It was monday the 26th of June when me and 3 friens of mine took the boat from Helsinki to Travemunde (Germany).
We had 4 red bikes (Ducati Monster 695, Ducati Streetfighter 1100, Yamaha MT-09 Tracer and BMW S1000XR) to ride with next three weeks.
The boat trip takes over 1 day and there’s nothing to do (except to eat!) And maybe go outside and take some pictures:
This was 4am in the morning when the sun was getting up from the northeast. One of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen! Tuesday 27th of June the boat was almost 1,5 hours late in the harbour of Travemunde and we had 70km’s to ride to our first destination. It was a beautiful city of Schwerin where we had a place to stay for the night. The route was like this:
adventure
And it starts in 7 days. I’ll try to add the text about each day soon after it’s done… But there can be some delays.
This year we’ll visit the Corse island!
With motorcycle
This was a dream come true finally for me! I’ve been to Åland few times with a car (last time was 17 years ago!) but now I got there with my motorcycle. This is the 4 days trip to Åland (Swedish)/ Aland (English)/ Ahvenanmaa (Finnish).
Åland is here and to get there with a motorcycle you need to take a ferry from Stockholm, Helsinki or Turku… Or a small ferry from Korppoo (Galtby) or from Kustavi (Vuosnainen). If you use these ferries the idea is to spend the night in some small islands before you go to the main island -and that’s what we did.
But before we took the boat from Korppoo we spent the night there in Faffas. They had a very nice cabin near the sea!
And then 10am it was time for a boat (ferry). This trip (to Föglö island) takes 4 hours!
In Föglö we had lot of time to get to know the island. It’s not very big! There’s actually only 1 road that goes through the island.
But there is also a very beautiful church and quite interesting hiking path in this island. Our accomodation in Föglö was Degerby Mat & Cafe.
Next morning the ferry to the main island left the Föglö at 9am. This was 30min trip.
And the first route was a detour from the mainroad to some villages in Högskär.
Then we rode to the southside of the “capitol of Åland” (Mariehamn), this was a beautiful road through islands.
After this road we rode to the eastside of the main island. First we had this very nice road with some nice bends and then we visited the fire station museum (but it was closed).
Then sun was shining so brightly and weather was too hot (about +13 celsius) so I had to go swimming! Did it here. Water was maybe +8… (You can also see a picture of me going swimming here!) We took a short break in Käringsund.
Then we visited Sålis Batteri, this is some fortifications that Russians built even they should not do it. Åland was a demilitarized already 50-60 years before!
From the east parts of the main island we moved to north with this road.
In the north we visited the Getaberget (and the tower), Havsvidden (with some nice views too) -this place had a great road!
And finally visited the Stallhagen Brewery and I bought 2 bottles of beer.
This was the first day on the main island of Åland, we spent the night is Strandnäs Hotel.
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Next morning I took a short tour in Mariehamn (This city has about 11500 inhabitants).
Then we started the ride of the day. First we rode to north (again) because there was still few places to visit. First there was Road of Tjudö -this is maybe the best road (for motorcycling) in Åland! It’s definately worth riding!
Then we rode to one small harbour again. This was Hamnsundet with small cafeteria (not yet open).
After this we took the most famous cafeteria in the island (Uffe På Berget). The altitude in the top of the tower is more than 50 meters above sealevel!
And then we went to the castle! There is only 1 middleage castle in Åland, it’s called Kastelholma.
This took about 1 hour to walk through the museum and there was some very interesting stories about the people who lived here (or were prisoners). After castle we rode this road: Road of Sund. This was with 2km’s of gravel.
And for the last place we visited Bomarsund fortress. This has very interesting story which ends with Ålands demilitarization in 1856 (In Treaty of Paris).
Then we took the ferry to Kumlinge island at 5pm and we stay the night in Kumlinge Stugor. Next morning we visited Kumlinge church, Kumlinge mountain (Vårholmsböte) and rode the best motorcycle road in Kumlinge…
The ferry took us to Brändö islands (4-5 islands in group) and there you have to ride through these beautiful landscapes of the archipelago sea. What a road this is!
Our trip in Åland ended about 3pm when the ferry arrived in Vuosnainen in the north side of Turku. (But there is still 1 more ferry after this!).
You can ride the most beautiful places in the main island of Åland in 1 day. But I really recommend that you take your time at least in Kastelholma castle and in Bomarsund fortress. So it should be at least 2 days. And if you have the possibility to visit the small islands too… Then you’ll really know what is it all about! ********* (Gotta go there again some day!)
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This time I will make update in Finnish.
Aika-ajo.com on suomalainen nettisivusto joka on koonnut muutaman aktiivisen nettikirjoittajan ajatuksia yhteen. Sitä voisi hyvinkin kutsua aikakausilehdeksi jota julkaistaan netissä. Aiheita ovat urheilu, liikkuminen sekä moottoroidut vehkeet.
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I’ve visited Kopparnäs many times, it’s one of my favorites places to grill sausages! This time I decided to make a visit to the area that is on the south-east side of Kopparnäs -it’s called Klobbacka.
It’s almost like an island but you can walk there throught a narrow neck of land. I actually made a shortcut by walking through the ice. The weather was very nice and on the other side of Klobbacka there was a lot of beautiful places to take pictures!
