Every summer, there’s a gathering of gearheads at the famous Nürburgring in Germany. Well, obviously there are gearheads there every day that the ‘Ring is open, but I’m referring to the FinalGear Ringmeet, a yearly thing where a bunch of friends drive to the track and have hilarious breakdowns on the way. I’ve been there a few times, and last year was the first occasion where I’d attempt to drive there in my own car. Naturally, I would take the Peugeot, as it was the best suited car for the trip: I had the thought in mind, that were I to break down, I’d have to unscrew the plates and fly home. After all, I would only stand to lose all of 350 euros.
The directions to the Ring from Finland are pretty easy. Go to the port where ferries to Germany leave, spend a couple days in the ferry, get to Travemünde, get to the Autobahn that goes south, take the exit where it says Nürburgring. Or something like that. We just decided to visit Romania on the way.


We got to the port in Katajanokka, Helsinki on the first day of August, 2014. We would board the ferry that would take us to Tallinn, and head to Poland from there, via Latvia and Lithuania. It would take driving through Poland to get to the Tatra Mountains, then we would cross Slovakia and Hungary, and then enter Romania. A few days would be spent there, driving around the mountain roads, and then we’d head to the Croatian coast via Serbia. From Croatia, we would head north, via Italy and Austria, to finally get to the Nürburgring. Endless days of driving ahead, in a really, really cheap car. I had no idea how I’d end up, since I was driving a car most people I knew wouldn’t like to take grocery shopping.
Well, the previous day I had been driving the 205 south to Helsinki. On a couple occasions, a really jarring, front-end-shaking noise had reared itself from the front. I had never heard it before, mainly because I hadn’t done 500-km long drives with the 205 that often, but it went away after stopping and wondering what the hell was going on. At this point, I must mention I had accumulated some 3000 km with the 205 in the previous year – mostly driving round town and visiting Helsinki once. But since I didn’t know what the noise was and since it went away by itself, I continued. Besides, I had booked accommodation…

The other vehicle on the drive was a yellow Citroën DS3, belonging to another Finalgearhead. It was sort of weird to have a nearly-new French car there along with one of the least valued, in a monetary sense.

It has to be said, Latvian and Lithuanian roads for us consisted mainly of driving straight in sweltering heat. Obviously I had no such thing as air conditioning, so having the Weird Front End Noise From Hell appear every 500 km was a good reason to pull over to buy some more water. Of course, we stopped a couple times in between, but pulling over to a cool service station for a coffee and two litres of water meant the noise didn’t really bother me at all. Best I could do would be to check the nuts, look at the engine, and head south again.
We stopped for the night at Gawrych Ruda in northern Poland. The roads had changed a little, there were hills and corners, and the smallish guesthouse by a lake was a nice spot to stay. Dinner was inexpensive and I really deserved that pint of local beer I finally received.


Soundtrack: Peugeot TU engine at 4000 rpm. BAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa

The next day, we crossed through Poland, driving by Warsaw, Czestochowa, Katowice and Krakow, ending up in Zakopane. I got flashed by a traffic camera, but to this day I haven’t received a ticket. I wouldn’t really mind getting such a memento, if they accompanied it with a photo. But the above photo with another Antti and a Mikko will happily suffice. After the photo opportunity, we found our guesthouse location and enormous pizzas soon after.

It was incredible to have made it this far in just a couple of days. That morning, we had a simple breakfast fashioned from the supplies bought near Czestochowa, and started towards Slovakia.

The Tatra mountains were some of the most magnificent ones I had visited so far. I guffawed in the radio I was carrying and messaged my dad from behind the wheel. Suffice to say, he was impressed how far me and the car had managed to get.

In a supermarket parking lot in Poprad, Slovakia, we met Ingo with his white Suzuki Swift convertible. You’ve probably seen it here earlier, as the guys are trying to GTI-ize it.


We passed through little Slovakian villages, with people selling bucketfuls of berries along the roadsides. The villages were poor, as is the case in this end of Slovakia, but it’s absolutely beautiful there. We didn’t stop too often, except for to look at the map and apply more sunscreen, but I wouldn’t mind spending more time there again.


Hungary was a touch more colourful than Slovakia, somehow. Suzuki Swifts were really commonplace, as they are made there. Somehow, our drop-top Suzuki seemed at home around the Hungarian roads.
The next stop for us after refueling in Debrecen would be to cross over to Romania. For me, it felt like driving to Mordor.