16th day Niedriza to Smokovec

Distance: 70km
Total: 1779km

Better slept night than one in Tarnow, and sun was laying few of its rays on my tent in this steep and green valley, which also meant dry tent to be packed! Took some breakfast in nearby restaurant, which seemed to be slow process. Then the climbing started, steadily along rapidly running stream up up. Until the pass near town of another chanting orthodox church with plenty of priests around - some kind of convention maybe?

Soon got taste bit of downhill, polish road didn't let me to go past 45km/h due to bumpy and unpredictable road surface. After reaching road 49 (and its equivalent road 67 on Slovakian side), it was more and less uphill next 15km. But for climbing like that, there's nice viewpoints on landscapes - well that applied only to everything below as the peaks of mountains were still in thick cloud cover and ofc there's the downhill! Around 10km without pedaling and much of it on over 50km/h speeds. Result of this roll was hurting way chilled legs when they were needed again.

Bit more uphill to the Smokovec area - this time in rain. Was able to evade couple showers under roof, but this one didn't give that chance. I had planned to find penzion from Smokovec area and second try was fruitful, while first penzion being full. There's plenty of hotels and penzions scattered on lower slopes of the high Tatra mountain range. Its bit chillier up here on 1000 meters, but doesn't go under 0 during the nights like on the peaks. Today's rains came as snow on the peaks (over 2200 meters) if we're to believe locals.

Oh yeah; there was stubborn dog in first bigger intersection on Slovakian side that was just laying down, not really caring about cars or their horns.

15th day Tarnow to Niedriza

Distance: 138km
Total: 1709km

Night was pretty creepy in Tarnow - there was this crazy guy first trying to get in tent if there's some woman called Angelica or something, as there was nobody else he left. After a while I hear him mumbling nearby something in his own language and decide to just ignore him. After a while he comes back circling the tent and pulling the pegs. Tell him to get away from the tent and not come close, after a bit telling and seeing him to take more distance. Later I still hear mumbling in distance, but the rain starts and after a bit mumbling disappears. In the morning  I found several pens outside my tent also...

The rain had not stopped when the morning came, so had to pack the tent in rain. Rain made it extra annoying to get out of Tarnow. The landscape started to get more features, much as I was able to see from the rain and road 975 had first 9% climbs on it. The rain stopped in Nowy Sacz after 65km of driving. Ate huge pizza in one pizzeria, okay couldn't even eat it all - that huge it was.

Next 55km it was dry, and it was also pretty good road, rain clouds were all the time hanging on the high hills though. Last 15 or so kilometers it rained again. And at 130km there was this crazy uphill for 2-3 kilometers going 10% up all the time. But as I was reaching the hilltop in rain, looked upwards and saw blue skies - wow. From top of the landscape was very picturesque and made it feel getting up there.

The campsite was located in next valley, and luckily it didn't rain when I set up the tent. It was coming dark already, which made it pretty short evening.

14th day Jozefow to Tarnow

Distance: 165km
Total: 1571km

Damn, took the breakfast too late, woke up like 1.5h before and the breakfast wasn't really amazing - nothing you'd get in a Finnish (quality) hotel. Weather was bit under +20°C, but warming up - cloudy. Riding felt good and road was best Poland has offered thus far. Took a ride over the San river on a small raft, was only one on board and ferryman was nice guy who spoke some english.

When I bitter Ternobzeg and went to the a la carte restaurant and ate BigMac meal for 3,6€ - made a decision to try to make it to Tarnow as it felt going well and made swift progress. Rest of the day was pretty driving oriented on pretty busy roads and trying to use effectively all routes in town centers. Knew that Tarnow has campsite, but not where - and Tarnow is rather sizeable place.

Saw sign for campsite outside of city, saying 6.5km forward to campsite - so rode forward. After 6.5km and not seeing any additional signs for campsite went ask small 'kiosk' holder where campsite is. Had driven about 1km past the correct crossing. Managed to find small city camping site after a bit.

It also seems like polish school year ended today. And its so dark, so early...

13th day Kock to Jozefow (near Annopol)

Distance: 104km
Total: 1406km

Wrote a long update and then this program lost it, and I hate to rewrite, so gonna make shorter summary.

It was colder day and had problems to start up, and weather was cloudy under +20°C with headwind. Ate some dumplings filled with meat in mushroom sauce. Unfortunately couldn't get dessert thanks to idiot waitress. Restaurant had impressive decoration and food was good (but too little for roaming cyclist).

Felt better after eating although terrain got more hilly near Wisla river valley, on which shores found this cheap (compared to Finland) hotel with breakfast.

