Real life has a strange habit of getting in the way of opur dreams sometimes, but I am hopefully on the cusp of a long trip I've been thinking about for an even longer time, planning in my head for nearly as long.. and only now realising how much I have to do before I start ;-)

I'm planning to ride my Triumph Bonneville round the coast of Europe.. from Murmansk to.. well, I'm not quite sure where I think Europe's coast ends... the Russian/ Georgian border? Or do I ferry from Sochi to Trabzon and ride the whole Turkish coast? Is Asia Minor now in Europe? (Not an academic question: please let me know what you think.)

But that's a way in the future. At last count I think it's 27 countries and 31 borders... Russia at least four times... but starting in Murmansk and following the coast round Norway/ Sweden/ Finland/ St Petersberg/ Estonia/ Latvia/ Lithuainia/ Kaliningrad is going to take me a while.

So.... for starters.. has anyone been up to Murmansk recently? I assume the border is *relatively* straightforward as there is a lot of local traffic up there. Anyone to say Hello to? My Russian is negligable but I speak Norwegian.. with an Oslo accent.. and I'm looking forward to all the wiggly bits of the Norwegian coast.

As well as a shameless request for info/ help for the opening salvo of the journey, pls let me say a big Thanks to Grant and Susan for this site - so much help, information and inspiration.

--Mike

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