Why on earth would you want to drive the extra 100 klicks to Rostock, instead of Travemünde? I takes 9 hours to get to Malmö from Travemünde on the Finnlines ferries, whih means you’ll get a good sleep in and a legal break, instead of the 6-7 hours on the ferries that go to Trelleborg. Also an hour less to drive from Malmö to Stockholm.
Plus don’t forget, both Rostock and Travemünde have tax-free shops that offer afaik the cheapest alcohol this side of the former iron curtain as well as much of EE.
Belgium doesn’t have a vignette anymore, so you need to get yourself a box. Eurovignette for NL and S can be bought online with a fuel or credit card. If entering Germany without an OBU, be careful to find out where you can attain the ticket before enetering Germany, as many border crossings don’t have a machine but the toll part begins right at the border.
Thank you very much for the advice - much appreciated. I think I now understand the toll procedures and as for the ferry from Travemunde, I wasn’t aware of it! If anyone knows of a better and cheaper route to north Germany I’m all ears.
Thanks
The optimal route used to be Antwerp - Utrecht - Zwolle - Meppen - Haselünne - Cloppenburg, with plenty of free road but not a detour. Haven’t driven in western Europe since 2012 though, as I’ve heard they’ve started charging for some nationals as well. The route to definitely avoid is the Essen area.
Did a similar run myself in September, but was coming from south of Lille, but kipped in Ghent then went Antwerp-Eindhoven-Arnhem-Appeldoorn- then crossed to Germany Osnabrook-Bremen-Hamburg then up to Puttgarden, stopped the night about 30 mins short of ferry there’s a rest area, ferry over to Rodby, Denmark, up to Copenhagen, under/over the bridge at malmo E6 north then E4 to Stockholm up to Mantorp (handy supermarket with lorry parking but cant stay the night - free lorry park over the road.) then I went up and across to Nynashamn, but for Stockholm just keep going up!
I’m probably going to sound stupid here, why not just ship into Gothenberg on the way out?
We run into Sweden, though destination is nearer hutpik than Stockholm, And would never consider going via either Denmark or Germany. Am I missing a trick?
That’s a good question.
Just going to try it both ways for future reference. Some people have advised driving up through Germany and others via Immingham - Gothenburg. Thanks for all the advice - much appreciated. I’ll let you know how it goes.
It all comes down to money of course and who pays the bill. A subby who gets paid per miles driven would certainly object to sitting on the ferry for two days earning nothing. A friend of mine had a load from Sweden to Pamplona once and had to fight hard not to be put on the ferry from Gothenburg to Bilbao
I can work my rates to cover miles driven or ferry cost + wages cost. I tend to take the less kms on the vehicle option, people are often surprised by our relatively low mileage given that we do euro, but we do seem to spend a lot of time on ferries!
Further to my original post, the trip to Sweden has now been completed. Unfortunately I didn’t end up going there myself as there was insufficient removal work for my staff to do back home whilst I was away, so two of my experienced drivers stepped in at the last minute to take my place.
I eventually decided that the best route (and thank you so much for all the advice on here - it certainly helped with the planning) was to drive from Salisbury to Immingham and catch the ferry direct to Gothenburg. The truck set off at 2.00 p.m. on Monday 8 January and they caught the 3.00 a.m. Tuesday sailing. This is a freight boat and my two drivers were not enthused with the experience. The cabins were good and they had one each but there was little to do and the food wasn’t great. There were three trucks on board from EM Rogers and Kentvale Transport from Northampton transporting cars to Sweden and a couple of other accompanied vehicles but it was mostly trailers. The ship can only carry 12 passengers.
They arrived In Gothenburg at about 8.00 a.m. in the morning and then drove North-East for about 350 miles to a place north of Stockholm called Gavle. There was a fair amount of snow around but the roads were mainly clear. The removal was unloaded on Thursday and they then travelled south towards Stockholm to a place called Enkoping to collect a removal the following day to return to the New Forest.