The weather was getting better and better and the views also were greater all the time!
It took 3 hours to walk about 4 kilometers! The route was like this:
I did one weekend tour with my BMW in the end of september and then I put it in the garage. Now I’m only searching for nice trails for my KTM Enduro. Luckily the autumn has been very dry and quite warm too!
Day 21
We rode from the northern parts of Poland through Lithuania to Latvia, like this. It was the longest ride in this trip but it didn’t feel like it at all. First of all it was a great weather!
We made a short visit to the hill of crosses and that made a nice break in the boring ride in those endless straights in Lithuania (and the road A12).
And in the beginning of the day we had some nice small roads of Poland and Lithuania!
We also stopped for awhile in the tripoint of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad) and Lithuania. Here’s a short video:
And then about 150km’s later it was time for the “Hill of Crosses” (which I think is a junkyard!)
Here is the link to all the pictures I took in this strange place in the middle of Lithuanian countryside.
Here’s one excample:
In Latvia we stopped in Riga dam, it’s a huge reservoir & dam with powerplant and there’s a road going on the top of the dam. The views over the reservoir are quite nice!
We had a room from the nice Hotel Sigulda (my fourth time here!)
Day 22
This was 300km’s from Sigulda to Tallinn (and ofcourse the ferry Tallinn – Helsinki and the final ride from Helsinki harbour to home!)
First break was ofcourse in the border between Latvia-Estonia and the legendary Hesburger!
After this break it started raining! And we waited about 1 hour for it to stop (in Pärnu). Soon after Pärnu the road was dry again and we had time to visit the sandpit-lake near Saku. And I made some SocialMedia updates there (again!)
The final trouble we got in the harbour while waiting the ferry. We noticed that Ducati’s rear tyre is almost empty! But luckily there were many american cars trying to get to the ferry and some of them had the tyreweld-stuff. So Maria could ride her red Monster in to the ferry and then From Helsinki harbour to home!
Thank you for ALL the readers who have been following this trip!! There will be more!
After rainy Day 19 this was easy! And it was about this:
Polish countryside road is like this.
We had 520 km’s to ride and the route was like this. It was raining every now and then but it didn’t bother much because they were only short showers. This day we had mostly only the “bigger roads” and even some new highway (with roadtull).
It was abaout 1,7€ to ride 30km’s in that highway. Luckily we also had some quite nice road from Olsztynek to Szczytno. It’s road number 58 and it’s a very good choice after many boring roads in Poland!
Here’s a short clip from that road.
We arrived in our accommodation quite early so we had plenty of time to take a walk in a beautiful city of Mrągowo and we had a dinner in Mercure Mrągowo Resort&Spa.
Day 18 was a little bit different than other days. We actually had a place to visit and it was going to take at least 1,5 hours. Here’s the route for day 18.
This was a break in a small city of Großköllnbach.
I took only 5 photos before we arrived to Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald where we took a walk in a special path or a Sky-Walk in 8-25 meters above the ground among the treetops.
So we rode 300 km’s and we walked 1300 meters.
Here’s entering the Sky-Walk:
I have a fear of heights. In my case it means that I’m not afraid but my body reacts strongly when I’m high! My stomach goes upside down, I’ll start to feel dizzy, my legs feels weak and I might even fall down when loosing all the strength from the legs. I’ve also fainted 2 times when I was young.
So this Sky-Walk wasn’t easy for me (in the beginning!) I felt pretty unsure and unbalanced but slowly it became easier.
At the end of the Sky-Walk there is a wooden tower with a spiral-path to the top. It is 44m high and ofcourse the view from the top is simply amazing!! (Even we had quite cloudy weather)
I’m not sure if we spent 1,5 or 2 hours in the path but it was quite special experience! I really would recommend it to visit in some of quite many Sky-Walks in Europe (In Finland we have non!)
Couple hours later we arrived in our place to stay in Czech Republic and during the last hour it had started raining…
Day 19
In the night it didn’t stop raining and we had a hard day ahead of us! It was raining all day! The rain was hard and heavy! Maria’s new waterproof riding shoes gave up after 30 minutes (the water came inside the boots!) My boots were a little bit better (It took about 5 hours when the water started to get in).
(Here is some news about the rain in Poland that day!)
We had 475 kilometers route including riding through Prague (That was actually one of the very few “Not so bad part of the day!”) After Prague there was a bad traffic jam in the highway and Maria and I got lost from eachother!
I tried to wait for her in some gas station every now and then but i just didn’t wait long enough! When she took a break it took a really long time for her to find the mood to continue riding! When we finally found eachother she had to have at least 30 minutes break… or maybe even 1 hour! But she is a fighter! She knew we had to continue so she did… And somewhere after we crossed the border to Poland she said “Let’s ride all the way to the end!!!”
It was almost dark and about 8.30 PM when we arrived to our destination, the small city of Bojanovo and very nice Villa Aurora. She had a big portion of Polish duck as a dinner and in the bed the blanket was thick!
So in the morning everything was ok again (even the shoes were still wet!)
This was the worst day ever of riding for me too!
Here’s our house in Villa Aurora where we slept after this hard day… in the morning it was easy to load all the stuff in to the bike. They were right in front of the door!
GoZa Mite 