Shengen Departure

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Shengen departure via Slovenia 3^rdJune 2015.



Slovenia is a country I really want to know.

But it’s reputation as being expensive puts me off. Driving from Italy to Croatia we pass through a little bit of the small country of Slovenia. Apparently Slovenia is a fairly well off country. But it has a reputation for slugging motorists on the bit of freeway that runs from Italy to Croatia. Apparently it can cost about E300 for a few minutes on the freeway. So we avoid the tollway and enjoy a somewhat scenic view. By projecting itself as a place to avoid for economic reasons, then it succeeds at that.

Our journey across Italy has been across a flat plain. From around Torino almost until we reach Trieste we have not seen a hill and hardly an undulation. Then as we move to Slovenia we climb and feel a more interesting landscape.

One thing we do in Slovenia is buy a tank of fuel.

As soon as we crossed the border from Italy the price of diesel dropped from around E1.5 to E1.2 a litre. And the Slovenian fuel stations are not only open, but manned. They enjoy doing business so much that they even have a tidy and respectful young lad on hand who washed Skippy’s windscreen. When I looked toward him offering to pay, he directed me inside – so I gather that he is paid by the servo.

Then we come down from Slovenia’s lofty heights and stop at the border.



This is where we leave the Shengen Zone. What the heck is the Shengen Zone ?

Roughly the Shengen Zone is the European Union. Residents of any European Union.

country are free to travel to and from and trade with any other European Union Country .

So a resident of Sweeden or Poland is free to travel to Portugal or Greece for example.

Its a bit like Section 51 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia which allows free trade and passage between the states of Oz.

So there are no border crossings in most of Europe. This helps reinforce the huge protection racket most people call the European Economic Community. Cheap Chinese imports do not appear to enter Europe. They manufacture their own plastic junk, and from what we have seen, sell it at prices that a might be as much 5 times what we pay at Crazy’s Junk Shop in Hometown. For instance cheap folding chairs that might cost us A$ 6 would sell for maybe $28 or a camping knife and fork set that we might get for A$2 costs more like $9.

All this protects scarce employment opportunities in Europe. However history records eventual failure of protection rackets.

But the Shengen Zone is the area we have been trying to get out of almost since we started. Why is this so?

Well scum bag non European residents like us are only permitted to stay in the Shengen Zone for 90 days in any 180 day period. It appears the European economies are so well of they do not want any more of our monay. We have decided to be back in France for the latter part of this trip. So we want to keep a good stock of Shengen days for later. For now we want to stop burning Shengen days.

So as we leave Slovenia for Croatia we leave the Shengen Zone.

Not all European countries are in the EU. So shipwrecked economies of former soviet block states like Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia /Herz are not in the EU nor the Shengen Zone. So that is where we are headed to rebuild our Shengen brownie points.



Interesting border crossing this one from Slovenia to Croatia.

It looks like a toll road pay station. But with 2 pay windows.

The cars line up. Then we reach a window. I hand our passports through the window – the guy in Slovenian uniform glances at us and stamps them for Slovenia on exit. I drive forward one car length to the next window. Hand over the passports again. A lady in Croatian uniform glances at us, stamps the passports for entry and we go.

We begin to count days until we can return to Shengen Europe.

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