Portsmouth - Portsmouth via Baltic States
 

Hi,
I'm planning a small ride out for summer 2008. Leaving Pompey for Newcastle ferry port for the boat to Bergen. We will be heading for Trondheim, Tromso and Nordkapp. Next stop will be Murmansk (possibly Archangel) then riding on down to St Petersburg and across to Helsinki where we will catch the boat over to Tallin, then through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Heading back we will be going into Warsaw, Berlin and Prague before the hack back to Ostend for the boat to Dover. Planning to take three weeks so should be able to get some decent stopping time in. If anyone has been this way and has any tips/suggestions i.e. good camp sites/hotels, especially for the Russian part I'd be interested to hear from you.
Thanks
Kev

Hello Kev

Can't say I've ever been to Pompey on a bike, but I might be able to help with some of the rest!

Norway: great camping, which is lucky because everything really is as expensive as you've heard!

Murmansk: I rode in from Kirkenes and back again four days later. In that time ALOT of the road that had been in terrible condition going in had been tarmaced. This happens every year because of the ruinous winters, so you may have good roads, may have hard roads.. keep yr fingers crossed.

Archangelsk means lots of terrible roads and a lot of miles. There's nothing remotely direct as far as I could see. Can't tell you anything about this.

I didn't go south through Russia but got to St Petersburg 9000 miles later via Scandinavia. Incredible city. Incredibly bad drivers. There are 'home stay' options here that will save money over hotels. Which I worked out only after I'd stayed in a hotel!

Baltic States are great. lots of similarities, lots of differences. I rode a lot of them in snow so my view of the roads will be different rfom yrs. Camp sites everywhere. Very friendly local bikers.

A tip: don't avoid Kaliningrad, though it's a tougher place to get into and around, it's an incredible, unique part of Europe.

That would be a second entry into Russia for you... I was steered away from getting a muiltiple-entry visa in favour of single-entry visas each time I needed them. Picked up the Kaliningrad visa in Riga: no trouble, but not cheap.

There are campsites in Kaliningrad but again, I was there a couple of weeks ago and camping not an option in November, for me anyway. Prices are cheap so hotels may be yr best bet.

I'd be happy to answer any specific questions here or via email. Best of luck with yr plans

--Mike

Thanks for the info Mike, given me a few things to research, just bouncing a few ideas around at the moment.

I've heard before that Kaliningrad was a good visit, might just check it out.

Having done most of where we are going, what would you say is a realistic daily mileage without hacking it?.. I think the three weeks we have allowed should be enough, with the ferry x'ing and 4 or 5 lazy days should give us around 250-350 miles a day.

Kev