came…

Nothing.
Unplugged, plugged in again, tapped the card.
Nothing.
We needed an app!
OK, that’s fine. I can do that.

Desperate to charge, I installed the app, put in all the SWIFT and whatnot codes, feeling almost like I was applying for an American visa. The only question missing was, “Are you planning to engage in prostitution while charging?”
Fifteen precious minutes later, I got to the final screen and was informed that they would consider my application within the next 3–5 working days and send me a card to my home address in the UK if they thought I was a suitable candidate!

I mean, seriously?

I’m really sorry, but is it really that much cheaper to have a special app, hire people to process applications, maintain the whole system, etc., rather than just install a bloody card reader?
Do I really have to prove myself worthy of buying £20 worth of electricity?
Well, apparently so, because the street charger next to the hotel had the same system, but we needed a different app and a tag.
Great. Let’s install 10 apps for 10 different providers in every country we’ll be driving through.

Over my dead fucking body!

We gave up and decided it was time to go for dinner and worry about charging the another day.

This was a hit. We had planned on going to a Greek restaurant that had fabulous reviews, but on our way, once we’d passed what looked like a house full of troubled youth, we stumbled upon a pub that looked way more local than the Greek tavern.

Considering I’d never actually had Belgian food, we were sold.

Some time later, full of lovely stew and super strong Belgian beer, we wandered around the old town and headed back to the hotel, trying to avoid flying slippers.

The next morning, we had hotel breakfast surrounded by a Ukrainian football team and headed out to see the town.

Mechelen has a stunning cathedral and a lovely city square which, on Saturdays, turns into a massive market. It was a shame we didn’t know it was market day, as instead of having a standard hotel breakfast, we could have had oysters with champagne at 10 am, like the locals.

Not that I like oysters. I actually find them a bit disgusting, but one should do what the locals do, right?

We did try the Belgian waffles, though. There were two massive trailers selling waffles, each with the longest queue ever. In one of them, a guy was putting on a bit of a show, filling up 20-ish waffle makers one by one.

We got ourselves Liège waffles, which were, to my surprise, completely different from the waffles I’m used to. Way more crumbly.

It was also definitely chicory season. We’d had it the previous evening with our stew as a side salad and trailers were overflowing with them. Belgian endive, as some call it, is part of Belgium’s culinary heritage.

So, considering we had only one night here, I think we’d done well on the Belgian culinary list.

It was time to head to the antiques dealer, which was located on the outskirts and, to conveniently, next to a high-speed charger.

Except once we got there, we couldn’t use it. We needed a bloody app! One which I wasn’t planning to install.

Fuck that shit.

Finally, after a quicker-than-planned tour of the brocante – they didn’t have art deco staff, absolutley nothing to do with us waisting time on charging, we drove to a shopping mall on the other side of town with massive hopes of getting a charge.

There were many chargers there, and it was right next to a large motorway junction, so fingers crossed…

And hallelujah, it worked!

Lucky us, we had a spare 40 minutes to enjoy the cultural delights of a Belgian shopping mall! Action, Jysk, Lidl… All for us, with plenty of time!

Instead of wandering the narrow alleyways of an old town, I was wandering narrow aisles full of Tupperware and pillows! A travelling dream come true.

Our plan to leave Mechelen in time to arrive at our family’s place in Germany by 5 had been scrapped, but at least I learned that De’Longhi coffee machines in Belgium are better quality than in Poland. This is the sort of knowledge you can’t get from books or visiting a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Priceless!

Just a tiny bit frustrated, and hoping that the next charge would be a little more successful, we crossed the border into Germany.

It was. Charge-wise, it definitely was.

We stopped in Germany after our car had sucked out all the power in around 2.5 hours. 300-mile range – my arse!

I’d completely forgotten that Autobahn services are literally just services: parking and toilets, now also chargers.
It was Saturday, so the truck drivers weren’t driving, and as a result, the parking lot was filled with them. All the parking spaces, to the point that it took us a while to find where the chargers were.

Thank God they had a roof over them. Otherwise, I bet my life there would have been a truck parked in front, blocking access.

What a lovely spot to stop and spend 30 minutes of your life!

Café? No!
Newsstand? No!
Lovely view?
I guess if your dream is looking at trucks, then yeah!

The next stop was planned better. My memory dug out the name Autohof from the deepest, darkest parts of my brain. This time there was a petrol station with a small café to entertain us.

When we arrived, four chargers were blocked by a guy with a trailer trying to charge without detaching it, but luckily, we snatched the last free one.

