This day was about turning back… But only after we would first ride quite far away north to Raippaluoto. We made a quick visit in Botniaring (racetrack) and rode through Jurva (city or village?). But soon it was time to turn to gravelroad!
At the end of this “offroad” ride there was a nice small observation tower of “Rajavuori”
Then we rode to Vaasa, it’s one of the oldest cities in Finland. There was old church but it burned in 1852 -Now there is only ruins.
From Vaasa we rode to Raippaluoto and to go there you have to ride over this very nice bridge!
Here in Raippaluoto we wanted to check another observation tower in Saltkaret.
This is quite amazing place if it is clear weather and if you will climb to the top of the tower!
From Raippaluoto we rode little bit more east so that we wouldn’t have to ride the same roads back home.
Before we arrived to Seinäjoki we took a short stop at Ylistaro church -the third biggest church in Finland!
And after putting all our stuff to hotelroom we went swimming (Yes it is 11th of May and it is very early for swimming in Finland!)
But it had been so nice weather already many days and the water was actually very warm in Kyrkösjärvi!
The route for day 3 was like this:
motorcycling
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Day 2 started when we had to ride again to the medieval church of Ulvila to check one possible gravelroad there but then we were already riding to Pori to check few places there. Rosenlew museum, Kirjurinluoto and Juselius Mausoleum. This mausoleum is the only one in the Nordic countries!
Then we continued towards Yyteri. This is maybe the most well known sand dunes and beach in Finland.
It was almost empty! Maybe because we were so early…
After this we were riding to Lampaluoto and Ahlainen. From there starts very nice road following the shores of The North Sea. You can follow the beachline almost 80 kilometers until you reach the city of Kristiinankaupunki. One very nice landmark on the way is the Belltower of Siipyy! Here I stopped to take a picture.
Few years ago when I was stopping in this same place the bells started to ring! That was very nice (and it hurted my ears)!
I checked the map before this day and I thought there is a nice gravelroad to Kristiinankaupunki and ofcourse I had to check it!
This nice road follows the river that goes to the sea just on the southside of this city. River is called “Lapväärtinjoki“.
In Kristiinankaupunki there is one place that every motorcyclerider has to check! It is the most narrow road (alley) in Finland. (Actually it’s maybe the third narrowest but the tha name of this alley is very nice!). “Kissanpiiskaajankuja” is less than 3 meters wide from the narrowest point -and it is 2-way road!!!
(Translation for this would be “Catwhippersalley”)
Then we road to Kaskinen -the smallest city of Finland. There is about 1200 people living here and it’s very beautiful because it’s just by the sea!
Then it was about the time to enter inland! We checked the windmill in Teuva. One wing weights about 10 tonns and it’s length is 49 meters!!!
Then we checked one empty house where anyone can spend the night and the biggest spear in the world.
I would definately change all bed linen before I would spend a night there… But you can go to sauna!
This spear is a monument honoring the Olympic gold metalist Pauli Nevala.
Then we finally entered our accommodation in Teuva. It was a very nice place called Opintola.
Here is route for day 2:
There was one more rider waiting for us in the Schwerin accomodation and then we were 5 riders to conquer the Europe! The last bike to the group is black Triumph Street Triple.
We checked the Schwerin castle already early in the morning!
This is the castle itself.
The day was about riding many kilometers and quite a lot about taking it in Autobahn. In the middle of the day there was some rain too -it surprised us and we got a little bit wet! The route was 650km’s to the southside of the Danube river in Regensburg. It was a nice sunset from the hotel window!
The route was like this:
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:
Thursday the 4th of May was finally the first actual spring-day here in southern Finland. I took some lining off from the jacket and pants ant took a short ride in very beautiful weather!
This is a small beach in Vihti (Otalampi). And because of very nice weather I took a swim also… The ice melted maybe 1 week ago so the water was freezing cold!
