Schengen Implementation in Bulgaria and Romania

[werdnanostaw]

We are going to Europe for 4 months in 2 weeks time. We are going to lease a Renault for the whole time.

As Australians we can only stay in the Schengen Area (the European passport free travel zone) for 90 days in 180 days. As we have the car for 122 days we have to leave Schengen for 32 days. The countries outside Schengen where the car is insured are the former Yugoslav republics, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania as well as UK and Ireland.

Schengen Area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For Bulgaria and Romania it says:

Prospective implementation date: March 2012 for air and sea borders / July 2012 for land borders

I knew about the latter date but not the former. We will be using a land border but I wonder if they're still outside Schengen for our purposes after March 2012.

Does anyone know or know who I could contact to find out, if the time we spend in Bulgaria and Romania between March and July 2012 will count as time outside Schengen?

I have posted a longer version of this question on another website:

Laptop GPS World

I have included a copy below. You may wish read it to see more detail of our trip plans and how to create POI (points of interest) files for a satnav system.

__________________
Andrew Watson
Perth, Western Australia

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We are leaving for 4 months in Europe in 2 weeks time. We will fly to Paris and pick up a leased Renault Clio Estate (station wagon) and head south.

We are going to spend a lot of time in Spain and Portugal. Then we will drive along the Riviera in France and down the east coast of Italy. We will take the ferry from Brindisi on the heel of the Italian boot to Igoumenitsa in Greece and drive around the Greek coast to Turkey. We will visit the interior of Turkey, especially Ankara, which we didn't get to see much of 2 years ago when we followed the Med and Black Sea coasts. We will return to Paris via Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

If Greece gets "difficult" we could travel down the Dalmatian coast in former Yugoslavia. We did that last year but it wouldn't be too much of a hardship to do it again. Then we would go into Bulgaria and cross directly to Turkey.

The reason for the west/east split is because as Australians (ditto Americans and Canadians I believe) we can only stay in the Schengen Area (the European passport free travel zone) for 90 days in 180 days. As we have the car for 122 days we have to leave Schengen for 32 days. The countries outside Schengen where the car is insured are the former Yugoslav republics, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania as well as UK and Ireland.

Schengen Area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hmm. I have just read the above website and for Bulgaria and Romania it says:

Prospective implementation date: March 2012 for air and sea borders / July 2012 for land borders

I knew about the latter date but not the former. We will be using a land border but I wonder if they're still outside Schengen for our purposes after March 2012?

Maybe we'll go to the UK, especially northern Scotland, for a month!

Next year we'll have to get a Peugeot as they can be taken to a lot more countries outside Schengen including Morocco and Russia:

Peugeot OpenEurope Locations - globalCARS

If you're interested in getting a car in Europe you'll be able to find the equivalent sites for your country to the ones I've listed below. Just search for europe lease renault or peugeot.

Where You Can Drive

Peugeot Open Europe - Tax Free Car Leasing in Europe - globalCARS

The reason I love leasing cars in Europe is because they are unlimited km, fully insured with no excess and no exclusions for overhead, underbody and glass damage and because they are tax free they are very inexpensive. Ours will cost about AUD35/day.

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I haven't been able to find POI files for Spain and Portugal so I have created my own.

I searched for beautiful villages, churches, cathedrals, scenic drives, lookouts, panoramas and so on.

I copy and pasted any interesting items into Excel using Edit , paste spEcial, Text to only insert unformatted text.

Sometimes they were in point form that didn't require too much processing. When they were sentences I extracted the place name, province (if avail) and description into separate cells.

I concatenated the place name (column A) and province (column B) into a single cell using:

=A1&", "&B1

I copy and pasted the results into the following web site to get the lat/lons:

Batch Conversions of Address to Latitude/Longitude in One Step (Forward Geocoding)

I copy and pasted the lat/lons back into Excel (into column D) and then concatenated them with the location, province and description (column C).

=D1&", "&""""&"[BV] "&A1&", "&B1&""""&", "&""""&C1&""""

The real trick is to know that you have to use 4 quotes to get a single quote.

This gives:

12.34,56.78, "[BV] Location, Province", "Description"

where:

BV = Beautiful Village
BCh = Beautiful Church or cathedral
BCs = Beautiful Castle
SD = Scenic Drive
PL = Panorama or Lookout

I copy and pasted this column into Notepad and saved as a .CSV file.

Then in Microsoft AutoRoute I used Data, import data wizard to create POIs with Location and Province on the header of the info bubble and the Description in the body.

When I am planning my route for each day I would like to be able to see all the info bubbles so I can decide whether a place is worth detouring to, to visit.

My question, is it possible to turn on, and off, all info bubbles in a selected area or if that isn't possible, all info bubbles in a dataset?

I just got a "surprise" when I clicked Open on the Data set properties dialog box; it opened the original .CSV file.

If anyone would like a copy of the POI files I have created give me your email address via a personal message and I will send them to you.
__________________
Andrew Watson
Perth, Western Australia

 

[werdnanostaw]

One of the answers I expect is contact the embassy/consulate of Bulgaria and Romania.

I will try this but in the past I have had little luck getting info from embassies.

I must say that when we were in London a few years ago we visited the tourist info offices of Bulgaria and Romania and they were fantastic. They deluged us with brochures and maps.

Maybe I could phone those offices in London.

I can't remember which office it was (maybe Greece) but in one of them they had a wall of small white cupboards say 20*5 with no labels on them that were apparent to us. The guy serving us went up and down the wall opening cupboards and selecting maps and brochures. It was an amazing display of memory. It was just like a robot warehouse pick system!

When we visited the Serbian Embassy in London one of the staff was just exiting the imposing and forbidding front door as we arrived. He got the tourism attaché to come out to see us. We were invited inside. She apologised that they didn't have any brochures available at the time. She showed us a video about the best places to visit. We were served afternoon tea in the grand ballroom and we were introduced to the ambassador.

A most interesting visit.

Andrew Watson
Perth, Western Australia

 

[whatmeworry]

If Greece gets "difficult" we could travel down the Dalmatian coast in former Yugoslavia. We did that last year but it wouldn't be too much of a hardship to do it again. Then we would go into Bulgaria and cross directly to Turkey.

Sorry to bold this but that's a bit offensive to Croats referring to the Dalmatian Coast as the former Yugoslavia.

If you do go to Croatia, I recommend a trip to Dubrovnik (possibly side trip to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina). Followed by a drive up the coast to Split, Trogir, Sibienik, Zadar and Pula. Inland there is the spectacular Plitvice Lakes National Park. An hour away is the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. Also when your on the Adriatic coast there are many islands that are accessible by ferry which you can take your car.

 

[medhead]

Sorry to bold this but that's a bit offensive to Croats referring to the Dalmatian Coast as the former Yugoslavia.

of course, if you don't know what country it is now, I dare say "former Yugoslavia" is less offensive than guessing and calling it something like Serbia.


Sent from the Throne (80% chance) using Aust Freq Fly app

 

[serfty]

It can be difficult in the region, especially along the coast as you travel in the one general direction from one country to another, then back again

Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik-Neretva županija, Croatia - Google Maps