This season I started later than in a long long time! But there’s quite obvious reason: Covid-19.
Last week there was already quite nice days but finally when I made the decision to go out on sunday it was quite cold! +3 (celsius) was the highest and -1 was the lowest. But at least we had sunshine!
The route for this day was something like this:
Because we didn’t ride far enough on previous day I made the reservation for the ferry From Tallinn to Helsinki for the next day. I was thinking to ride to Pärnu today and spend nice evening there and then ride to Tallinn next morning. The ferry was about to start 1PM.
After 60 km’s of riding west from Jēkabpils the rain had stopped and the road was dry enough to take of rainsuits.
The riding was doing well! The road was in very good condition and there wasn’t too much traffic. Maybe about 100km’s later we’re already on the north side of Riga and I asked my wife that maybe we should ride all the way to Tallinn?? Se said “lets do it!” And it was only about to change the ferry tickets to this evening… and it was ok! So we had ferry already today from Tallinn to Helsinki!
I was filling the tank somewhere before Pärnu and it started raining there! But luckily it was just a short shower and we got even another somewhere in the middle between Pärnu-Tallinn. But when it wasn’t raining it was nice weather and the clothes were drying fast!
We took a little bit of shopping in Tallinn and we even had time to enjoy dinner at our favorite restaurant Sevan before getting to the ferry.
And we got very nice sunset on the way to Helsinki!
We were home a little bit after 10PM… Quite late, quite tired and exhausted! The whole trip was very successful and full of nice moments and incredible places! I really can’t say what was the best place or moment… There was so many of them! I’m remembering very well the Hungarian roads -they were very nice! Slovenia -I really need to go again!! And Cesky Krumlov was very special also…
My wife is answering: Krk island in Croatia and Grossglockner were the best places/ moments.
The total route was about 5900 kilometers. We visited 12 countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany). In 2 of these we didn’t spend night (Slovenia and Germany). The best accommodation was in Croatia and the worst was in Hotel Luiize/ Latvia (last night).
The 520km’s route for the last day was like this:
The idea was to ride from the south parts of Lithuania to Riga, Jurmala or Sigulda. But the weather forecast didn’t agree with my idea! There was crazy thuderstorm in that area and it wasn’t moving anywhere!!
So I choose the route more east.. and the whole day was about trying to avoid the rain! So almost all day we had dark clouds on our left side…
It seemed that we would finally enter the Daugavpils (again) and I wasn’t too excited about this! -I didn’t wanna spend the afternoon and night in a same town where we were before! Just before we crossed the Latvian border we at least saw something nice! But this windmill was pretty much ruined already -what a pitty.
There was a chance to choose the road straight north… And we were also talking that maybe we could ride in the rain also to get further… And when we arrived to Jēkabpils I had to stop and fill the tank. This was perfect timing!! While I was in the gas-station it started raining (like crazy)!
So me and my wife decided to stay here if there was a hotel or a nice guesthouse. And there was! Unfortunately this place was the worst in our trip!! It was very old house where they had made somekind of renovation but it wasn’t very good quality! The door was hanging about 1cm and it was difficult to close it. The worst part was the bed… It didn’t have any mattress pad… And in the morning when we wake up we both had some pain in the back!
Luckily there was at least something to see in this town and the restaurant was very nice!
The 330km’s route fot this day was like this:
Few more photos here!
So we were already by the same sea where we live and it really felt like home is close. Today we were riding small countryside roads of North Poland. Some of the roads were not in good condition at all!! After one road we had to keep 10 minutes break just to give some rest to our butts!!!
The northern parts of Poland is beautiful! And also if the road is in good condition it can be very nice ride!
Then we also crossed the border to Lithuania and it really started to feel that we are going home… Except the weather forecast didn’t look too good for next day!
We took a guesthouse in Marijampole town and after quite nice dinner we made a short walk in local city park.
The 406km’s route for this day was like this:
The day started with a beautiful sunrise from hotel window!