Little bit later I just stop the bike to take some photos. I am few meters away from the road and the sun is behind me… I love the photos that my new mobilephone (OnePlus 3T) is taking. The colours are very nice! This is also in Vihti (Tervalammentie).
I have this new red screen in my XR, I ordered it from powerbronze and it makes the bike look lighter and faster (I think). If I try to lean down behind that screen the road looks like this:
Soon I will be in my first tour for this year… We will take 5 days journey to Åland!!
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!
We got 1 more rider to make this tour with us! He’s Timo and he rides Honda VFR 800, and it’s red too!
This days route was called “Lets get the real good look at River Mosel!” -And yes we did!
The route was like this! And we’re following the River Mosel all the way from Koblenz to Trier and then to Luxemburg… It was more than 230 km’s of River Mosel and those grapevine or wine bushes on the both sides of the river! I think that’s enough… Luckily we did ride something else too! In the last part of the route we had nice ride in Eppenbrunn!
And then finally the GPS found a route that it is even hard to find from the map!!!
This must be the MAIN ROAD from Germany to France!
We had accommodation in Obersteinbach, France. It was nice and “bohemian” just in the right way!
The route was Kirkkonummi – Espoo – Helsinki – Tallinna – Pärnu – Riika – Saldus – Plinkses and about 500 kilometers like this! It was mostly big road and very boring day, the only merrier road was the Old Pärnu Road on the southside of Pärnu. There we also stopped ro take a swim in the Bay of Riga. The water was very warm!
Here is the parking area about 100m away from the sea. The day was HOT (about +30-32 celsius) so swimming was a very good idea!
This is a view from the resting area just outside Saldus -city. It was a Beautiful place.
Here is a picture of our MOST BEAUTIFUL hotel!
Day 3
We started the day by going to visit the 2 nice castles of Sigulda.
(https://motocaching.net/en/cache/viewb/id6980)
And also the cave down beside the river, this cave has walls of sandstone with many signatures from long time ago. (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/viewb/id6955)
Then we started riding the route for saturday. First we took nice road from Turaida to Saulkrasti. This would be very nice… but the pavement is so bad condition that you have to concentrate to keep the bike in balance and you can’t really enjoy the long sweeping bends. (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6830). From Saulkrasti you can find a monument of finnish bomber Junkers JK-274 crash in 1943. It is quite interesting to find finnish language in the middle of Latvia! (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6124)
Then after many kilometers of boring Via Baltica we took the old road of Pärnu. It is more pleasant ride because of the many small villages, old wooden houses and small shops. This 35 kilometer long road gives you some alternative route to Via Baltica. (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id4794)
In Pärnu we took a short lunch-break in Aleksandri Pub (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6338)
And in the north side of Pärnu we took a short visit in Villa Andropoff, this has quite interesting history but it didn’t give me any shivers. Looked like old Spa or something…
The Beach in this Villa was fantastic! Many kilometers of white sand everywhere.
Finally after a long and quite hot riding-day we arrived to Haapsalu. We visited the Haapsalu Episcopal Castle. Last time I was here (20 years ago?) it was only the ruins of the castle but now there was a museum and many different parts of the castle where you can enter. The bell tower, the hospital, the cathedral, the dungeons… we’re almost running everyhting through and still it took more than 1 hour! The entrance fee to the museum is 5€ and I really recommend to visit there!
(https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6310)
For saturday evening we choose to eat Pizza. There is 1 very nice pizzeria in Haapsalu, Pizza Grande!
Our hotel was the Spa by the ocean so we also enjoyed some jacuzzi and sauna (in Spa Laine)
Took this ride again… I have to make it at least once in a year and it really is a special ride. The road has nice corners…. with VERY NICE uphills and downhills and that makes the bike maybe a fly a bit… if you turn the throttle in a right place just a little!
It’s definitely a top 3 road in Finland!
And here we go…
Year ago I had S1000R and the camera was in my helmet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyG3MVNDYXU
