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…
Val Raccolana
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!
One of the many bridges over Torrente Aupa river
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.
Monte Zoncolan
We made a short break in Ampezzo village. Found very small local shop and bought something to drink.
Ampezzo
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!
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:
Oops!
Here’s the cross that we saw on the hill. It’s about 10-12 meters high!
Crocifisso Fumak
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.
Mountain Pass? Ravno Podolje
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.
Viaduct Bača pri Modreju
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.
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.
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!
Short stop near Varaždin
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!
3 minutes after 4pm I took this picture! My wife is swimming…
I have instagram account called “OneworldOneXR“. I started the account 29th of January 2018 and I have shared one picture every day since then. Now I have 6411 followers! This blog will also share the best pictures from this account here!
Balaton & Heviz Decided to take a little bit easier day now. We rode only 170 kilometers: First to the Lake Balaton and then to Lake Heviz. We came to the lake Balaton straight to the Tihany peninsula (actually I don’t know what the peninsula is called but this Tihany village is there anyway!)
Lake Balaton
From the south-end of Tihany you can take the ferry to the other side of the lake. It seemed that the ferry was full all the time! (but I didn’t check the price…) I tried to find the highest possible place (or road) from Badacsony Vulcano to see the the views to the lake.
Badascony
Where’s the mountain?
There is quite many nice photos that people have been taking from that mountain… But this one is simply the BEST! In the forest we saw some instructions how to move and behave there in the mountain… Hungarian should be a relative language to Finnish but I didn’t understand anything!!
Hungarian language
Because it was quite hot day -maybe something like +32 celsius, we started to think what would be a nice place to cool down a little bit? We found this nice lake to take a swim:
Lake HevizLake HevizSplashes in Lake Heviz
Lake Heviz is the biggest thermal lake in the world. The water temperature is +32 celsius! We had a hotel room just beside this Lake/ Spa… In out holiday this was maybe one of the “biggest tourist attractions” with such a many people everywhere. The route for this day was like this:
Riding south from Poprad over the Lower Tatra mountains was great! The road had some very nice corners all the time. After the “big road” 66 we took the “smaller road” 531 and that was a little bit bumpy -but still a great ride for a motorcycle.
Chmarošský Viadukt was just before we took the road 531
After mountains our route was more about small road from one village to another. But then we rode through this:
“Perse” means the Ass in Finnish!
And soon we had another border to cross… We entered Hungary (6th country).
Hrad Somoska castle
We took the small roads after the border to this castle. We left the bike to Hungary and we walked all the way back to Slovakia (!!!) to this castle. That was about 200 meters… Then we still had one river to cross… The Danube river! And we did it with a ferry. We took the ferry from Nagymaros to Visegrad and the price was 1000 (!!!) -local currency and it’s about 3€.
Nagymaros – Visegrad ferry
After 344 kilometers riding we took the nice room from a guesthouse in a small Csakvar village. They had also very nice restaurant but they made a BIG mistake with breakfast! Here is the route for day 6:
This guesthouse “Azymut” in Stary Folwark was interesting. It was very new but quite many things didn’t work at all. The most disturbing was that when you took a shower the water came also to the bathroom floor. But there was no floor drain from where the water could go out!! So the bathroom was very wet and very slippery! In the beginning of our day we rode through Grajewo -town. We made a short stop in a small park with few old military “things”.
MiG-15UTI in Park Wojsko Polskie
The route of the day was about going south. We didn’t choose too much big roads and sometimes it felt like we didn’t move at all. But finally we reached the Veiksel river and beautiful Kazimierz Dolny town. We had very big room from the hotel with thick walls. The mobile network was working only if you were reaching out from the window!