And because my GPS had a function to make “Interesting adventure” I decided to choose this. And we started riding north…
And even I had the marker “No gravelroads” in my GPS it gave us this:
We found very nice place to stay from the guesthouse just outside the centrum. We left the stuff there and took a ride to one of the most amazing beaches in Europe (or at least in Baltic sea).
Then we spent quite a long time walking around the city. It was sunday afternoon and there was totally too much people!! But we survived…
(Click any of the pictures to make them bigger)
The old town of Gdansk is very beautiful! The area is huge and you can easily get lost there… But the buildings are very nice and the river that goes through the city gives it a little bit more spirit!
The 312km’s route for this day was like this:
You can see some more pictures here.
Day 14
From Cesky Krumlov we were riding straight north to Bechyně village. And I didn’t read the roadsigns well enough… the road was closed! We had to turn back to the big road and from there turn to west and find this bridge:
On the northside of Praha it started raining but only for about 30 kilometers. Then we made a short stop at Želízy village and we were climbing to the sandstone hill where we found these:
Finally we reached the small town of Ceska Lipa and the old town was nice surprise!
You can find some more pictures from here!
The route for this day was like this:
Day 15
This day started very grey and it looked like it will rain very soon! Because of this risk of rain I skipped the famous motorcycle cave. Luckily the sandstone castle was on the way and stopped there to take the picture.
Then we were riding about 60km’s in Germany (12th country in our trip!) and there it started raining. The route for this day was about 310km’s and from that we had the rainsuits on about 170km’s! But we saw at least two nice/ strange buldings on the way!
And when the entered to our destination city Poznan it didn’t rain anymore and we could go walking to the beautiful old town!
And because I had to pay 10€ of parking this hotel was the most expensive on our trip -about 82€. You can see more pictures from this day here.
The route for this day was like this:
This guesthouse was one of the nicest places where we spent the night. Especially the breakfast was very nice!
But after breakfast we were riding again. First we took the road 311 down in the walley and then we turned north following the Dientenbach river. This road is very nice as the river runs deep in the walley but it’s not very long… and then we took the “Hochkönig Road” to east. This road was first climbing to Mühlbach am Hochkönig -skicenter & village and then going down with very nice sweeping corners! Then it was road 159 north following the Salzach river (and A10 Autobahn) and then Lammertal Straße to east towards Postalmstraße. This is a tollroad with 5€ payment. The speedlimit is 40 and it’s almost like going back to middle-age… The phone network wasn’t working and there was cows everywhere!
Right after this panoramic road we had Traunsee…
And then the mountains were gone! I had little bit sad feelings even we had quite nice countryside roads after the mountains. I was thinking: “Ok, we will see Tatra mountains in the north part of Czech republic but that’s about all…” Luckily there was some nice places still to make a short stop…
I had made the route to go over Vltava river in a ferry (Frydava-Frymburk). This was 4€ (Euros were just fine to use as payment!)
Then we arrived at Cesky Krumlov and I had made a booking in the middle of the old town!! It’s not very wice because you can’t ride there at all! But after few tricks we had our stuff in our room and the bike was parked outside the old town… Here’s few pictures of the beautiful old town (Click any of the pics to see them bigger!):
There is absolutely enough of restaurants in this city! We didn’t choose the best one but it wasn’t too bad either… This town I can easily recommend to anyone. You should visit there!
Our 288km route for today was like this:
Luckily in the morning when we woke up it didn’t rain anymore. In the evening and during the night the rain was very heavy. So when we started to ride the road was wet and air was fresh…
The road in Raccolana valley starts from about 1300 meters in the east and it goes all the way down to Chiusaforte village (or town) in 391 meters! From there I wanted to ride north and check Passo del Cason di Lanza. But when I turned to that road there was a sign that it was closed. The alternative road SP112 from Pontebba to Moggio di Sotto was very nice too!
