The Baltic
 

So I've been to the south of Europe a couple of times and admittedly on slightly shorter trips but I've mapped out a circuit of the Baltic and would appreciate your thoughts.
Some parts are planned (so far) as just straight blasts to get to the more interesting bits i.e. Leave Sligo early to Belfast, ferry to Stranraer and straight to Newcastle, overnight to Holland then straight to Copenhagen, idea being to get through the boring bits asap so I get to spend more time on the good bits, Norwegian fjords in particular:clap:
But from there on I could do with some input from you guys that have "been there done that" is there something else that my trip is really missing out on, I haven't gone for the hassle of visas for Russia so I'm deliberately bypassing St Petersburg and Kaliningrad (anyone have an idea how much the Helsinki Talinn ferry is? From what I can glean so far is it's just turn up and pay rather than prebook, is that right?)
Looking at possibly going late July and as I say would really welcome any and all tips thanks!:thumbup1:

Cost us 84 euro for 2 bikes and 2 people Helksinki to Talinn in july 2010.
I think you can get it cheaper by prebooking, but we just rocked up to the tourist info in Helsinki and bought them there.

Here is the time table and prices. What kind of bike your are riding? cause that Finland part looks quite strait and boring you should choose eastern route either trough lake area or near Rus border. It's more scenery there ... :scooter:

Thank you both very much. This is precisely the kind of info I was looking for.:thumbup1:
Capo Sakke I'll be on a GSX1400 and whereas I took some time over the route through Norway I have much less knowledge of Finland (I have more homework to do:cool4:) would there be something/place that would be a must do/see? I'll be camping and in the hope of getting good weather probably travelling in july/august the one question-mark I had over travelling closer to the Russian border at that time was that I understood that it was very forested and that the mosquitoes were very bad around this time, is this so? Past experience has taught me that any mosquito I've ever encountered seems to look upon Irish blood as a very fine wine that should be feasted upon at every opportunity bier
So I let the Garmin choose an easy route but I am in no way stuck on it, hence the question to those with more knowledge than I.The same applies to the route from Tallinn to Warsaw although I have some Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish friends here in Ireland that I will be quizzing about possible detours I have yet to meet any Finnish people here apart from a few rally drivers but they weren't going slowly enough to stop and chat:biggrin3:

Vilnius
 

When you are passing Vilnius we could go for a drink and I could suggest you some places to visit.

If you're looking for a place to stay (outside the city) my friend has a guesthouse for mainly bikers (not far from Vilnius, close to Trakai Castle and former capital Kernavai) SODYBA TRAKUOSE | Enduro Lithuania

Will cost you around 10 euro. Very nice family!

In Latvia I still want to visit ghost town Skrunda - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
If you want more info about Lithuania you can write me a pm.

Cheers,

Johan

By coincidence I'm planning a similar route for May so am after pretty much the same information. I was wondering - just a thought - if you'd considered going in the opposite direction?

I was initially thinking of clockwise too but on reflection I've decided the Norwegian coastline will be the highlight of the trip, and what better way to end than with the best bits? I'm kinda considering Germany, Denmark and Poland as bits to blast through en-route this time, the main objective being the Baltic States, Finland & Norway (not to downplay those fine countries, just maybe another time! :innocent: ).

So my current plan is ferry to Oostende then blast across Germany & Poland in a few days before slowing down and settling into the trip at the Lithuanian border. I'm thinking of heading up the east side of Finland but I know people in Tampere and Oulu I'd like to visit so currently undecided whether to zigzag or not. I'm planning to wild-camp as much as possible - seems this is fine across most of Scandinavia, but any advice about trying this in Poland and the Baltic States would be much appreciated.

You might like this fantastic ride report over on the ADVRider forum - Chap recently did the loop from Switzerland taking in the Russian side of Karelia from St. Petersburg up to Murmansk then over into Norway. I've decided against Russia this time since the paperwork sounds like a PITA and my fuel estimate is already giving me palpitations so I figure take it easy, go for lower milage and save Russia for another day. But his photos and amazing video are well worth checking out.

Johan,

I'd be well up for visiting Skrunda on my way through in early May if you wanna hook up for a ride? Sounds like the perfect opportunity to pretend I'm in Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' ;o)

T.

We'll bee taking the same kind of trip, just a bit longer and bigger than yours....

PLANNED ROUTES:

NORWAY
FINLAND
RUSSIA

Finland could still be altered with crossing into Russia from Murmansk and then go down instead of going down through Finland.
The line from StPetersburg to Moscow is because we are going by train from StP to Moscow and back, we have the possibility to leave the bikes in StP.

If anybody is up to it, we could use some company.... ;-)
We start in Stavanger on June 2nd and have to be back home in Belgium by the first week of August.
We both ride DRZ400E.

Seb & Kim

Looks like an awesome trip! I might cross paths with you somewhere in Sweden/Denmark as you're starting out and I'm wrapping up. What are you using for the maps you've put on your site - is that straight-up Google maps, or some mash-up tool? I've been looking for a decent route planning tool that offers a bit more than the standard Google options - any ideas?

OK. So this is a long shot…

Since I'll be passing though the Tallinn area and since I'm an Andrei Tarkovsky fan… well, surely, I should try and pitch camp in or near the locations where Stalker was shot? Stick the film on the iPad and try to get properly spooked out!

Any Tallinn residents know how to get to the locations? Apparently at some Hydro-electric plant on the Jägala river…? Anyone?

Hi,
July / August will be most occupied months and prices are high..
Mosquito's will be there and they like all foreign fresh blood :) :welcome: until mid August when night turns colder but that's not problem use some repellent they normally work.
We have lot of good wild camping possibilities and also Brown Bear watching if you like ?
Lot of POI's here.
I have also lot of unknown poi's etc.

You should also include fjords and Lofots in Norway in your route.
You can pm. and I can send you some route proposal.
Something like that ....

http://kuvablogi.com/nayta/prev/img3471857.jpg

If you fancy odd places I would included Hill of Crosses (Hill of Crosses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) and the Stalin Park (Grūtas Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

My route:
http://actiontouring.com/Baltic.jpg

Edit:
Capo Sakke mentioned Lofoten. Lofoton is nice and here is a scenic route from Trondheim to Lofoten:

http://actiontouring.com/pic/trhlof.jpg

Stay away from E6 as much as possible.

The route is made in Garmin Basecamp and then exported as a GPX file. Then used a GPX MAP plugin for the website (made in wordpress) and the result is what you see.

I have a Garmin GPSMAP 62s for on the bike, as we tend to normally do as much as possible offroad... except this time for Norway it will probably be almost only normal roads.

Much the same, Garmin Basecamp (zumo 550) then saved as a pdf and attached.
Thank you all so much, plenty to think about there, hill of crosses and Skrunda sound great, have some great ideas now time to delve deeper into the route planner!
I had actually considered anti clockwise and possibly going earlier and taking in one of the Irish matches at the Europeans on the way, but I'm undecided as to whether I actually like football that much, WSBK in Brno on 22/07 also entered my thoughts:innocent:
Problem now though is that all these ideas/routes will be hard to fit into the time available doh But now that they're in my head................:helpsmilie:
Couple of megamile buttbusters to spend more time on the interesting bits seems to be on the cardsbier

Definitely!!:thumbup1:

Remember we have almost 24h of light here that time :))