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!)
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.
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!!
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 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.
After mountains our route was more about small road from one village to another. But then we rode through this:
And soon we had another border to cross… We entered Hungary (6th country).
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€.
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:
Riding south from Kazimierz Dolny wasn’t very exciting until there was one road closed on the north side of Nowy Sącz. I have the route for this day down there but actually here we’re riding like this!
And I also made a video of this short adventure. There is even a short part OffRoad-riding!
Then the mountains were getting closer! And right after the Slovakia border we started to climb up to road 68 but didn’t have any special mountain pass name -or maybe it was “Vabec” at 766 meters? So it wasn’t very high but the view to the highest mountain in Slovakia (Gerlachovský štít 2655m) was stunning!
After Stará Ľubovňa town the road 77 to west and southwest was very nice ride! The pavement was perfect and I was able to keep up nice speed. A big recommendation to this road.
Our day ended in Poprad. We had a room in Hotel Sobota (Hotel Saturday) and their restaurant was very nice! I had one of the best meals there with huge piece of meat (about 4cm thick!)
Our 359km route for this day was almost like this:
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”.
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!
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…
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…
The 408km route for today was like this:
I’ve done few times the border from Estonia to Latvia in Valka/ Valga. Now I rode to Möniste and south from there so we were in Latvia. I had chosen “No gravelroads” in my GPS but soon it was gravelroad anyway. We had to do about 20 kilometers detour trying to avoid those terrible gravelroads in Latvia but it wasn’t successful. Finally we checked the old narrowrail in Gulbene. That was a trip back to Soviet-time!
From the same Gulbene city we found also abandoned palace!
After riding through many small villages and incredibly boring roads we arrived in Daugavpils city -the second biggest town in Latvia.
There is Fortress area built by Russians, but the buildings in this area are in very bad condition! At least the main gate is still OK!
Route for day 2 was like this:
Day 3: From the number 1 hotel in Daugavpils it was nice to continue to Lithuania!
Right after crossing the border there a small Zarasai town and there we found this:
The original idea was to ride to Belarus but we didn’t make the travel plan that has to be made 48 hours beforehand!
We visited this nice viewing tower:
The wind was very strong at this point but we didn’t notice yet the rising thunderclouds from the southwest. Then I started to avoid the possible rain by choosing the route more east. Finally it was only a small forestroad…
So we almost made it to Belarus!!
But of course we had to turn back to the big road and route to Vilnius. After the capitol of Lithuania we finally had to change the rainsuits otherwise we’d get wet. But the rain didn’t last long. We ended up to Poland in a small Stary Folwark village near Suwaki. This was the cheapest stay in our trip. Room for 2 with breakfast was about 32€! Here’s the route for day 3:
Our holiday trip started on saturday 29th of june. We hade booked a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn at 07.30 in the morning. We also booked the breakfast in the boat so we only needed to check that we had everything and then start the tour.
Boat arrived to Tallinn 09.30 so we had all day to ride! And there was quite many places to see in our route.
First place where I stopped to take a picture wasn’t planned.
The ride goes on until the windmill in Seidla village. This windmill is still operational! Then some other places too…
And after we put our stuff to the hotel in Törva village, we still checked the castle ruins and the cave in Helme.
Our first day route was like this.
We took the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn on wednesday 29th of may. This was my first time with Eckeröline M/S Finlandia.
The ferry arrived to Tallinn 5.30PM so we didn’t have time to visit many places or ride too far. But we did check something…
First was this viewing platform only about 23 kilometers west from harbour. Quite nice views to the Gulf of Finland!
Then we stopped at Keila Waterfall. There is very nice park in this area and you can easily spend 1 hour or more there. We enjoyed it very much!
Second day started with a ride to Paldiski city… Or actually we wanted to see the Pakri lighthouse and the cliffs behind the city.
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.
After about 20 minutes walk around the area we continued to the 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.
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.
Next we checked some kind of adventure park (?!)
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!)
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!
The we were already riding towards the harbour of Kuressare, but we took one stop on the way:
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!
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?
Triumph brought totally new models with 1200 twin engine. It has nice 90 hp -which doesn’t sound much but in this kind of bike it’s more than enough.
Even I didn’t have real knubble tires I felt the calling! “Go to the gravel! Go to the forest!” -It was shouting… And I did.
It’s totally the best bike that I have ever been riding in the gravelroad! It is too heavy to take Off-Road but I don’t really miss that anymore.
The seat should be softer and it should have better design. I could feel my ass wouldn’t like this after 200km’s!
I got myself DJI Osmo Pocket and I can say that it is quite amazing device! I totally don’t know all the functions it has but here I’m testing how it takes Panorama-pictures. You can take 180 -degree panoramas and 3 x 3 panoramas with Osmo pocket and I’m choosing the 180-degree pictures:
Maybe I wasn’t thinking too much what I was shooting. But anyway this Hvitträsk museum area is very beautiful place and I haven’t seen too many panorama-pictures from there before (maybe I wasn’t even looking!) You can see the rest of the pictures here.
GoZa Mite 