Baggywrinkle
Well-Known Member
Drove down to the boat at the weekend to prep. it for the summer holiday. Here are my experiences on Corona controls and borders.
For those that don`t need the details - it went fine with no problems in a German registered car, 2 occupants, one UK and one German passport - filling out the entrance form for Croatia helped on the Italy/Slovenia border .... Enter Croatia
Travel was Friday to Croatia from Germany, leaving Ammersee at around 11 am, return on Sunday, Leaving Pula, Croatia at around 10am. Journey times in both directions were around 7-7,5 hours which is OK for this time of year and at that time of day.
I first headed for the Austrian border along the A8, crossed the border near Salzburg and there were no border controls at all going into Austria - back to normal.
Drove through Austria to Villach and at Villach, decided to head through Italy (A23 Tarvisio crossing) as the Karawankentunnel was showing 45 min tailbacks into Slovenia which is not normal for a Friday afternoon with the volume of traffic on the roads at the time. Crossed on A23 Austria - Italy at Tarvisio - zero border checks in either direction visible. Account with ASFiNAG in Austria worked a treat, drive through the video gates and you get an E-Mail telling you your credit card has just been billed.
Next crossing was Italy to Slovenia on NSA326 Trieste/Koper ... 20 minute delay due to Slovenian border control ... they were waving slovenian, croatian and italian cars through, they stopped our german plated car and started asking questions. When they saw our Croatian entry form, they immediately gave the passports back, stopped the check and waved us through.
Due to a 6km tailback on the E751 at the Dragonja crossing from Slovenia to Croatia we used the 111 crossing at Sečovlje ... border controls and queues were normal, 10-15 min wait, passport check and the Croatian entry form made it pretty painless. One german plated car got detained and was sitting at the border for the duration of our wait.
Return Journey showed large tailbacks at both the Sečovlje and Dragonja crossings into Slovenia, so we headed inland and crossed on the D201 near Buzet, queue was 2 cars long, passports were checked as normal and we got into Slovenia. Joined the A1 motorway at Stepani headed for Ljubljana.
Crossed into Austria through the Karawankentunnel, queue for Toll was 2 cars long, no delay and no border control other than driving single file past a few police on the Austrian side of the tunnel.
We could see the tailback on the other side ... border crossing checks were in operation on the Slovenian exit from the tunnel, traffic lights were regulating access to the tunnel on the Austrian side, huge stationary tailback with people out of their cars walking around.
A8 Austria-Germany near Salzburg was the final border crossing, also back to the current "normal" - driving slowly past a couple of armed police and that was it, 4-5 min delay - checks originally put in place by the Bavarian government due to asylum seekers so nothing to do with Corona.
I suspect it will be relaxed even further over the next few weeks, in Croatia there were signs that there had been measures in place for social distancing, but very little use of masks and the restaurants/shops seemed to be pretty much all open and back to normal. Slovenia was the most strict, but only on the busy main border crossings and, it seemed, only to cars not registered in Croatia, Slovenia or Italy.
For those that don`t need the details - it went fine with no problems in a German registered car, 2 occupants, one UK and one German passport - filling out the entrance form for Croatia helped on the Italy/Slovenia border .... Enter Croatia
Travel was Friday to Croatia from Germany, leaving Ammersee at around 11 am, return on Sunday, Leaving Pula, Croatia at around 10am. Journey times in both directions were around 7-7,5 hours which is OK for this time of year and at that time of day.
I first headed for the Austrian border along the A8, crossed the border near Salzburg and there were no border controls at all going into Austria - back to normal.
Drove through Austria to Villach and at Villach, decided to head through Italy (A23 Tarvisio crossing) as the Karawankentunnel was showing 45 min tailbacks into Slovenia which is not normal for a Friday afternoon with the volume of traffic on the roads at the time. Crossed on A23 Austria - Italy at Tarvisio - zero border checks in either direction visible. Account with ASFiNAG in Austria worked a treat, drive through the video gates and you get an E-Mail telling you your credit card has just been billed.
Next crossing was Italy to Slovenia on NSA326 Trieste/Koper ... 20 minute delay due to Slovenian border control ... they were waving slovenian, croatian and italian cars through, they stopped our german plated car and started asking questions. When they saw our Croatian entry form, they immediately gave the passports back, stopped the check and waved us through.
Due to a 6km tailback on the E751 at the Dragonja crossing from Slovenia to Croatia we used the 111 crossing at Sečovlje ... border controls and queues were normal, 10-15 min wait, passport check and the Croatian entry form made it pretty painless. One german plated car got detained and was sitting at the border for the duration of our wait.
Return Journey showed large tailbacks at both the Sečovlje and Dragonja crossings into Slovenia, so we headed inland and crossed on the D201 near Buzet, queue was 2 cars long, passports were checked as normal and we got into Slovenia. Joined the A1 motorway at Stepani headed for Ljubljana.
Crossed into Austria through the Karawankentunnel, queue for Toll was 2 cars long, no delay and no border control other than driving single file past a few police on the Austrian side of the tunnel.
We could see the tailback on the other side ... border crossing checks were in operation on the Slovenian exit from the tunnel, traffic lights were regulating access to the tunnel on the Austrian side, huge stationary tailback with people out of their cars walking around.
A8 Austria-Germany near Salzburg was the final border crossing, also back to the current "normal" - driving slowly past a couple of armed police and that was it, 4-5 min delay - checks originally put in place by the Bavarian government due to asylum seekers so nothing to do with Corona.
I suspect it will be relaxed even further over the next few weeks, in Croatia there were signs that there had been measures in place for social distancing, but very little use of masks and the restaurants/shops seemed to be pretty much all open and back to normal. Slovenia was the most strict, but only on the busy main border crossings and, it seemed, only to cars not registered in Croatia, Slovenia or Italy.
