FF2: Filling in the Suburbs

[krigl]

Here we are in Puspokladany, continuing our journey to Debrecen with this metal... thing.




Now for a short but nice hop to Debrecen.






Cargo delivered, here's Debrecen again - we've circumnavigated Hungary.


Let's find somewhere to park, and have a look round. Heyyyy.... wait a minute! I thought the new DAF wasn't in production yet, and there it is in traffic. So much for my exclusive tryout of the new model. Hmpf.


Up bright and early the next day for the final little jaunt on this trip - northeast up to Vasarosnameny.


Debrecen is a serious city, plenty of buildings and roads, lots to see.


Great realism here.




On the way to pick up a new trailer. This looks like a jobsite but is closed for business.


Globeur... sounds French, but is wierdly green.


Off to Vas...thingy - just a short trip, pleasant scenery though.






Here we are. Let's take a quick look.


Brimming over with flowery goodness.


Went a bit out of my way to look round. Thought I would be able to turn around at the 'Truck service garage' but ended up having to 0 - F9 it.


Delivery point.


Heading back to Debrecen via the more northerly road, tour over.






Well, I thought we were heading back to Debrecen...


When we got to the junction at the end of this stretch of road I found we couldn't turn south to Debrecen - we could only go NW to Budapest. Still - never mind - this part of the tour is over anyway. Next post - the final part of the tour - journeys out of Hungary.
Dusan

[krigl]

It's time to start Part 4 of the lower Going East tour. We're going to be making trips across the border out of Hungary, as well as journeys across the centre of the country from Budapest. Here we are with a new paintjob back in Gyor.


In Hungary, pulling a trailer filled with Czech beer, destination Austria. How very Central European.


Leaving Gyor. We're taking the beer to Vienna, our final visit there.


Vienna was once an imperial capital dominating the whole region, both militarily and culturally, and is also an impressive bit of PM scenery, so I don't begrudge it a few last screenshots.


The Austrian border.






That factory/refinery again. Shortly we join the same road that goes to Vienna from Bratislava.


Passing the complex.


Tunnels again.


I don't think Vienna is quite as big as PM London, but it still covers a big area. Hats off to the team once again.


At this distance the scale seems very realistic.


The great city centre.




Okay, let's deliver that beer and move on to the next route - Budapest to Graz.


Morning at the garage in Budapest.




Grimy and grim.


Out on the west side of Budapest's ring road. I think this might be a PM addition.


This bit looks pretty cool - crossing the Danube.








Having left the ring road, we're now heading southwest towards Austria.




Getting close to Sumeg and Szombathely.

Thanks for watching! Dusan

[krigl]

Today we're continuing the journey from Budapest to Graz.


Sumeg castle rises resplendent in the distance as we get closer to Szombathely.


Another view. It really dominates the region - I guess that was the whole point of building it.




That church and huge graveyard near Sumeg and Szombathely. We're just going to head straight for the border.


Border coming up now.


It's a rather more rural affair this time.




And we're through. Pulled in at the rest stop for a quick celebratory answer to the call of nature.


Scenery village on the way to Graz.


Austrian countryside.


Another scenery village.




Foothills of the Alps, perhaps.


Not this time. The customer is expecting...


Motorway driving as we get closer.




Here we are - Graz. It hasn't changed since I was here in 2017-18, so we won't hang about.


Okay, one more. Forgot to deblur.


Back in Budapest for the run to Maribor in Slovenia. Hungary has a lot of neighbours - more than the Czech Republic and Slovakia put together. Hungary boasts borders with Slovakia, of course, then Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine. Plenty of interesting destinations there.


The first part of the route is identical with the route to Austria, so we've skipped that and taken the Slovenia/Croatia turning where the road forks. Now heading down the M7 towards Lake Balaton, Hungary's other famous geographical feature. Being made of water, it's even flatter than the puszta.


The feast of default Going East scenery continues.


Lake Balaton - Hungary's seaside. It's ringed with resorts, and they're not cheap either. Stay in a five star hotel and bathe in a lake. Well, why not, after all - it's still water. And there are no jellyfish, sea urchins or sharks to bother you...


Plus, I hear you can get a mean langos there. Mmm... just thinking about the sour cream, garlic and grated cheese on top...


Coming to the end of Balaton now, and the end of this post too. Will venture over to Maribor and Zagreb in the next post.
Dusan

[krigl]

Back again, driving from Lake Balaton to the border and then Maribor in Slovenia.




Now in Slovenia.


On the road to Maribor.








Here we are.


Looks pretty nice. Hope to visit later on sometime.


Now for a second trip, this time to Zagreb in Croatia. We started off in Sumeg.




There's Lake Balaton again.


Fancy a swim?




The first part of the route to the border was the same as that to Slovenia, so we'll skip that and go to the place where it turns off for Croatia and Zagreb.




Through the border.




Not the kind of scenery I'd associate with Croatia, but then we're in the northern part, which is I guess quite similar to other central European inland areas.






Closing in on Zagreb, the Croatian capital.


And here we are. Next set will see us travelling from Budapest two more Croatian locations, Virovitica and Osijek.
Dusan

[Bernhard_]

Thanks for your recordings. Again nice pictures. Thumbs up!

