Couple Of Noob Questions

I'm thinking of driving from Dublin to Bulgaria during the summer in a 02 Ford Mondeo Lx 1.8 petrol.
The car is in relatively good nick (and only 63.5k miles on the clock) but I've had one or two issues.
Occasionally it'll rough idle, both when cold and warm.
Takes a long time to start after filling up usually (sometimes 5-6 seconds), sometimes longer.
Have an annoying intermittent rattle occassionally in it, no idea where it's coming from either. Was told by a friend who's a mechanic not to worry too much about it but it's annoying me.
Brakes need to be changed and I think possibly the bearrings (drove out to the sugar loaf last weekend and when driving along I noticed a sqweek that sounded like it was coming from the front wheels when I turned to the left, went away when braking.

Now, I plan on getting all of these checked and sorted before going but what other things will I need to have checked before leaving? I'll get a good full service but is there anything you'd recommend asking the mechanic to look at or change? Will most likely be bringing it to a ford dealer, expensive I know but at least I know they'll do it properly.

Also, any ideas what might be causing the problems I already mentioned? It's due a service in 2k miles, had the coils changed around July last year, I've put around 8-9k on it since then.

Cheers for the replies.