Gael warning in the Baltic

simondippenhall · Jul 19, 2022

Not only many years ago, Kritou, but also the day I was there! Seemed to be some big championship. Didn’t mention it as I didn’t think it would be of interest to rufty tufty bikers

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Northern jock · Jul 19, 2022

Great read, interesting area that I've not been to. Looks a good section of a trip round the Baltic which could be good.

Jockser · Jul 19, 2022

simondippenhall said:
Didn’t mention it as I didn’t think it would be of interest to rufty tufty bikers

Scantily clad uni students ? Definitely not, perish the thought :augie

Enjoying following you to another part of the world I’ve never been to

simondippenhall · Jul 19, 2022

Jochen, I realised from your avatar that would be the case

. In fact some of the players were resident in my hotel.

Anyway, I continued my foray along Lake Peipsi and then up to Narva. It looked better than I expected and had clearly recovered a little (at least, until the current fracas).

I had to manoeuvre down little streets of Soviet style buildings to get to the river at the edge of the free world

In my attempts to access the riverside, I found myself in a queue of about 4 cars, all surveyed by overhead camera gantries.

A quick chat with the driver of the car in front (a Russian living in Estonia) confirmed this was actually the queue to enter Russia - so without more ado I got out of the line and headed to the main square.

Border post for Russia:

The not so shabby town square

This is the bridge to cross the border

So all this derring-do had whetted my appetite , and I sought a place to have my lunchtime picnic. This pleasant location has Estonia on right hand side, and on the other side of the river is Ivangorod, Russia, also pictured in the second photo below.

All was very tranquil in Narva but it was the only Baltic city I visited with no Ukraine flags flying, possibly because of the high Russian population.

Other fun fact footnote, from my cycling buddy: Estonia does not permit dual citizenship, presumably to limit the number of Russian citizenship holders, possibly Estonians hedging their bets.

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simondippenhall · Jul 19, 2022

There is a history of rivalry across the river, with the building of Narva Castle (below) triggering the building of Ivangorod castle on the Russian side

Not much traffic on the border crossing today:

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simondippenhall · Jul 19, 2022

There really wasn’t much to detain me in Narva and no way to go Eastward, so after my sahnies I decided to head for Tallinn, of which I had heard good things from friends.

On the way I would pop into Sillamae, a beach resort town apparently built attractively in Stalin’s era (not a phrase I thought I would write, or even read!).

Sadly I failed to take any pictures there, (it’s annoying not having my phone to hand for quick snaps!) but more positively found a decent hotel about a kilometre from Tallinn centre.

A few taster photos of Tallinn:

The ‘crowds’ in the picture above are parents and students celebrating the graduation of 16 year olds - Tallinn was rammed with flower-bearing families.

I was delighted to find somewhere I could improve my diet and eat actual vegetables- always a struggle on the road, with even so called ‘vegetarian friendly ‘ places failing to provide more than a disappointing salad.

And it was also reassuring to see that Estonians were firmly opposed to Russia, as this display outside the embassy showed:

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simondippenhall · Jul 19, 2022

This was to be my first ‘rest day’ since leaving Le Mans and I was looking forward to exploring Tallinn, and planning a trip to Helsinki (without the motorcycle).

There are regular ferries to Helsinki, and I planned to bring my own grub:

Time to try the Tallinn e scooters to get to the seaport - they have a good turn of speed, but watch out for the cobbles with those tiny wheels!

One of the ferries that tramp around the Baltic

The Tallinn ferry terminal was a model - cool, calm and uncrowded

Unlike the queue for the boat, but we were quickly and smoothly embarked. I saw a little old lady lugging a couple of unworkable wheelies so I offered to take one - an offer accepted with alacrity, which I understood when I picked it up - very heavy¡

Booze is cheaper in Estonia than Finland:

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Jockser · Jul 20, 2022

We used to employ an Accounts girl from Tallinn & I've always wanted to visit, not least to see the Joey Dunlop memorial

simondippenhall · Jul 22, 2022

The trip across to Helsinki was calm and short, on a glorious sunny day. Here’s a few pictures of the city.

First encounter with Finnish public art:

There was a 4 year old lad standing transfixed and giggling, looking at the statue above.

I think I preferred the more traditional forms of statuary:

Lots of, well, Finnish/Scandi looking buildings, funnily enough.

But nowhere in the world is free from my compatriot’s beer making endeavours, it seems:

I wandered around the city’s seats and had a good rest in a public park as I watched the locals stroll around…no doubt enjoying this loooong summer solstice day before the cold and dark of winter.

I considered having an ice cream in the park until I saw the €6 price tag

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simondippenhall · Jul 22, 2022

Temptation overcome, I started gently wandering back to the seaport. There was no danger of being caught out by the onset of night as sundown was 11pm

Time to sit in the sun in the return journey on the 7pm ferry…..I had opted for the 2 hour transit rather than the 4+ hour slow ‘drink and eat fest’ crossing and by 9.30 I was back in Tallinn and seeking an scooter ti head back to my hotel. To my frustration, they were all out of battery by this stage of the day so it ended up being a day of walking miles and miles. Still, I was planning a Moto expedition the next day so all good.