[krigl]

Starting today in Pecs. We're going to make a short hop over the border into Croatia, destination Virovitica.






And we're at the border.


Dig the realism here, it took ages to get through. Okay, I admit it, I took advantage of a truck blocking the left hand route and teleported past everyone right in front of the barrier. You should have seen their faces!


Tralala and we're out of there, hee hee.


More northern Croatian countryside.




Entering Virovitica.


Next journey - again to Croatia, this time from Budapest down another route through the centre of Hungary, and in this very nice 'baby' Scania, which I found thanks to Polestar.


On the way to find something to haul.




On the motorway south of Budapest.




On an as-yet-untravelled road heading south towards Pecs.






Near Pecs, clearly.


Another border crossing.


Crossing the River Drava in Croatia on the way to Osijek.


The small town of Donji Miholjac.








Arrival in Osijek.




Back in Budapest for the last time, and we're trying out the new Renault Thigh. Looks great!


Out on the eastern part of the ring road.


We're taking this beauty to Subotica in Serbia... next time.
Dusan

[krigl]

This time we're taking this beautifully painted, radically evolved Thigh to Subotica in Serbia down the final cross-Hungary route from Budapest.


The Vanilla is strong with this one!


Still default, but a bit nicer. The Serbian border is near Szeged.


Silage refinery, very rural vibes here.




The Watcher, watching.


Szeged in the distance, I suppose.


Approaching the border.




The Hungarian side.


And we're through into Serbia.


It's not far to Subotica. Just enough for a couple of views.


And here we are.


Time to hand over this beauty and get back to Mercedes for the last couple of trips.


Final paintjob, starting the penultimate trip in Szeged.


Taking a load of trinitrotoluene to Timisoara in Romania. Better be careful.


A couple of last views of Szeged.




They have giant Brie too, nice.


Crossing the Tisza.


Heading for the border.




Wow, hectic. Looks like they take borders seriously here.


You have to go through a barrier before they check your papers, so when they do that, you are boxed in and can't quickly reverse your truck like lightning and escape.


Under pressure, dum dum dum du du dum dum.


The strict measures obviously work - they've Found Something.

Coming to the end of the tour now, and running out of time. Will hopefully post the second to last set later today.
Dusan

[krigl]

Okay, got a spare minute, posing the penultimate shots from this tour now.


Today we're making a couple of short dips into SCS's Romania.


We've just crossed the border after starting in Szeged.


Destination - Timisoara.










Cool. Definitely looks like I imagine Romania to look.


Delivering to a local logistics firm.


Another start, this time in Debrecen. Sharing the garage with another truck again, nice.




Debrecen seems to have been a default Going East town which has been radically upgraded by PM.








On the road to the border now. Destination this time - Tileagd scenery town.










Another very detailed border post from SCS.


Out into the local town, can't remember the name.




Stopping for fuel.


Romanian landscape. One last set to go...
Dusan

[krigl]

The time has come at last for the final set in this tour of 'lower Going East' - the countries of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as the immediate area around them.


Here we are actually in Romania, just over the border from Debrecen in Hungary. We're driving to the scenery town of Tileagd.




Tileagd.


Looks like a large earth-walled dam.


Start of the final trip - morning in the petrol station car park in Vasarosnameny, NE Hungary.


We're going to cross the border to Hungary's final neighbour - Ukraine. The border is around 40 or 50km long only, I think. And we're heading to Mukachevo past Uzhorod.


Let's start with a few more images from PM's Vasarosnameny.










Leaving Vasarosnameny.




Heading to the border, which is at a place called Zahony.




One last border crossing!




And we're in Ukraine. That's Uzhorod right ahead.


Well, what can I say. This has been a truly epic tour. The region has turned out to be nicer and more varied than I imagined, with a lot of great content from ProMods.


On to Mukachevo.


The only part of the tour that was weaker was the roads in Hungary. The 3 default cities are okay, and the upgraded and new cities are lovely, but the roads? I'd estimate that 80 - 90% of Hungary's roads are still unchanged since Going East was released in 2013. Given that the rest of the base map as well as Going East has seen a lot of upgrading over they years, it seems likely that this statistic gives Hungary the dubious honour of being THE worst part of the ETS2 map right now. No other place - thanks to the hard work of mainly PM - has such a concentration of vanilla roads as Hungary. Let's hope that the good mappers of PM will be able to find time to give the area some love in the years to come.
It's still been a highly enjoyable tour though.


We've arrived - Mukachevo.


Time for Dusan to drop off the cargo and make the short trip back to HQ in Kosice. The next tour will be in Oregon, USA, but I'm not sure when - the summer can be very distracting... and I've just bought Microsoft Flight Simulator. Very excited for Oregon, though, so I will be back at some point : )

Just in case it's a while before I return - I wish everyone a fantastic summer.

Krigl

[Bernhard_]

Also pleasant summer days and a lot of fun with the flight simulator during this time.
But no matter which simulation you play, ETS2 is not really just put down (I can't do it )
Of course, the response has decreased a lot compared to the past. No question and no idea why that is. Anyway ...

I definitely expect you back - with ETS and ATS. And I'm already looking forward to that.

Good days, see you soon and stay healthy!