After a stroll around the petrol station, buying horribly sweet chocolate that made me feel sick, and some small talk with the trailer owners, we were back on our way.

Some charging places can possibly accommodate someone with a trailer, but very, very few are drive-through. Most are reverse-back types, so if you have a trailer, you’re fucked. Or, in this case, everyone else trying to charge is.

Saying that, considering how much power our car was using just to drive at 140 km/h, I do wonder how often those trailer blokes needed to charge?

When we finally arrived at our family’s place, quite a few hours later than planned, I almost cried with happiness when I saw they had an EV charger on the driveway!

At least tomorrow we’ll start the day with a full charge!

Good morning, Germany!

We have a full battery 🙂 What a lovely day it is.

First stop – Autohof!

Yes! Not some forest with a great walk, or an old village… An Autohof! Let’s charge and have Burger King. 👑 🤢

It was a useful stop, though. We were planning to drive to Denmark via the land, long way around, but having 40 minutes to question our life choices, we’d figured out there was a ferry which would save us both driving time and battery!

It definitely wasn’t the cheaper option, but it gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs before the ferry. Also we wanted to stop at the Isle of Møn to see the cliffs 🙂

So instead of more driving and charging, we stopped in the tiny town of Timmendorfer Strand, Germany. What a brilliant idea!

It had everything we needed: a charger that worked, a lovely coastal path and a pier with a stunning sunset.

Oh, it was so nice to have a stroll knowing our battery would be full once we got back. Once fully charged, we headed for the boat and finally arrived on Møn late at night.

And hallelujah, the hotel charger worked 🙂

The hotel was run by a Dutch entrepreneurial couple. They both do leadership training, so they’d created a small rural training centre with a hotel.

We had a quick chat during our really tiny breakfast (I’ve never been served just two slices of salami and one of cheese) about their, as it turned out, Polish roots, and afterwards headed for the White Cliffs of Møn.

They were spectacular and actually quite different from the ones in the UK.

We had a two-hour walk in glorious sunshine.
Afterwards, we headed to the village of Stege to grab a takeaway coffee and a sandwich.

The Danes are lovely. When they noticed our confused faces trying to figure out the parking restrictions, they were all eager to inform us that as long as we didn’t stay longer than two hours, we were fine.

So we cheerfully headed to the coffee shop with the best reviews to grab a coffee, and on the way spotted a really good-looking sandwich bar. The coffee shop was average at best, but the sandwiches from Slagter Stig were probably the best I’ve ever had.

I honestly would go back to Møn just to grab a sandwich.
I literally devoured mine.

We were off again, this time heading for the ferry to Poland.
On our way, we drove across the Øresund Bridge, which was a jaw-dropping bit of engineering.

Once we were in Sweden, we stopped for charging, and I realised that for once we could have charged and actually spent time doing something I wanted to do – visit Swedish IKEA!
We were literally passing it in Malmö and… didn’t stop.
Ah, at least I bought some herring in a supermarket next to the motorway. 😆

In Sweden, one can see a fair bit from the motorway. At least that’s what I’m telling my disappointed self.

I did see Sweden –  from the motorway, but I did! Seen the boulders! We also have Ice Age boulders in Poland, but the sheer volume and size of the Swedish ones were staggering.
I mean, we passed one taller than a two-storey house!

We arrived at the ferry once it was dark. Unfortunately, Karlskrona town was about a 20-minute drive from the ferry, so we needed to skip it.

As we had to check in a minimum of one hour in advance, we spent a fascinating hour in a dark car queue trying to figure out what the massive concrete towers right next to the ferry terminal were.

Turns out they’re used to produce high-voltage cables. Something about using gravity to provide an even coating on the cable.
Fascinating! We even watched a video about it. It’s not like we had better things to do.

Once on board, we were pleasantly surprised by the boat. It was new and not falling apart at all!
Looked nothing like the one that sank on a similar route in the 90s. The restaurant was great, with a buffet offering lots of traditional Swedish options. Shrimps and herring!

It was just a shame that we departed in darkness and arrived in complete darkness.
The room was comfortable, but I didn’t sleep well.

Probably too much food. 😆
It’s not like anyone told me to shovel in as much as my stomach could handle, but I guess that’s what one should do at a buffet, right?

Also, wine was all-you-can-drink.

Which, according to the waiter, was simply a way to limit the number of vomiting passengers. Ahh inner ear, you lovely organ!

We spent three lovely days in Poland, charged our car, and on Thursday evening we were boarding the ferry again.