Tomorrow to upstream Wisla and hopefully reaching Tatra mountains in couple days.

12th day Ceranow to Kock

Distance: 142km
Total: 1302km

Day started after surprisingly well slept night, and again it started to rain as I woke up which led to packing wet tent again. Made also some maintenance on bike in form of changing the chain. Took breakfast at restaurant on the truck site. The menu was totally gibberish to me, so just pointed out something and went waiting and making sure a stray dog won't become too interested in my panniers on bike.

Weather was sunny in the morning after the initial rain, but the wind had changed direction and last evening's tailwind had changed to headwind. On approach to Siedlce the thunderstorm started, his it under a tree for first pour. Then made last kilometers to Siedlce in light rain and watched the next pour from the restaurant (Pizzeria Verona) with a very well made pizza. Another note of Siedlce and generally of polish urban area is that all open space must be covered by advertisements, which makes towns look pretty colorful - but wouldn't call it pretty though.

After Siedlce it was still slow driving and not much happened, noticed 2nd time on this trip a soviet made WW2 era tank T-34 being exhibited as a decoration in park.

Evening brought more thunderstorms, it was on another hand nice to watch flashing lightning while driving, but lost cat and mouse game with rain (and lack of shower+tent opportunity) made me first time on this trip to use indoors for the night - a small hotel.

11th day Rajgord to Ceranow

Distance: 162km
Total: 1162km

It rained couple times during the night, which made me pack quite wet tent in the morning and skies were still cloudy, but breaking up. Went to the local bar that was supposed to have Wi-Fi and it had it also - figuring out the password took a while as people can be hard (and only speak polish). Ate some food there also.

The first 20km was infested with trucks, but truck traffic slowed down as I got off road 61. After about 45km, I took a small road through largest national park in Poland, which mostly protects large wetlands and fauna within its limits. The road was mostly infected by potholes and rough asphalt surface, which forced the average down a bit - but with this, the road was all mine for those 40 kilometers, and yeh and those about 5 cars I saw on it.

Rest of the day was just driving on small local roads between small farming villages (one with chanting church), last 10 kilometers on road 63 was also rather lowly trafficked, which is not usual for national road. Knew that this area of Poland doesn't really have campsites, so just asked on truck parking site could I camp in the background which they agreed to. Main reason for choosing this rather noisy place was the access to shower for couple zlotys.

As I was studying next days route from the map in front of the tent, something black rose from the ground half meter in front of me and started to spit water towards me. Jumped fast rewards it and blocked the water spray that was starting to come towards the open tent door. In the end just knotted plastic bag on top of it to prevent the water spraying. Pig truck must have had fun watching from his truck about 30 meters away with loads of squeaking pigs. Truck left soon after also.

10th day Meteliai to Rajgrod

Distance: 113km
Total: 1000km

Night was noisy one and morning came early - not surprising with so much people around. Morning ride along the lake shore road showed that the tent string was still on the beach for next 10km. Ate second breakfast in Lazdijai and tried to spent last of my litas. Border crossing was easy, there was huge road with very little traffic, the road had 7.5ton weight limit so no trucks was seen for about 70 kilometers. As entering Poland roads became narrower and not much else really changed.

It was sunny in the morning, but as day grew older it became more cloudy and finally in Augustow skies broke with thunder. I had made my way to Augustow through many super long straights and was visiting tourist info center and local kebab place as the thunderstorm stroke. There was electric thermometer on the square and it dropped to +18°C from +27°C within 30 minutes. Temperature raised little after the thunderstorm and skies stayed cloudy, which made excellent driving conditions.

Drove to Rajgrod on road 61, which was horrible in the truck traffic - and yeah, polish roads don't seem to have shoulders. Got on campsite, although would have wanted to carry on for longer, but map shows no other campsites really on the way so had to do with this one. About this campsite; it's the absolute opposite from last night as I'm apparently only customer - also campsite manager didn't really speak any English, so paper was used to communicate the few things. No Wi-Fi again like last night, but local bar should have one - maybe breakfast there then in the morning.

9th day Trakai to Meteliai

Distance: 130km
Total: 887km

Day started with the goodbyes to the people that had created that mini community as most were leaving that morning. It was warm again in the morning, though there were some clouds on the sky. Temperature didn't rise as high as earlier days, but the humidity had risen, which resulted haze in the air.

The blisters made wearing the shoes pretty painful, but they were an non issue while pedaling, but made their presence known each time when I jumped off the bike. Somehow messed up on getting to road 220, and decided to just take the bigger A18/E28, which wasn't as bad as I had feared. Made my way to Alytus despite police car stalking me - driving past me several times with slow speed, then I saw it parked on side of the road with officers out doing something. Waved at them as I passed and didn't see them after that.

