Touring Europe in a diesel

[Trekker12]

Just trying to be certain what we can and can’t do with our Bongo. We might book a late ferry this summer and go exploring as we haven’t been to Europe for five years and didn’t have a van then. We don’t want to plan anything specific but perhaps head in a general direction and see where we end up. We live half an hour from Harwich so Holland seems a good start.

As far as I can tell we are fine staying away from most large cities. Driving in towns is not my idea of fun and if we want to see somewhere we have bikes for getting around. Most of Europe on that basis seems accessible.

Then there seems to be France with its crit air certificate which I don’t think I can get for our 96 diesel. A friend of mine with older VWs won’t go to France at all now because he is afraid they will be stuck in a zone randomly introduced in high season anywhere across the country. Apparently they can do that but how often and how likely is it?

I see lots of posts on here and Facebook of people going abroad with no concerns so I thought I’d ask what you all do, or am I worrying about nothing?

Thanks, sorry if it’s a stupid series of questions.

[Bob]

Interesting points.

Hopefully someone will have some thoughts.

[Muzorewa]

I don't know the current rules on low-emission-zones but steering clear of city centres is a good ploy anyway. A lot of parking is height-restricted so when we went in 2014 in Bongy, we parked outside the likes of Marseilles, Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Seville, Lisbon etc and just got the train or tram into the centre. Plus their public transport is ever-so-slightly better than ours