This time we arrived a bit later, as the ferry terminal was in the city centre. We’d opted for a deluxe cabin. We had a bigger window, direct access to the deck and even a coffee machine.

We did feel posher!

This night was a bit rougher. It was very windy, and the sea was a bit rougher too. Not sure if it was because I’d watched a movie a few months earlier about a Polish ferry sinking in the Baltic Sea, but I barely slept. In my head, the boat was falling apart.

Still, it was nice to have dinner on board and spend the evening watching a movie from bed.

Morning welcomed us with beautiful views of the Swedish coast, but the sky was grey and gloomy. A storm was coming.

The previous night, when passengers were boarding, I thought I’d seen an old friend amongst them, but for the love of God, I couldn’t remember her name. I concluded that shouting, “Hey you! I know you!” wasn’t really an option. Instead, while I still had reception, I searched through old photos on Facebook, found her and texted to ask if she was on a ferry to Karlskrona.

The next morning, during breakfast, it turned out it was her. What a small world! We had a lovely five-minute chat about life. Long enough to pretend we cared, but short enough not to make it awkward. Then they kicked us off the boat.

We arrived so early that pretty much everything in Karlskrona was shut. 9 am by Swedish standards seems to be the middle of the night!

Not even half the coffee shops were open. How do they get coffee on the way to work? This was brutal. Not sure how one can live like that. Still, we decided that if the charger worked, we’d have a stroll until something opened.

The charger required a special card… Fuck that.

Considering we were about 80% full, we decided to stop somewhere closer to Denmark for a charge and a short walk.

Sölvesborg!

After not sleeping well the previous night, we were both knackered, so we spent most of the morning enjoying the sunshine in a coffee shop with lovely cardamom buns.

I was a bit surprised to see women wearing full hijabs in this little town. I know around 10% of Sweden’s population is Muslim, I am not an ignorant but in the UK, you don’t really see many women wearing hijabs outside London and perhaps a few other big cities. The countryside is very, very white!

Three coffees each and two cardamom buns later, we managed to get ourselves to go for a short stroll. It was a stroll. A very short stroll indeed. It was just an hour long, but it was lovely.

We bumped into a flock of sheep which, for the first time, weren’t scared of us. Quite the contrary, one of them decided to come over and have a little sniff.

Had no idea sheep had such a good sense of smell… P being sniffed made my day!

We circled a small nature reserve called Valje, which actually provided a great example of the boulder-strewn forest and typical rocky coast.

All we needed at that moment. Ahead of us, we had a long drive to Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark. We crossed the glorious Øresund Bridge again and then Storebælt.

We hoped to stop for one more walk, but the weather decided otherwise. It was actually quite horrible, to the point that at one stage on Storebælt, we couldn’t see the sea.

After spending some more time in Danish Friday afternoon traffic, we arrived at our hotel just outside Ribe.

It was conveniently located between Ribe and the Wadden Sea.
Our hotel had what seemed to be a very popular restaurant amongst locals.
I would love to say it was a fish restaurant, but the Danes are apparently not very big on fish.
Considering they’re surrounded by water, they do seem to prefer pork. Still, we decided to risk it and had fish, and it was delicious.
Completely knackered, we headed for our super-oversized apartment.

I mean, for a two-person apartment, I could squeeze at least two apartments in there. What a waste of space.

Or perhaps I should just enjoy the fact that not everyone is trying to squeeze every penny out of every square inch.
Still, the bed was comfortable, and that’s all we needed.

The next day was supposed to be rainy too, so we weren’t sure if we’d see anything at all. But alas, the rain stopped right after breakfast.

We headed out to see the Wadden Sea, first walking on top of a dyke which was maintained and fertilised by local sheep. The tide had just started to come in, so we were lucky to see the vast expanse of tidal flats. We even had a walk along the road leading to the Isle of Mandø.

We didn’t get to the island, as the tide was about to stop us, and I was in no mood for an emergency rescue. So after getting far enough to feel like we were on a road in the middle of the sea, we quickly walked back. Much faster this time, as a massive storm cloud was closing in on us.

Our hotel, even though it had a campsite right next to it, had zero car-charging options.

I mean, people, there is a genuinely large group of EV owners who make their hotel decisions based not on reviews, price or pretty much anything else — just charger availability. So yeah, if you’re struggling for customers, just add a charger.

Simple as that!

It doesn’t have to be a fast one. It can be a bloody socket with a meter.