In internet! (The hotel WiFi didn’t work)
Of course we went out to check the city! But just to find out that everything costs (even parking!) and cash only! We even walked up to the castle just to find out that no credit card…
Kazimierz Dolny castleKazimierz Dolny cathedral with nice view to the riverMarket Square
From the market square we found quite many restaurants. But we didn’t find english menu. Yes! I can use google translator but because it seemed that they dodn’t like tourists here we de decided to test their attitude. Finally in one restaurant there was a waitress who was at least smiling nicely and they had the menu partly in english -so we decided to stay there. Unfortunately I got quite terrible food even it was just a pizza. I think they fried a frozen one…
We continued riding west and soon we’re filling the tank near Haapsalu town. I noticed that I didn’t have my wallet in my pocket and also that someone was trying to call me… I called back and it was the owner of the previous BnB and she told that my wallet was there! First I was little bit in panic -I thought we needed to go back to get the wallet but then we tried my wifes Debit card if it was working in Estonia… and it was perfectly ok. She also said that she had some cash so we could easily get along next 2-3 days and we could go back to get my wallet on saturday evening when we were already coming back. So now with full tank of 95 octane gasoline we checked the Haapsalu castle.
Quite a lot of renovation going on in the castle
After about 20 minutes walk around the area we continued to the airport:
Kiltsi airport
This is old military airport and it is not in use anymore. Sometimes they are having some dragraces for cars or for bikes… but mostly it’s empty and you can easily try how fast your bike can go! I didn’t take my bags off so I did only 120km/h. Just beside the airport is quite nice ruins of old manor (Ungru manor). The owner started to build the house for his loved one…. But then she died and soon the owner died too and house was never finished!
Then we rode to the Port of Rohuküla to wait for the ferry to Hiiumaa. It gave is nicely about 40 minutes time to relax while the ferry was sailing to the port of Heltermaa. But already before 3pm we were checking the next place: The abandoned church of Paluküla.
Church was abandoned during WW II but nowadays it has new roof!
Then we took the road “Tahkuna Tee” or road number 113. This is definitely the best ride in Hiiumaa island. It takes you to Tahkuna lighthouse and behind this lighthouse there is memorial monument of M/S Estonia accident that happened in September 28, 1994. This memorial is especially for the children who died in this tragic disaster.
Very nice location for a simple memorial!
Next we checked some kind of adventure park (?!)
Santa MariaSome kind of castle/ maze (?)…and the EIffel Tower, size is 10x smaller than original
This park is built by one person and it is kind of private place. But after he built this Eiffel everyone wanted to see the place and climb to the tower! We didn’t climb there because we had another tower to climb!
Built in 1531
Kõpu lighthouse is probably the third oldest lighthouse in the world that is still operational! It is 36 meters high and the first staircase is about 22 meters straight climb. 1 stair is about 40 cm’s high so it is quite difficult climb for a small person. The railing on the top is totally too low (for me) -I was only sitting beside the tower and not going close to the edge. I think I would’ve fainted if I would go there!
Views from the top are amazing!
We had a nice Guesthouse in Kassari village and we were very lucky about dinner! The only restaurant in this village was closed but we got food anyway. And this was because there was some big group eating and they served us the same food -and it was even very good! Nicely done and good service, thank you Lest & Lammas!
My wife’s video of the day 2
Third day morning it was raining so we didn’t start riding too early, we took it very slow!
After this chapel we found something very spectacular! One of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited is the Sääre Tirp -peninsula. We left the bike to the parking area and started to walk south. After 2 kilometers walk there were no trees anymore only very narrow piece of land and it was going more narrow all the time. I took my drone up!
Nice sunshine after the rainy morning…
It took about 2 hours for us to walk to the end of treeline and back. There was still quite long distance to walk until there was no land anymore, maybe something like 5-600 meters until the total end of Sääre Tirp. Next we checked the small lighthouses on the westside from Port of Sõru.
Then it was time to take a ferry to the bigger island: Saaremaa.
We stayed in a nice Guesthouse and enjoyed dinner in Saaremaakera in the center of Kuressaare (Big recommendations!)
VIdeo of the third day (by my wife)
Fourth day started also with the rain but it ended soon. We went to check Kuressaare castle when it was still little bit foggy. Now it is possible to walk around the castle on the top of the surrounding wall. From there you can see the castle from every possible corner!