Decided to get some food in Alytus, first from restaurant and then from shop for evening/morning. Not much the usual food I dare to carry with me that I carried on my earlier trips thanks to high temperatures - now its been dry products, highly salty meat and apples mostly. Found Chinese restaurant from the town and gave it a go in hopes to receive cheerful Asian style service as I must say that most baltics been pretty grumpy and many times I'm there just to annoy them. And unfortunately the restaurant was run by grumpy locals and food lacked spices for Chinese food - got some training using sticks at least.

Last 10km to the campsite was great small curvy road going between fields with lakes in distance. Campsite or campsites are however something totally different, the whole coast is huge campsite for few kilometers on lake Dusia - and there's incredible amount of people. No wonder as the lake is crystal clear with sandy shallow shores all the way. Settled my tent among many of its kind and went wash off the dirt and sweat in the lake. Was also unable to find any other nationalities on a short walk I was able do - blisters hurt :/

And tomorrow to Poland!

8th day Break day - Vilnius

Finally day free from cycling! Decided to go take a peek to Vilnius using public transportations - had to use 2 busses to make the 35km trip there. Its another super hot day and old busses, or actually mini busses didn't off have a/c.

Managed to get myself to the cent rum near the old town and made my way in. First to come was a huge bazaar with couple hundred small stands selling very different products of human kind. The old town was pretty typical old town, but think it had more churches than usually - about 20 within square kilometer.

The way back from Vilnius was more troublesome with the bus getting stuck in rush hour traffic and the second bus covering the last 5km just leaving me 'cold' to walk back to campsite. Thanks to all the walking, got nice blisters as souvenir, and this was supposed to be a break day.

However day had better ending - it is Finnish midsummer's festival day, though not celebrated around here - there was great fireworks show shot from a castle over the lake. Also enjoyed the evening with 2 camper vans full of Finns as well as 2 German hikers. And special thanks to the couple from Kotka for the coffees and the potatoes!

7th day Zalvariai to Trakai

Distance: 93km
Total: 757km

The day started cloudy and slow as tried to give it time for laundry to dry, but in the end went to the pannier wet. Sun was however making a comeback, a furious one. Temperature rose over +30°C very early and staying still in sun was just bad plan of action.

Day started with 6km of quicksand road, had to push bike couple up hills as the road was just too soft. Also on top of that slow advance 2 cars and dust storm machines creating dust clouds for long time after they passed - and sweaty skin + dust clouds is sandy skin.

Soon noticed that the rear tyre was leaking slowly again and pumped it up couple times to reach some good place to repair it finally. The culprit of this, and very likely also the last flat was about centimeter long metallic spike, patched the tube while some locals watched and tried some communication which was to be little, but thanks for the moral support and 'good luck' wishes.

Rest of the day rolled nicely with couple harder up hills under the hot sun and with the uphill flies. A lot water was consumed I must say. In the end it was shorter than previous ones and was on this great campsite pretty early and had fun time swimming and chatting with 'neightbours'; German couple and surprisingly a Finnish couple - both couples with camper vans.

Tomorrow is going to be a break day from cycling, hope the spike of this heat wave also settles down. And BTW passed center of Europe, just by couple kilometers.

6th day Antasava to Zalvariai (near Moletai)

Distance: 126km
Total: 662km

Day started as the sun threw its rays on the bush I was camping in. Made it to the center of the village nearby, where there was small shop, thought to get some breakfast - was duly disappointed though as half of contents of the shop was alcohol and other half different kinds of sweets.

The temperature rose to around +30°C early on and made the day sweaty one - just noticed that back of my T-shirt is now pretty white from all the salt. Terrain changed to more further I pedaled and there was pretty respectable uphill after Anyksciai.

Found great campsite, or well was aiming for it whole day. And swimming in the lake was pretty awesome - want this every evening after the driving! All good apart from uphill flies that seriously piss me off.

5th day Kekava to Antasava

Distance: 132km
Total: 536km

Night went OK, some random animals with rubber tires kept some noise pretty late though. Start of the P89 road from Kekava was in horrible condition first 10 kilometers, but later when also traffic slowed down, road became less horrible.

And now it has happened, the very first flat and very first I've had for very long time generally. Changing new tube took some time as have to unmount all the panniers - luckily though hole was in rear tyre so didn't have to remove front track. Another failure before Lithuanian border was my inability to get rid of my last latis - gotta see tomorrow if I find some bank that would change em to litis.

