And, having at our disposal bazillion of time, we planned our route taking into consideration every wish of our "expedition" members. As a result we got the following: Moscow - Biala Podlaska (Poland) - Leipzig - Nuremberg (Germany) - Salzburg (Austria) - Campitello (Italy). We had 6 days for the excursion. We were to start off on Sunday night and planned to reach Italy by Saturday.

Some details about getting visas and green-cards: we got the first in the Italian Embassy by ourselves. You can find all the demands on the passport-adjusting and the form-example on the official site of the Italian Embassy in Moscow. One should bring paid apartment bill, the list of all paid hotels, where you're going to stay at on your way and the rest of the required documents; then in two- three days you'll get visa (one should pay $40 tax for it). We got green cards in "Progress Garant" where we spent half an hour and $18. At least two drivers should be fixed in the card.

A bit about the members of our "expedition":
We had the following quantity staff and the plan of getting to the place: 7 persons, of which there were 2 children of 8 and 9 years old, were leaving Moscow in their cars on December, 22 at night and moved to Italy with intention to pop at their friends in Germany. The next 7 persons (among which there were 3 children) were starting off on Wednesday morning and were going to meet the first group on December, 26 in Salzburg. Two more persons were leaving on December, 27 by plane and were to meet both groups right in Campitello. Eight more persons (with one kid among them) arrived from Moscow in Ankona (Italy) on January,3, took two booked cars and drove to Campitello. In a word, there were 24 of us.

The cars we used were like that: the first group had five-door diesel Mitsubishi Pajero and petrol/gas using Volkswagen Passat station wagon; the second group had Opel Vectra and Nissan Maxima; and it's unknown which airplanes were used for taking to the place the rest :-). Two Ford Focus cars were rented. Another member of our journey, whose name is Phil, will write about them in all the details further on.

This report was written by the members of the first group.
So, on Sunday afternoon (December 22) our group, together with those who wanted to see us off, gathered in the garage, where we belted some vodka, made our cars crammed full with our luggage, and, having packed our skis and boards into the roof luggage boot, we fixed our departure for 23:00.

An important remark about the roof luggage boot: if one decides to travel like we did, I can give a piece of advice to buy coffer - luggage boot produced by "Thule". It's very convenient. Ours wasn't the largest one, but we placed there 5 pairs of skis, ski sticks, 4 snowboards and great number of such things as trousers for skiing and coats for seven persons. Our ski and board boots were in the luggage boot (it was a good idea to keep vodka in them).

So, on December, 22 at 00.45 a.m. we left Taganka in Pajero, picked up the second car on Novokyznetskaja and started off at 01.00. We refueled our cars on Kutuzovsky and at 01.45 said "my native land goodbye".

The road (Mozhaiskoye highway) was good for barreling and we managed to drive as more as 225 km in 2 hours. We refueled not far from Smolensk for the second time. The drivers changed each 3-4 hours. We had 5 drivers for two cars and it let us move nonstop.

At 6.00 a.m., when we were on Belarus border, it started to snow and we had to lower the speed. On the entry to Belarus there is SAI (State Automobile Inspection/ DAI in Russian) post and a kind of wagonnete you are offered to enter and pay for the insurance. We showed our green cards (thank to which we didn't have to pay anything) and drove further. On our way we saw a funny road sign - a triangle with a snowflake and an inscription made in bad Russian "GALALED" (watch for ice)and "SNEGAPAD" (snowfall).

The road must be paid for (we had to pay 15 rubles for each car- we did it thrice). It's (I mean the road) also rather amusing – wide and absolutely straight, passing through fields and forests, with a good covering and a bordering lawn. We met no single inhabited place. There are points, where one can drive down and stop to have a rest (such places are equipped with WC-s looking like fundamental stone buildings).

There are some problems with petroleum stations. There are only few of them, mostly rather beat and causing no intention to refuel. Moreover, they want you to pay in Belarusian roubles. Our advice is to refuel before reaching Belarus and move till big petroleum stations where it's possible to change currency or pay with a credit card. But the quantity of such petroleum stations is even less, so try to act as I've recommended. There are cafes (which you'll be not able to find on the way) on the territory of big petroleum stations.

