What Are Some Landmarks We've Seen on Our Road Trip?

[Andre]

Yes maybe the Valan airport was tough because of the compressed perspective, virtually hiding the the ocean

 

[waht]

I think Borek will drive in a giant circle. From what I've been able to ascertain, he started out in Poland, drove through North Eastern countries Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Finland, and now wound up in Norway?

The next step would be turning back to Sweden and going South through Denmark, Germany, and back to Poland...

 

[Borek]

Andre: yes, that's Valan.

what: circle around Baltic was more or less the idea, but not through Denmark/Germany - we will go by ferry from Sweden to Poland. Not sure when yet.

 

[Borek]

Expensive, more expensive, Norwegian

The most common nation at campings - apart from natives - Netherlanders. Each time I see NL I think about Andre

I am writing the diary all the time, but it is not that easy - when I have no access to the internet I can't check facts (like correct spelling of the place name) and I don't want to post them wrong, so while writing is done almost in the real time, final corrections are about two weeks behind

Besides, I still don't know what it is that you do with the tent before you can get inside You put it up? Unfold?

Edit: Oh, and big thank you to all of you missing us We miss you too

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Norway is horribly, HORRIBLY expensive, yeah.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

To "pitch" a tent, or "set up camp" works, I think.

 

[Borek]

OK, we are back, a little bit earlier than expected, after making 8600km. But I have no internet at home, it should be fixed in 48 hours

 

[Andre]

Welcome back Borek. I hope you get settled soon.

I've had that problem too once, Came home, and meanwhile they had increased the internet speed to above the specifications of my old modem.

 

[Borek]

Finally everything works as it should.

Landmarks from the last few days:

We are still fighting the mess created when we unpacked the car, but I am slowly getting to the point when I will be able to browse the pictures and post more about the trip. As of now - short summary. 8600 km (5340 miles) in 27 days - that means 318 km (197 miles) daily on average, at 6.55 L per 100 km (35.9 mpg). Surprisingly good, but that was in Scandinavia, where they drive pretty slow, and without AC, as it is rarely hot that far North. Trip to the southern edges of Europe won't be that economical. We did more and faster than expected, but I feel like that was a mistake - we should stop more, especially in the first two weeks.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

WB Borek and Marzena! Look forward to reading more about it! Is the second one down from Alta again?

 

[Borek]

Is the second one down from Alta again?

No, it is about 1400 km away from Alta.

 

[arildno]

The stone carving might be from the Vitlycke Museum in Sweden, or possibly, Undersløs.

Stone carvings are quite common in mid/southern Sweden, and also in south-eastern Norway.

 

[Borek]

The stone carving might be from the Vitlycke Museum in Sweden

Vitlycke Museum it is. But I am quite surprised you have not named the first place

 

[arildno]

Vitlycke Museum it is. But I am quite surprised you have not named the first place

As for the first, it MIGHT be a portion of some stave church, but it could also be a portion of Frognerseteren Restaurant (if my memory doesn't play me a trick..)

 

[arildno]

Strangely enough, if it IS a stave church, it looks a bit like Borgund. But surely, you weren't there??

Perhaps Lom stave church?

Arrgh, I dunno, I think I'll stick with my restaurant here in Oslo (or, possibly, the stave church at Bygdø Folklore Museum??)

 

[arildno]

NO!

I think I've got it!

You Poles stole a Norwegian stave church from us back in the 19th century.
It is located in Karpacz (or whatever).
It is probably that war booty from the Polish-Norwegian war (1837-1843)

 

[Andre]

This one?

 

[lisab]

NO!

I think I've got it!

You Poles stole a Norwegian stave church from us back in the 19th century.
It is located in Karpacz (or whatever).
It is probably that war booty from the Polish-Norwegian war (1837-1843)

How do you steal a church ?

 

[arildno]

How do you steal a church ?

Ask the Poles. They know how to steal..staves.

 

[Andre]

I guess they used this ship for that

Ales stenar

 

[lisab]

Things I've learned so far today from this thread:

• What a stave is.
• Norweeds can veeeery sensitive about their staves.
• Norweeds don't forget about stave stealing quickly.
• Sometimes, a church is actually war booty.

 

[Borek]

Strangely enough, if it IS a stave church, it looks a bit like Borgund. But surely, you weren't there??

Why not?

A little bit to the side, but that made our trip just 700 km longer.

As for the Karpacz - I have heard that that the church was sold - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vang_stave_church

I can't say I remember anything about Polish-Norwegian war, in the years you have mentioned there was no Poland on the map of Europe, I think you got it wrong

And not surpirisingly Andre is right about Ales stenar.

 

[arildno]

I can't say I remember anything about Polish-Norwegian war,

It was that squabble over the silver ware Jan Sobieski sent to Norway for safekeeping, before his trip to Vienna.
It was honestly LOST, and you didn't have the right to take it back, with interest.

in the years you have mentioned there was no Poland on the map of Europe, I think you got it wrong

Neither did Norway exist back then; that detail didn't stop you from going to war against us.

 

[Borek]

Trip summary, or where we have slept

(Stena Baltica picture found somewhere on the web)

 

[hypatia]

I love the little cabins and your tent looks like a fine home, away from home.

 

[Marzena]

Browsing the pictures:

 

[Borek]

Diary, as promised. Path is incomplete due to hardware (Garmin) and software (my head) problems.