Nice houses just outside the castle when entering from the city
The we were already riding towards the harbour of Kuressare, but we took one stop on the way:
Kaali Crater is the only known major impact that has occurred in a populated area!
Then again one ferry, this time from Kuivastu to Virtsu and we were back in the mainland. We checked the ruins of Lihula castle. There’s not much left of this castle.
Then we needed to ride to the first Guesthouse we visited because my wallet was there. But we stopped in Padise monastery on the way. Here was also some renovations going on so we couldn’t get in.
Our last night was in very siple cabin without water. My wife didn’t like this idea at all. But I liked the place!
Cheap Guesthouse in Lohusalu.
And I got my wallet beck! The dinner we had in a place called Günther kohvik. No recommendations from this place. Fifth day we only needed to reach the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki and there was plenty of time… In the boat we took the buffet lunch and ate totally too much. But when you pay you have to get the maximum benefit! Right?
Easter we spent in Imatra. Riding there was like this:
The nicest place to stop and look around was in Taavetti. There is an old fortress that was originally built in the end of 18th century.
In Imatra I had to take the picture of the famous “Valtionhotelli” (State Hotel)
Next day we did some riding near Imatra but also to the middle of Saimaa (The biggest lake of Finland)
This is from IRRC track. The Imatra IRRC is in June 14-16thVery nice (and old) Belltower in RuokolahtiSome war barricades in SyyspohjaAlone in the ferryThis is from Jäppilänniemi -very beautiful lake views!
On the day when we had to ride back it was quite cold so we chose mainly the big road when we started to feel too chilly. The way back to Helsinki was something like this:
At least I took 1 picture of 1 church (in Miehikkälä)
Here is the video compilation of the drone flights I made in Easter:
This time it was very interesting! There was so many new models it felt like there’s no time enough to get to know all of them. Luckily I’m not a big fan of sportbikes… So few bikes wasn’t so interesting to me.
1. KTM 790 Adventure Maybe the biggest group of interested viewers was around this bike. It’s no wonder. The bike looks very good! It has hew parallel twin engine that KTM introduced last year. The engine has little bit less power than in 790 Duke but of course the torque is better is all rpm’s. Bike has almost all possible electronics: traction control, cornering abs, offroad abs, ridemodes and so on. It has 20 litres tank that gives the bike easily more than 400 km’s range on the road. Tank is placed around the engine so the center of gravity is very low. Price for this bike is 18500€ in Finland!
Tank around engineIt was difficult to take pictures of this bike! There was so much people all around it all the time.
2. Yamaha 700 Tenere Another adventurebike but totally different kind of idea! This is simple, not too much electronics and it looks more ready for an OffRoad ride! It’s almost 6000€ cheaper than KTM! The final price is still open but they said it will not be more than 12800€! 200mm travel is not much but they’ve tested this bike quite long time so I guess they think it’s enough. 16 liters tank gives this bike more than 300 km’s range.
It should’ve been white-red bike in the show!But this look very good! It calls me to make an offroad ride right now!
3. BMW R1250GS And here is another adventurebike but yet again totally different kind of thinking. This is legend of all touring/ adventurebikes but now it has bigger engine, more power and torque and it’s again more expensive. It has simply everything you can ever imagine the bike could have… -Ok, no reverse gear or automatic gearbox but anyway. The price for adventure version is more than 31000€ in Finland
Big bike to make long rides and tours
4. Suzuki Katana Suzuki makes a nice return to interesting and “modern” bikes. But the funny thing is that the design is very retro when it is based on 80’s Katana. The engine they take from GSX-S1000F so it delivers very nice power and easy riding. And the way it looks it will always give strong feelings to all pure motorcyclists!
Katana
5. Triumph 1200 SpeedTwin Triumph presents new line with 1200 Twin engine. The bike still looks totally retro but the engine is now more like modern and sporty. It delivers 96 hp with 112Nm torque in 4950rpm. Compare this with T100 engine: 64hp and 80Nm in 3800rpm -you can say that there is a big difference.
GoZa Mite 