Having driven 700 km, we made a break at 09.00 a.m. and had our first breakfast. It had nearly stopped snowing, the temperature was above zero and generally it felt like spring. By noon, when the lamp in our car was desperately alarming about the lack of fuel in our Pajero, we had to stop at a petroleum station and ask our unfriendly Belarusian brothers to sell us some diesel fuel. They did - we paid $5 for 10 liters of it.

At 13.00 we reached Brest. There is a Lukoil petroleum station on the right not far from the city. Here one can change currency and pay with the card. We entered Brest and moved further following "for Warsaw" signs.

And at this point I'd like to summarize our route from Moscow till the polish border. The road itself is very good. There are problems with service in Belarus (I mean cafes and petroleum stations). It's better to start off at night - there'll be no jams at this time. One should cover 1160 km from Moscow to the border.

At 14.20 we reached central Brest border post. There was a queue of nearly 50 cars up to the first control station. We decided to go to the other post, 30 km to the south, placed in Domachevo. There was a turn to it just before the border post and then we were to drive on the right. As Domachevo post wasn't marked in our map we stopped to ask the first traffic inspector we saw. He was very kind and showed us the way, adding that we should cover 60 km. We drove about 50 metres and suddenly saw a sign "Domachevo 36 km", sending us to the opposite direction. We mentally thanked the inspector for his "kindness" and moved on wishing him "all the best".

We were at the post at 15.00. Here I want to interrupt my narration and return to Moscow events. Our friends from the second group, who actually were the initiators of this affair have been visiting mountain-skiing resorts of Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland for several years already by cars. They are absolutely happy and satisfied and advise this kind of travelling in a very active and professional way, getting quite a satisfactory result. And we subdued. It were they who told us that there are never any queues in Domachevo (real paradise should it be), and if there is a queue on the central post, one should definitely go there. So we did. When we arrived we saw a queue of nearly 40 cars of foreign production of the 70-s of the last century. People in these cars caused similar impression. We went for reconnaissance. Someone told us that it wouldn't take long - nearly an hour. We relaxed, thinking that in a couple of hours we would be in Poland. We even seemed to be very cool to ourselves. Two of us were so glad that began to belt. We hoped that the rest three drivers would somehow manage to drive last 50 km to the Polish town Biala Podlaska where we'd been advised to stop. We took "Russian Standard" from our snowboard boots, opened a can of pickled cucumbers – in a word, our vacation began.

The queue on the border was of a following shape – we could see 40 cars before us, which, being stretched in a line, moved towards the first turnpikes, behind which a kind of collector was organized. In such a collector there were nearly 100 cars. They were collected in three lines, each of which faced little turnpikes, and after them all the cars were collected in one common line again. This line was eventually facing polish horizon. Having drunk half a bottle we went to have a chat again, this time not with the people waiting in that queue with us, but with frontier guards, smoking by the first turnpikes. And they told us absolute rubbish (at least then it seemed to be) –"you’ll have to wait 5-7 hours". Here we began to grow blunt and asked them again, but the answer was still the same.

Holiday mood, caused by the beginning of our vacation and alky, wandering in our organisms, made us take a decision and we started to negotiate about the commercial way of passing the border.
They wanted $50 for each car and promised to organize everything without delay, but asked to wait some 40 minutes till the moment they'd get some free time. We went to wait and in order not to waist time, finished the bottle and the cucumbers, and meanwhile found out that there was an hour interval between Moscow and Belarus time (it was an hour earlier in Belarus). We had already spent 3 hours in Domachevo when we finally reached the collector. The dusk came. Step by step we were becoming pissed off, so we opened the second bottle and the company of 7 persons got into Pajero, where we switched on the light and turned "Leningrad" on. It should have been a cool scene: the only Pajero jeep in the queue, clearly seen among the rest of the cars because of the switched light and people, giggling and laughing, drinking vodka and swinging in tact to the music, loudly sounding from the opened windows. Unfortunately it didn't add us any speed.

