Day 2 - Venice / Italy

All night on end we drove across Turkey: an absolutely stunning four-lane highway goes through the entire country. Everything would have been wonderful, but the traffic grew more and more intense as we approached Ankara and Istanbul. In about 200 kilometers from the “city by the Bosphorus”, we stuck in a huge jam and virtually lost 45 minutes. Read more about Day 5. (Part 2) From Turkey to the very finish in Venice

We were traveling through Iran during the whole night and morning. Such cities as Shahrud, Semnan, Qazvin and certainly “the heart of Iran”, Tehran, were left behind. The road was always open, and heavy traffic could only be observed near such large agglomerations as Tehran and Tabriz, but it was not heavy enough to cause traffic jams. Read more about Day 4. At good speed through Iran and Turkey

Having driven in the Western China, we put up with regular on-route police checks, as well as the fact that our documents were checked even at the entrance to a petrol station. However, a great four-lane highway allowed us to move in good pace, so at 08.00 pm we passed Urumqi, turning the road to Kashgar and the border with Kyrgyzstan. Read more about Day 2. Goodbye, China! Hello, Central Asia!

As usual, we didn’t have much time to sleep. For sure, we will have to wake up even earlier before the record trip. However, having arrived at 4 a.m., we still needed rest. But it was out of the question as we were in Shanghai and there were only two or three days left to plunder the city in the 24/7 mode! Read more about Day 25 – Shanghai Which I Love

Not wasting time on sleep and rest, we set off at night to cover almost 1,800 km to the former Chinese capital Xian. A night highway means speed. And we will certainly need it to cover such distance. After having a little rest at the road side in the middle of the night, we immediately set off in the morning. No planned stops and tourist activities – never look back. Read more about Day 23 – Highway to Xian

We had a four hours night stop in Kurle and after breakfast we continued our driving to the deep of China. The Gobi desert had been waiting for us and prepared a stormy wind. It was really complicated to drive fully loaded car through the 45 meters per second side wind. Read more about Day 21 - Through the desert

While our Volkswagen Tiguan was being inspected at the Chinese-Kirghiz border, we had some time to take a breath and look around in the western capital of China – Kashgar. And first of all we certainly decided to visit the local market. To our surprise, there was nothing amazing there in comparison with the recently visited markets in other countries. Read more about Day 19 - Wild wild west

Waking up at five in the morning and going further without thinking twice is usual for traveling, isn’t it? It turned out that we had spent the night almost in the mountains. Having driven just a few tens of kilometers on the morning, but already busy road from Tashkent to Andijan, we moved beyond the mountain pass, with the Uzbek plain and the border lying ahead of us. Read more about Day 17 - To the mountains!

After a night at the hotel, we went for a short walk around Bukhara in the morning. This city is known as one of the oldest in Central Asia, and its history dates back more than 2,500 years. Archaeologists say that the “cultural layer” in Bukhara is over 20 meters – the depth at which the remains of houses, crockery, jewelry and tools of labor have been found. Read more about Day 15 - We explore Bukhara and Samarkand

It was the second day of our stay in Ashgabat that we decided to get a better idea of how and by what the capital of Turkmenistan lives nowadays. But first of all, let me tell you about those interesting meetings that we had since early in the morning.

  Read more about Day 13 - Getting acquainted with Ashgabat

The tenth day (1st of August) of our trip we were staying in hotel in northern Teheran, taking rest and making some preparations before our departure to the Mashhad city in the East of Iran. Next day we left our hotel early in the morning and drove up to the nearest gas station and ... got into a traffic jam! There were a lot of cars, waiting for refueling, so we had to wait too. Read more about Day 10 / 11 - Across the Iran

We stayed at a hotel overnight and all our team together with our guides Kamran and Sharif discussed plans for the following day. In the morning we headed for Tehran. We took photos and made videos on our way. Tabriz and other towns we drove through impressed us with their cleanliness and tidy appearance. Read more about Day 8 - In the vicinity of Tabriz

We were driving all the night, since we left Istanbul yesterday. The turkish highway D-100, which crosses all the country from Istanbul to Iran boarder has 2 lanes in each direction and a very good asphalt pavement, so there is no problem to keep a good speed and not to have any problems with intensive traffic. Read more about Day 6 - Across the Turkey

We reached the border between Slovenia and Croatia in the dead of night. Long lines of European tourists wishing to lounge on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea stood at this checkpoint mere weeks ago. Today we have passed customs in a few minutes. Read more about Day 4 - Slovenia-Croatia-Serbian-Bulgarian

It was such an eventful day. In the morning we went to De Bona, a Volkswagen dealership near Venice. The company’s specialists performed a complete maintenance of our car for tomorrow’s race. They checked the suspension and wheel alignment, diagnosed the electronics and changed the motor oil. Read more about Day 2 - Volkswagen Dealership