I had booked the Gothenburg - Immingham ferry for 7.00 p.m. Saturday but the lads were loaded by 2.00 p.m. Friday and didn’t fancy waiting around and then spending another day and a bit on the “prison” boat as one of them called it.
Thanks to Milodon who posted on this thread, I booked a ferry back for them from Malmo to Travemunde with Finnlines who couldn’t have been more helpful. I didn’t know of this route before. They have even repaid the overpayment of the VAT which they charged in error as I had already given them my VAT number. The ferry left at 9.00 p.m. and they just made it with a few minutes to spare. The lads were highly impressed with the ferry - they gave it a 5 star rating compared to the 0 stars for the DFDS one.
They had a 9 hour luxury cruise and arrived in Northern Germany early Saturday morning and then drove all day to Belgium. They had no trouble with the German toll machine and I had purchased the Vignette on-line for Sweden and Holland before they left but they called into 3 service stations in Belgium and couldn’t get hold of one box so gave up and as far as I am aware we paid nothing in Belgium!
They caught the ferry from Calais back to Dover and got back to Salisbury Sunday afternoon.
All in all the trip went well and they are keen to go again.
Thank you to everyone on here who gave advice regarding routes, tolls, weather, ferries, etc. It was much appreciated.
We are irregular regulars on the Imm-Got route, along with Esbjerg and Cuxhaven, and the lads have all said that since they took the Baltic cooks off and replaced them with some Latvian/Estonian/whatever, the food has been dire.
Guess your lot aren’t going to come and work for me unless I change my routings,
Hi Albion - on a purely cost basis I think it works out pretty evenly. Personally I’d rather sit on a boat for a day rather than drive but that’s because I’m getting old.
Going over, the Immingham ferry for the truck and two drivers was about £1000.00. Returning home, The Finnlines ferry from Malmo was about £400.00 and the Dover ferry about £130.00. Tolls and Vignettes were about £80.00 and the additional driving coming back via Germany was in the region of 500 miles, at 80p per mile running costs equals £400.00. The men get paid sitting on the ferry so all in all costwise very similar.
I think they’re happy working down here and going to France with Brittany Ferries twice a month although another trip with Finnlines couldn’t come soon enough. Don’t think they’ll be rushing for a job with you if you keep using DFDS !!
If we are loaded to get to Europe we have to use Cuxhaven or Esbjerg for the explosives limits, so it’s unlikely to be a routing unless they are empty, but it’s good to have it there as an option.
What an interesting, and informative, thread. And a very good follow up too.
I once quoted for the Polish/Russian border (Bialystock) to Stockholm and Sheffield and I think I routed myself via Rostock and Malmo, then Lubeck and Dover/Folkestone on the Sheffield leg. Followed by my usual Newhaven, Dieppe home.
It wasn’t accepted, but that may have had something to do with my costings always being from and back to SW France, rather than ferry choices.
Looking at it again just now, perhaps I should have gone due north to Estonia to get to Stockholm.
Actually taking the cruise ferry from Riga will get you to Stockholm from Bialystok with only 500km of driving plus overnightning on a much better ship, than Finnlink mentioned here in praise
milodon:
Actually taking the cruise ferry from Riga will get you to Stockholm from Bialystok with only 500km of driving plus overnightning on a much better ship, than Finnlink mentioned here in praise
■■■■, they still wouldn’t have worn the cost though.
Moonraker, I’m glad you posted the trip summary and the discussion that then follows it.
It’s great but very rare on here to hear what the final answer was to these type of queries both to learn something and satisfy the curiosity caused by the original query.
milodon:
Actually taking the cruise ferry from Riga will get you to Stockholm from Bialystok with only 500km of driving plus overnightning on a much better ship, than Finnlink mentioned here in praise
Cruise ferry More like drink as much as you can ferry. Good old memories from school trips