Then we were riding little bit north again. The route was about to climb to Monte Zoncolan from east. But I didn’t have routepoints in my GPS so it chose “the shortest possible” road to the top. This shortcut is not even a full road in google maps! But I did the whole road… with many rocks, fallen trees and lots of stuff and holes in the pavement! XR was totally ok with this road too. The actual road that climbs up to the mountain is not much wider. It makes the curves and corners in the middle of the skiing hill and it’s very steep in many places. At the top we had still cloudy weather and even few drops of rain fallin so we didn’t get nice pictures.
We made a short break in Ampezzo village. Found very small local shop and bought something to drink.
Took a small mountain Pass called Cibiana. It climbs “only” to 1530 meters and there are restaurants and trees on the top so not much about nice views there.
Then finally started the climb to Passo Staulanza. This I did back in 2017 but it was raining like hell then. Now the weather was nice and I could nicely enjoy the road and the power of S1000XR!
I didn’t have any booking made for the night because I knew how it is around here. You can easily find guesthouses from every village! I made my first stop in Santa Fosca village in a small guesthouse called ” Albergo La Rondine” and they had a room for us. Plus there was a nice car parked outside -never seen it before!
The 230km route for today was like this:
And day 9 when we didn’t ride at all. After breakfast we took a walk to the local cross-hill. It was about 2 kilometers walk to this place and the air was already very hot! After few hundred meters I fell… Just took a wrong step and I was on my knees in the pavement. Luckily I was able to take the hit to the pavement mostly with my hands but I got this anyway to my knee:
Here’s the cross that we saw on the hill. It’s about 10-12 meters high!
We planned to visit one cave but there was a risk of thunder… So we went only to the beach to enjoy the clear water of Adriatic sea!
Day 10 we started the ride back home (kind of)…
First we took the curvy road up to the mountains and closer to Slovenia. This road has long history as the Lousiana -one of the most significant roads in Austria-Hungary already back in 19th century. The highest point was near Mrzle Vodice village at 928 meters.
Then we were in Slovenia! The temperature was much cooler since we were quite high -maybe about 500 meters above sea level. The road was quite nice ride until we rode under the Highway that goes southwest from Ljublana. After that the road was totally amazing!! Our route reached the road 102 and after Godovič there was totally crazy part where the road was following the canyon river and the walls were climbing high on both sides.
Under this Viaduct we took few pictures but mostly we were totally amazed by the views (and didn’t take any pictures!)
Then our route turned to the northeast and we were following the Soca river until we turned to Mangart.
After this rainy experience we’re again in Italy and we stayed in skiresort hotel in Sella Nevea village. The views were totally amazing and luckily we just took a short walk after the dinner before it started raining.
The 290km’s route for this day:
It was going to be very hot day. We were about to ride little bit to Slovenia and then to Croatia. One friend of mine had invited us to visit Zagreb but I was thinkin that it’s not very good idea to go to a big city when it’s very warm weather. We were riding in Slovenia only about 10km! And when we entered the border at Mursko village there was a line… luckily only about 10 minutes of waiting.
They wanted to check all documents and when they saw my wife’s Russian passport they started to look very closely! They were not interested about Residence Permit at all… The were checking all the stamps in the passport and finally they put the stamp there!
After ice cream and drinking break we chose the highway. It was damn hot and in the highway the heat wouldn’t matter too much. Except they have tollgates in the middle of the highway!! The que was at least 15-20 minutes but I was riding on the verge of the road and I rode past quite many cars! Even the local police saw me and they didn’t do anything!
Finally after highway we got at least a little bit of mountain road. It was from Fuzine village to Hreljin village and when we saw the Adriatic sea first time and it was quite nice view! We still had to pay the roadtoll to Krk-island and ride over very nice bridge an then we had only few kilometers to our guesthouse in Porat village!
We decided to stay at least 2 nights here!
The route for 367km’s today was like this:
GoZa Mite 