We finally arrived in Ribe, parked in a special tourist car park and enjoyed the moment when our car started charging, giving us two hours to slowly see the town.
Ribe is a cute old town with typical Dutch-style houses, a really nice square and a main street packed with cute shops and cafés. We stopped for brunch in one of them. Inside was very hygge, but with zero seats available, so we opted for outside and an umbrella.

Risky, as it turned out.

It started pouring the second we ordered, but at least we were under the umbrella. Our waitress was getting soaked. Considering we’d ordered the dish of the day, we hoped for fast service.

Well, it was anything but… We sat through three rounds of rain and sunshine. The Danes were making sure we took our time to enjoy the surroundings. And that our car would be charged once we got back.

The food was really nice, though.

Unfortunately, that left us very little time to wander around the town.

Still, considering the weather, I think we did quite well.

Today we needed to make up a few more miles, so after a final stroll in the rain with no umbrella (fucking geniuses), we headed for the German border. It was pouring all afternoon.

When charging time arrived, I genuinely thought I’d managed to find us some nice services with a coffee shop, etc.

Well, how wrong was I?

It was a builders’ depot just off the motorway. We spent a joyous 30 minutes wandering around Bauhaus. Some bricks, maybe, for the toilet? Or perhaps a lawnmower? At least the charger worked.

Just before we left Germany, we found a shopping mall with chargers. It had Aldi and a few other shops.

The only charger that was free was broken…

Even though a bloke next to us told us he’d tried it and didn’t think it was working, we still decided to give it a go.

Ten minutes later, we gave up, but the car next to us had just left, so we plugged into that one.

It is quite fascinating how desperate EV owners are. It wasn’t just us who tried that broken charger in desperation. When we were finishing our charging, a few other cars pulled up, and every single one of them, even though we told them it was fucked, tried to use it. It’s almost as if we all believe the other drivers are idiots and that somehow we will make it work!

At least with a full battery and having seen a German Aldi, we headed off towards Belgium. I found us a nice hotel in Zwolle, which apparently is a lovely town, so we could go for a walk in the morning.
The hotel staff assured me that the charger next to the hotel was working and that it accepted credit cards. We arrived in pouring rain. Pitch black and super cold. Excited to see the charger, we plugged in, tapped the card and…
Nothing.
After spending another five minutes trying to unplug the car, we tried again. And again. Went to the hotel to question the staff.
They were absolutely sure it worked and that we could pay with a credit card. We tried a different one around the corner. Again, there was no option to tap a credit card.

Finally, after 40 minutes of trying and getting soaked, the hotel staff gave us their token for the charger.

Ha! So it needs a special token! Blithering idiots!

We plugged in, it started working, and we went to the room.
Fuuuuuuuck!
Why, oh why, did we forget that with slow chargers, opening the car means stopping the charge? We realised it after we’d just taken a shower, crawled into bed and opened the car app.
I just wanted to see that lovely blue line increasing, so I could have a good night’s sleep.
Instead, I saw: State of Charge — Not charging.
That’s it.
P went out again in the rain, tried to plug it in again. Didn’t work.
After an hour’s fight, we gave up. So the next morning, instead of enjoying a rainy walk around Zwolle’s old town, we enjoyed a rainy walk from a charger somewhere out in town back to the hotel, where we had a slow breakfast, chatted with the chef and took all the time we needed until the car was fully charged.

We left Zwolle without seeing Zwolle.

Ahead of us, we had another four-hour drive and at least one more charge before we got to the Dunkirk ferry. Finally, we were lucky.
I found us a charger in the town of Veurne.
We didn’t have enough time to stop in Bruges, but Veurne was very convenient. A two-minute detour, with heritage old town.
We plugged in and had a nice lunch in the main square, enjoying the sunshine, some traditional cuisine and praying to God we wouldn’t get a ticket for staying plugged in for more than 30 minutes, which was the limit on the sign.

The last thing we needed was to finish our road trip with a ticket for overstaying at a charger.

With our bellies and battery full, we arrived at the ferry terminal, only to be surprised by how much the world has changed since Brexit. They searched our boot, which made me a bit uneasy, considering we were bringing some vegetables from my mum’s garden.

I wasn’t sure if this was even legal. They didn’t seem bothered by them. I guess as long as we don’t bring drugs or guns, they don’t care.

Got myself one bottle of wine, as is a must when driving back from France. I mean, it should be at least a crate, but I’m happy with a bottle.

We got back home around 9 pm, and I was really glad to park the car in our garage and plug it in.
The words of my ex-manager (back in the day, a proud owner of an EV) really resonate with me now:
“You will find yourself in such weird and unexpected places you can’t even imagine.”

European road trip with an EV — never, ever fucking again!