Dear reader, in order not to waist your precious time, I'll tell you that final outcome was the following: 10 hours, $200, 2 vodka bottles and here we were in the hands of polite Poles, who took our documents for checking. The sum of $200 consisted of $100 for "speeding up", which moved us somewhat 300 meters forward, then we paid $20 for each car for using Belarusian roads (we were even given a cheque), and the rest of the money was bummed by on the last border line. They said they'd go on 1,5 hour- break if we refused to pay. Weeds we were and paid (I wonder who wouldn't have after 10-hour waiting).

To the word, the Poles also had a "surprise" for us. They said they couldn't let us pass the country because our visa would become valid only from December, 24 while the date of that day was the 22-d of that month. They also told us to go to Brest and make Polish visa there. Can you imagine that!!! We began to whimper, saying that there were children among us, that Belarusians were cheeky monkeys and all that jazz. In 10 minutes they let us go. At that moment I thought they wanted money, but it turned out that they just wanted to warn us about the visas.

We reached Biala Podlaska in an hour and could hardly find "Lik Leon" hotel. We ate Polish golubtsi and retired to bed. A bit about the hotel: it's a three-story cottage with 3-4 rooms on each store. Most of the rooms are with a shower and toilets. In the inner yard there is a big guarded parking lot. Our company paid 60 euros for the night, including fee for parking. It should be said that the Poles were very nice and made a perfect supper for us; we had it in a small dining-room, combined with kitchen. The price for the supper wasn't included in the bill (we paid 3-5 euros per person); but our breakfast was included in the cost of living.

The hotel is good, not expensive according European standards, not luxurious, but very clean. In brief, quite all right to stop for a night. For those who know what "Cheget" hotel is, "Leon" would surely seem to be "Metropolis".

On December, 23 we got up at 11 o'clock, idled a bit and at 13.00 left Byala Poldaska. Our odometer showed 1238 km. We decided to continue our way through Warsaw - we'd make a detour, but this road was the most red-fat in the map and we didn't want to jeopardize. This route line is marked as "E-30" and has local number 2. The highway turned out to be narrow - two lines without any separating lane, but with two wide asphalt roadside. Though there were many wagons, moving in both directions, we could drive with a speed of 90-100 km. an hour. The Poles are accurate drivers and let you pass if they see your car speeding. They even blink with headlights, meaning that they are ready to let you pass, what is quite pleasant. If you give them way, they blink with emergency headlight, thanking you. BMW 750 (perhaps the only for the whole Poland :-) ) did so and it looked very unusual.

Generally the cars in Poland are very old, looking a bit like our "Oka" of old Fiats. Visually they seem to be even smaller. When one Pole was asked about the price of such cars he told us they are given free by the government :-)
One can see signboards "Sklep" what means restaurant in Polish. If you think of Russian analogy (crypt), it'll be rather unexpected.

At 14.00 we entered Warsaw and decided to drive through the city to have a look at it's sights. But we got stuck in an hour jam, and that was all. We dined at a Polish - Chinese restaurant. Not bad it was.
From Warsaw we drove to Wroclaw (route line №3). The road was still the same – quite narrow, going through many populated places, where you're forbidden to drive over 50 km an hour and where we saw mysterious road-signs "wypadki". By the way, the pictures on these signs were all different, something like "turn", "slippery road", some girl with a balloon (or a butterfly net) in her hands; but all the pictures were signed as "wypadki". This word should have some Russian analogy (which we all know very well) , but it’s just my supposition :-)

By 8 p.m. on Tuesday we managed to overcome some more 1730 km and in half an hour were in Wroclaw. The town is small and quite ordinary. On the way out of the town we saw huge trading megasupermarkets. Something like ours, but much bigger. A kind of heaven for consumers right in the middle nowhere.