Day fourth (July 5^th)

Fast but not easy (no navigation, no city map) trip to the old city center (to see Ostra Brama - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gate_of_Dawn) and Rasos Cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasos_Cemetery). On the way back to camping navigation becomes useful again as even if it is not displaying the correct map, it shows correctly trace of our earlier route, which makes trip back to camping much easier. We pack and leave in the general direction of Riga, but we don't plan to get to the city yet - we leave around 3 PM and we are 300 km from the target, that could mean getting there late. Instead we plan to stop at camping in Bauska (N56 24.516 E24 10.057) - that's already Latvia, Baltic states are tiny. On the way we go through a series of thunderstorms, with torrential rains, and I have to slow down (Marzena is not driving on the trip - in general car and tent are my job). In Panevezys it was raining so strong that streets looked like rivers and in some places I have seen water going up as fountains from drains. Somewhere in these rains we passed first 1000 km point, but because of side trips of Saturday it doesn't mean we did 1/6th of the planned distance. Camping in Bauska is small and very nice, apart from us there is only one other car (VW Transporter adapted - probably by its NL owner - to a caravan). Quiet place with almost everything you may need - however, no trees so it may be difficult to survive during really hot and sunny day.

Gate of Dawn:

Rasos Cemetery:

Somewhere in Vilnius:

 

[Borek]

Day fifth (July 6^th)

Luck is with us - when striking camp something interrupted me while folding the tent poles and we were very close to leaving two of them on the camping, but Marzena spotted them before we left. My (quiet) plan was to get to Saaremaa island. First we drove to Riga, to take pictures of Old City and cathedral, one that I used some months ago in landmark thread. Unfortunately, our Garmin was playing its tricks again - this time in Riga. I had to navigate using my nose and general awareness, luckily it worked. We spent about two hours walking in the Old City, then we got to the car, drove out of the city, navi got on the track so I keyed in target of the next part of the trip... and I was told we will be there half past eight, when I hoped for seven. It turned out day earlier we misjudged the distance between Riga and Kuressaare and we have almost 100 kilometers more than I expected. Not good, but somehow we made it, even if we got to the camping place half past nine (nuvi didn't took ferry time into account). As I have finally access to internet I am posting first pictures from the trip of the PF and asking for the help with nuvi on Polish garniak (Garmin Maniak) forum. Around midnight another thunderstorm starts.

On the camping something impossible happened - we meet a talkative Finn So far I have seen only silent models, speaking 5 to 7 words a day on average. This can be at least partially explained by sex - those silent models were males, our talkative Finn was female. Her English was ery limited, still we managed to exchange some information and she suggested which road can be more interesting for us when we get to Lappi.

Riga cathedral:

Riga - old city. Obvious with whom they did bussines back then, isn't it?

Just a view of the old city.

 

[Borek]

Day sixth (July 7^th)
(when we meet Suur Töll and his wife)

We were lucky again - while it was raining through the night it stopped early in the morning, so tent was dry and ready to fold. But we decided to first make a small side trip to the Sääre Lighthouse - and we both felt in love with the place. Hard to tell why, and pictures don't tell everything, but definitely a nice place and worth visiting. Then back to the camping and luckily before leaving I decided to check garniak forum - bingo! Map is divided into small sections that you have to select when uploading. What I have missed was that some cities have their own sections - and it is hard to spot that they are not selected, as they occupy just a few pixels unless you zoom in. Three cities with their own sections in the area are Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn - bad luck that all three happened to be on our way. Selected everything, uploaded again to the device - and later in Tallinn we had no problems. Before leaving the island we saw two other places - monument of Suur Töll (yes, again we are visiting places from the landmark thread) and Kaali meteorite crater. I have seen pictures from Kaali before, but they were not good enough to show the size of the crater - it is much larger than I expected.

After leaving the island we went to Tallinn to ferry. Plan was to check departure times and then decide whether we stay for night somewhere near Tallinn or whether we go directly to Helsinki. We got to the terminal about hour and half before the departure so we decided to not wait, bought tickets and boarded. That was a little bit risky, as ferry arrives at Helsinki at 11 p.m. so we could be not able to find a place to sleep, that also meant we have not seen anything in Tallinn. But again luck is with us (this starts to be disturbing, how many times you can draw GOOBF card exactly when it is needed?). We left the ferry around 11, but we are so far north that it was still quite bright and in Finland you can put your tent almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allemannsrett#In_the_Nordic_countries). We drove west till it looked like the city ended and then we looked for a place to spend a night. Turned out to be quite simple. But the situation was absurd - it was middle of the night, it was bright, and regardless of being relatively far north (Helsinki are around the same latitude as southern Alaska) temperature was so high that I was sweating after pitching the tent in a t-shirt.

Sääre Lighthouse

Kaali meteorite crater - for the scale, note people on the right.

Suur Töll and Piret

 

[Borek]

Day seventh (July 8^th)

Actually there was no night, so it is day seventh by calendar only Two places to see in Helsinki - one is Sibelius monument, second - I planned to visit offices of the Finnish publisher I cooperated with 10 years ago, we haven't seen since then. I thought about saying hello to Juhani, the owner, but decided not to - not without a shower after sleeping in the wild. So we just drove through Helsinki and then north we go again. I zoomed out map in nuvi, put my finger somewhere to the north and touched "get us there". Nuvi obeyed, and when we got "there" we started to look for a camping. Found one about 6 km from the place we were standing, in Leppavirta. Did I tell you luck is with us? About an hour after the tent was standing another thunderstorm started. We met some Poles working in Finland, they got to the same camping for short vacations and told us few (probably) valuable things about the further trip. There are special facial masks against mosquitoes that can be bought in shops here. We already have DEET based repellent, but these masks sound like a good idea, especially for Marzena - she attracts mosquitoes much more than I do.

Sibelius monument (or just a part of it - it was almost impossible to take a good picture of the whole monument, there were so many people around, and the buses with Japanese tourists were coming one by one).