Finally after a winter with HUGE amount of snow it was possible to start riding! And I did it with 4 times riding in one week. The weather was already quite warm -not like I needed to put all possible clothes on me. First day ride was less than 100km like this:
First ride of the season
Second day I was checking one place where was flooding.
Ride to Kärkelä Ironworks area
Here is the short video of the place where the river was flooding! I made a riding video of this next days ride.
3rd day short ride
Riding to the border of Varsinais-SuomiSnow was mostly gone but lakes had still ice!The temperature was something like 10-13 degrees -so not too cold anymore!
And then on saturday I got three friends with me and we did already almost 200km!
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…
Dark clouds on the west!
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.
Obeliai windmill
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!
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!!!
Reszel castle
The northern parts of Poland is beautiful! And also if the road is in good condition it can be very nice ride!
Polish countryside
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!
In Lithuania
We took a guesthouse in Marijampole town and after quite nice dinner we made a short walk in local city park.
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:
Stádlecký Chain BridgeOnly small cars can drive over. And me…
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:
The Devil’s Heads
Finally we reached the small town of Ceska Lipa and the old town was nice surprise!
Ceska Lipa
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.
Sloup castle
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!
Chocianów abandoned PalaceThe black Church. St. Francis of Assisi
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!
Gasthaus Zum Post
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!
Postalmstraße Mautstelle
Right after this panoramic road we had Traunsee…
Lake 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…
Nice views (without mountains…)
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!)
Ferry in Czech
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:
The most amazing riding day in our tour! We started by climbing to Passo di Giau From the west.
Fedare in 2000 meters
Passo di Giau is well known about the views at the top!
Giau southwestGiau northGiau east
From Giau we rode down to Cortina d’Ampezzo and from there straight up to Passo tre Croci (at 1809 meters) that doesn’t go down very fast on the east side! There you will have first beautiful Lago di Misurina at 1754 meters and then Lago di Landro at 1400 meters. Beside these lakes there are also many hotels and restaurants. We took a short pause at Misurina with some sweet roll and lemonade.
Lake Misurina
Then it was time to ride to the next country: Austria! Almost right after we crossed the border I took the left-turn to a “secret mountain road” that not too many know about! Usually everyone is riding straight from Toblach (Italy) to Lienz (Austria) and then choosing the Grossglockner. But we took this “Pustertaler” first.
Amazing views
Then after riding a quite long way from the city of Lienz to the south-end of Grossglockner -We were finally there! I’ve been here twice before… (almost). 2014 we took the road from south and it was raining until Hochtor tunnel. Luckily from there we made the northside in good weather. In 2017 we came from north and it was raining too much! We decided to turn back. But now the weather was perfect!! Maybe it was little bit cold (about +10 celsius near the Glacier) but it didn’t bother us at all!! We got many nice pictures there!!
Click any of the pictures to see them bigger! We found a place to stay from Taxenbach village. The guesthouse was nice but we didn’t find a good restaurant from this small village. Our 240km route for this day 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:
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…
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:
Go - Za 