From Wroclaw, taking E-40 (local number - A 4) route line we moved to the border. At first we planned to cross the boarder in a place called Gorlits. This place was noted by us as transit in the blank we filled in the Embassy of Italy for getting visa. We decided to spend night in some motel in Poland by the border in order to get up early in the morning, pass the border and reach Leipzig by dinner. But, being busy playing "Name the city" game between our car-groups by walkie-talkie, we didn't notice how we reached the border. By the way one can't turn back on kilometer distance from the post, where a concrete border starts. We reached the post by 11.00 p.m. The place turned out to be not Gorlits, but "Jedrushovizi". The distance between this place and Moscow is 1917 km. The post itself remains more some petroleum station or a tax-gathering post than shengen-entering. We expected to see something significant, but saw two booths (one for the Polish, the other for the German frontier guard) instead.

We had to wait an hour, and when December,24 (the day of our visa opening) came we drove to the post. The procedure that followed was like that: the Poles took our passports, then in 5 minutes a Polish hand leaned out of the Polish booth window and passed our documents to the German hand, which was sticking out of the German booth. In 5 more minutes the Germans left the booth, passed our cars round, said something we failed to understand and waved a hand towards Germany. In that direction did we depart.

Summarizing our route through Poland: the road is narrow, partially very beat; on our way we could often see road - repairing works, duration of which could be more than 5 km. There are many petroleum stations; one can easily pay in Polish zlotys, but credit cards are not taken everywhere; it's possible to be refueled for dollars, but one can be cheated. It'll take you 10-12 hours to cross Poland if you move without long-lasting stops over.

German autobahn (it's number is 67) starts right after the German border. May be not everyone has seen such roads, but at least everyone has heard about them. We hadn't seen them before either, but heard something about the ideal road covering and profile, about the luminous marking-out, about WC/telephone booths met in each km. And it all turned out to be… absolutely true!

According to the road signs the nearest town Bautzen was within 67 km. We decided to stop there for the night. We turned off the autobahn, entered the town and drove to the nearest hotel. With the help of "hotel" signs we reached "Garden". After five-minute shouting, knocking and ringing an old smiling Frau in slippers opened the door, gave us tea and the keys of three rooms. The hotel is a two-story building with large rooms, rather expensive from my point of view. Double room cost us 59 euros including breakfast.

I hope you know what European breakfast is. If you don't I'll tell you: coffee, tea, juice, milk, yogurts, cheese, sausage/ham, buns, muesli - figuesli and... that's all! And this lasted during the whole week in Europe. We were absolutely hungry at least 40 minutes after the breakfast.

On December, 24 we started off at 11 o'clock in the morning and drove to Leipzig, the road to which took us an hour. Having met our Russian-German friends, drunk some tea with them and frightened the habitants of that nice village (they live in the country), we went to the restaurant, ordered by our friends for us. We were turned out of that place at four p.m. under the pretext of celebrating Weinachten (Christmas) - everybody wanted to go home. Can you imagine yourself being driven out of any pub in Moscow under the similar pretext?!

Germans eat meat, stewed cabbage and potato klotskas (kind of dumplings). The meat is pickled and fried in such a way, that it becomes absolutely unclear what kind of "beast" you eat; it's quite obvious how stewed cabbage tastes and it's absolutely impossible to understand how klotskas do. Largely, this cuisine is completely strange to our stomachs. Unfiltered beer with raspberry jam is very unusual, but tastes good. You'll be brought a liter glass filled with beer and there'll be jam on the bottom. It should be drunk by straw – looks very funny.

After dinner, having arranged to meet in "Westen" cafe with our friends, we moved to the hotel. You won't believe but "Westen" was the only place open in that city at Christmas night!

Not only were we the only visitors of the huge five-story hotel we finally came to, but having come out to the street we understood that all the streets were absolutely empty: no pedestrians, no transport, NOBODY! I don't know, where they all were, but according to the number of lightened windows one couldn't say for sure that most of the citizens of densely-populated Leipzig were at home. May be they were in the underground...

