From the Baltic to the Atlantic... With no passport

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus all become members of the Schengen Protocol at mignight tonight. Border controls will disappear, meaning that a traveller could make his or her way (by land - airport controls remain in place until March 31, 2008) from Estonia to Portugal without showing a passport.

Palin's New Europe - Starts Sunday

Michael Palin's newest travelling tv-series, Michael Palin's New Europe, hits the small screen in the UK this coming Sunday night (September 16, 21:00, BBC1). This series covers many of the countries that In Your Pocket have been writing about for quite some time, such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and more.

I reckon Palin has a way of getting in touch with the spirit and pulse of a place that is humble yet real, and I look forward to seeing the series. Of course, I live in Lithuania, which means I won't be able to see it on the telly and will have to wait until the series is released on DVD and sold for a small fortune (rathan than downloading it for free from the internet the day after it is broadcast).

Meanwhile, travel agents and various self-declared experts are predicting that the 'Palin Effect' could impact Eastern Europe in the same way that it has affected regions covered by his previous programmes: more tourism.

An interesting interview-write-up-sales-piece is available on the BBC Press Office website.

Reliants to Russia and other Extreme Trifles

I just came across the rather amusing Reliants To Russia story on the Extreme Trifles website. It's a good read. Basically the Extreme Trifles are a bunch of utter nutters who combine travel, insanity and motorised mayhem. In this instance they took a bunch of three-wheeled Reliant Robins and drove from London to Jurmala (Latvia), via France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland and... well, not all of them got into Russia. There's a hint at the end of the story that there may be some souvenirs of the journey in the Jurmala Motor Museum.

Note that one of the requirements of participation was that the vehicles be 'pimped' to look like some kind of famous vehicle from television. (There was Thunderbird 4, The De Lorean, and General Lee, for example). A general lack of reliability, of the sort that would require impromptu repairs using beer cans, was also highly regarded.

Future Extreme Trifles will include an attempt "break [the] sound (of music) barrier at Nurburgring". That will be happening on Honda C90s--known to Australians as postie bikes, and to everyone else as crappy but somehow indestructible--in July.

Found it via Gadling. Pic from the Extreme Trifles website.