On the way back I stopped for a burger and chips in the local equivalent of McDonald’s…interesting that the language choices to order on the screen are English, Estonian and Russian.

The next day was to be my last in Estonia before I took a ferry from Tallinn seaport in the evening to Stockholm. I had read about the bogland across Estonia so planned to visit Veru bog.

It was an easy ride from Tallinn and pretty much empty….amazing beauty only a kilometre off the main Tallinn- St Petersburg motorway.

I will let the photos speak for themselves:

The visitor guidelines say not to walk on the peat big as it takes years to recover. I Latin the boardwalk and touched the surface of the bog, which was amazingly moist. I started to understand why any Russian attack would have to come in the cold seasons whilst this was frozen as it would be impassable otherwise.

My guidebook had also warned my about leaving anything visible with the bike as apparently thieves might swoop in from the motorway - anyway, when I returned the bike was untouched as far as I could see.

So after my long and tranquil walk through the peat bogland, 9n a well kept boardwalk, it was time to collect my bags and go to the ferry port.

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simondippenhall · Jul 22, 2022

Jockser said:
We used to employ an Accounts girl from Tallinn & I've always wanted to visit, not least to see the Joey Dunlop memorial

Damn, didn’t know about that! Hope you do get to visit Tallinn, Jochen, it’s a cool city.

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simondippenhall · Aug 1, 2022

So I rode back to Tallinn on the highway, to my hotel where I collected my bags and wove my way down to the port - the same area as I had been the previous day for the boat to Helsinki. Then I had been riding an escooter, now I was on a Goldwing so allowed myself lots of time and of course arrived ridiculously early.

My early arrival gave me lots of time to chat with the German owner of this bike. He was rather quiet but I was able to draw him out - and it was worth the effort!

A retired toolmaker, he was on his way to the Aland Isands. So my first discovery…my ship to Stockholm would first stop at Mariehamm, the capital of the Aland Islands. No opportunity for me to disembark, this would be at 05h00 when I hoped to be deep asleep!

As we chatted a bit more the German told me that in the 90s he had ridden an airhead BMW to India and thence to and across Australia , and he showed me some cool photos. Quite an adventurous guy, he told me that now he prefers slow travel which is why he cycles.

During COVID lockdown he had bicycled from Germany to Sweden, which had limited regulations, and then towards Nordkapp. This meant going across to Norway where they would only let him in when he said he had to get a boat from southern Norway. They said he should go there directly but, let us say, he ‘got his left and right hand turns confused’ and continued to cycle up to Nordkapp- where he was just about the only person! An epic journey …and to my surprise he said he saw virtually no moose on his way up.

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simondippenhall · Aug 1, 2022

Eventually it was time to board, and the crew had a novel approach to strapping down the Wing. They shoved a large lorry chock under the engine, but no straps. As the sea was a millpond I wasn’t particularly concerned, and I assumed they were used to dealing with far worse conditions in the Baltic winter.

My cabin was spacious and airy, and it was time to employ Drumacoon Lad’s trusty kettle again for a brew.

You can see the calm from this photo taken in the middle of the night…it really wasn’t dark for long so I was grateful for the curtains

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Jockser · Aug 1, 2022

simondippenhall said:
Damn, didn’t know about that! Hope you do get to visit Tallinn, Jochen, it’s a cool city.

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Fingers crossed !
Enjoying this even though it’s ages between posts

How’s the Covid recovery going ?

simondippenhall · Aug 1, 2022

Recovered now and working on a potential return trip to Africa so thought I’d see if anyone noticed the lack of updates

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Jockser · Aug 2, 2022

simondippenhall said:
Recovered now and working on a potential return trip to Africa so thought I’d see if anyone noticed the lack of updates

Better get on & finish this before you go :augie

barak666 · Aug 2, 2022

simondippenhall said:
Recovered now and working on a potential return trip to Africa so thought I’d see if anyone noticed the lack of updates

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That's good to hear.... We were worried you had succumbed to the virus! :green gri

. Really enjoying the report, Simon.... giving me plenty of food for thought regarding future trips.

simondippenhall · Aug 2, 2022

Batak: you set such a high standard with your Ancient Greece RR and endurance riding that I was intimidated

.

And yes, I didn’t know the Aland Islanders spoke Swedish either!

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simondippenhall · Aug 2, 2022

In my enthusiastic booking of the ferry I somehow ended up with Finnish documentation and couldn’t find anyone in Tallinn to check out my ticket! (I already knew Finnish had completely different roots to any language I spoke).

Then I had some inspiration and brought my documents down to the ferry port on the day I went to Helsinki (I am jumping back a day or so now, keep up

) and went to the ticket office…but they didn’t speak Finnish either! So finally when I got to Helsinki I asked the ferry people there to check - and all was in order!

Finnish is different

But unlike the ticketing process, the actual ferry to Stockholm was very comfortable a d I had brought enough grub to get me through the trip.

A few more views:

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brut33 · Aug 2, 2022

Great trip, report and photos as usual. :beerjug:

It clicked with me when you made reference to the difficulties of sourcing dietary needs ie, vegetables when on the road.
But I do believe a single beer count's as one of your five a day.

Gael warning in the Baltic

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