"Westen" cafe turned out be an ordinary beanery. A kind of mixture of our Moscow Oggi and a glass pub not far from Poljanka metro station (if anyone knows) :-). A Russian cock was working in that cafe and the menu included pelmeni and various tasty salads. Alcohol cocktails were also good. We drank beer and cocktails, ate salads and then took a walk through the city, which remained the decorations of some fantastic film, according to the plot of which a bomb falls on the city and destroys everything alive except buildings. Then we went to the hotel to sleep.

On December, 25 we drove to Nuremberg (route A14). It's impossible to get lost on the way because of the plenty of road signs. There are numerous petroleum stations with cafes, restaurants and WC. Diesel costs 0.88 euros, petroleum - 1.2-1.3.
We reached Nuremberg by 16.45. By this time we had driven as far as 2740 km. from Moscow.

We stopped at "Novotel". We were glad that at least this hotel wasn't completely empty. The scene was the same as in Leipzig. There appeared a few people in the streets, but everything was still closed. Illumination was charming, the lights shined, garlands everywhere... All the shopwindows were wonderfully decorated and brightly lit, but we couldn't enter anything. Horrible. The Moscower's nightmare :-). In the morning we took another walk through Nuremberg and at 13 p.m. drove to Salzburg, where we were to meet the second group of our friends, leaving Moscow two days later. We decided to pop at Munich on the way. It took us one hour and forty minutes to reach it. The city is cool. Though everything except Mac Donalds was closed, there was a skating-ring on the central square, around which mulled wine and sausages were sold. We roamed about Munich and drove to Austria.

It took us an hour and a half to get to Salzburg from Munich. Having left our luggage in the hotel we went to look for our friends who were already breaking their fast in some restaurant of the old city. We could hardly find that place. We met, had a drink. When the bill was brought, I was ready to give back everything I had eaten and drunk. Warning: Salzburg is a very expensive city! But very beautiful either. It's gingerbread architecture, it's smartness is very impressive, just as the holiday mood which I obtained there. I was amazed by huge many-stored car parking lane, constructed inside the rock, on the top of which a well-known castle stands. We took a walk along the city in the morning, too.

At 2 p.m. we drove to Italy through Innsbruck. By this time our friends, who had already reached Milan and were going to Campitello by bus, buzzed us. Hooray, there were 16 of us on the Italian ground.
On December, 27, having overcome 3200 km in 6 days, having visited all the cities we had planned to visit, at 7 p.m. we got the keys of our apartments.

I'll dare to advise the following:

1. Never go to Europe at Christmas. Life stops there at this time. This holiday is completely homely one and you won't get anything except walking along empty streets.

2. Try to have the phone-numbers of police, emergency, road-service and all that jazz of the countries, the territory of which you intend to cross. Unfortunately I can't write the numbers here, but! On our way back, when one of our cars was helplessly lying in deep Polish ditch, and we all were jumping around, shivering with cold and happiness for our friends who had stayed alive, we would have been extremely glad to have such phone-numbers. Local inhabitants helped us greatly; they immediately crowded around and called the police and evacuator, which arrived in half an hour. The police covered the traffic, the evacuator draw the car. All the procedure lasted 10 minutes and cost us 40 euros.

3. Try not to violate road traffic rules. The lack of the police on the way is fully compensated by the bazillion of photo/video cameras watching and fixing every slightest violation. The fines are high. In Leipzig one will have to pay 300 euros for driving at the red traffic light.

4. Save some food for the first day of travelling. As it has already been said there are problems with meals in Belarus (where you'll drive for 12 hours plus crossing the border, spending there God knows how much time). In Poland and further on the prices are nearly the same as in Moscow. Wine and other berps (except vodka) is surely cheaper. The bottle of Moscow vodka costs 9 euros (2-3 in Moscow). The bottle of martini in Italy costs 4-4.5 euros, in Moscow - 10.

5. Be sure to adjust green-cards for the cars. And all the other documents should be in order. The frontier guard may check whether your car is stolen or not. They do not know anything about the letters of attorney, so the car should be adjusted on the driver's name. Our coupon of technical checking is worthless.
That's all, the report about skiing and boarding will be done by Phil, as my fingers already ache. Thanks to everybody.