Crossing over to Lithuania changed the landscape quite drastically, it was now all farmland with small forest 'islands' here and there AND roads improved by a lot. In Birzai I managed to lose my sunglasses (or stolen), which were easily replaced with better ones, with my habit/luck with sunglasses - no point to invest too much on each one. Birzai also offered excellent kebab; I had no idea what the menu said so I received some translation help from a 12-13 year old girl (adults can't speak english). Tried to order kebab with fries, result in image below. Think I didn't too much ripped of as it did cost ~3,5€. And couldn't eat it all in the end.

Day started to drag on as had no campsite within reachable distance - checked and was provided camping map of Lithuania in tourist info office in Birzai. Kept cycling in hopes to find some cheap guesthouse or similar, but with no luck. In the end resulted in the stealth camping inside one forest 'island'.

Oh and the weather, mostly fine sunny through shallow upper clouds - temperature did rise though quite high as saw a sign in Birzai showing +29°C.

4th day Lauci to Kekava

Distance: 113km
Total: 404km

Morning was cloudy, and as I was gonna break up the tent it started to rain, lasted only about 15 minutes, but made me pack the now wet tent. Made my way to Sakarasti and bought two amazing cinammon bakeries from a tiny shop. Approaching a big city, in this case Riga is always a hassle, and it took 80km to get where it was supposed to be only 60km - 30km of it in annoying city traffic. The camping site I had expected to be there, was not to be there. Being irritated by now of the traffic I decided to drop out the plan of break day in Riga and just head south out of the city. Being disappointed on biking routes, just took the motorway out of Riga, and full sized 'crawling' lane all to myself. Drove about 30km to camping site called Zanzibar (they have floating huts here BTW). Tomorrow if world doesn't end, I should get to Lithuanian side.

3rd day Uulu to Lauci

Distance: 116km
Total: 291km

Day started bit slowly with muscles not being with the head and headwind. After couple hours of driving it started to rain, which I knew from the weather forecast to pass at some point. Waited about 2 hours under a big tree for the rain to pass and as it seemed to have slowed down I hit the road, only to be totally washed by couple 20 second down pours. But after the last pour, weather started to clear and after another 15 minutes it was blue skies again.

The last 30km bit on Estonian side was wonderful small road along the coastline with sandy beaches. Encountered quite few fellow cyclists on this section and had a chat with a Estonian cyclist and on another short attempt of lone Russian cycling gal - little common language again though.

On Latvian side it was pretty static cycling along the Via Baltica and truck traffic, roads near Estonian border were horrible though. Some nice sandy beaches continued on Latvian side also. And cheapest camping occurred on campsite near the beach for 3.5€.

2nd day Raikkula to Uulu

Distance: 100km
Total: 175km

Had awesome sleep of cirka 9 hours! Weather was sunny with clouds, but ground was still wet so tent had to be packed bit wet. Rest of the clothes that were wet dried quickly hanged on the bike. Wind was blowing hard and it was the headwind most of the time, so kilometers felt tough.

More south I went the poorer the villages seemed with some soviet style apartment buildings. Saw couple bicycle tourers today on the side of the road - some older couple. In the end day was pretty uneventful riding day, traffic picked up near Parnu and last 9km on Via Baltica was heavy with truck traffic. Found little campground in Uulu called White House, owned by a Russian couple. Let's see can I see some of the coast tomorrow as I enter Latvia.

Preparations

Not going to be my first tour on bicycle, so know thing or two how to go manage on a extended trip. Cycled about 950km before heading out, to get some basic fitness to manage day distances on the tour - longest day trip was 157km. Going to start the tour from Tallinn this year and head shout as the blog's name suggests. About the gear, have front and rear panniers (Ortlieb) and the tent on back track. Have trangia with me to be more self suffient with food on road.

1st day Tallinn to Raikkula

Distance: 75km (driving in Rovaniemi to railway station and Helsinki driving included)
Total: 75km

Took a night train to Helsinki which took bit over 13 hours (train being late) and morning ferry to Tallinn. Mood on the ferry was first high and ppl enjoying some drinks, mood changed soon as sea became rough and mood became apatic as crew were supplying ppl with plastic bags, despite crew's efforts there was vomit on the floors soon. Met couple nice Japanese girls on board, though missing common language discussion didn't get too far.
Cycled through the old town in Tallinn and weather had became sunny after rainy Helsinki. Good weather was not to last though and it started to rain as I was getting out of Tallinn. Rain was fairly warm though and driving got me just wet, but not cold. Cold was to come only during the breaks which thus were pretty few today.
Despite my efforts to find a camping ground nearby Rapla, I was unable to find one and settled with so called stealth camp site about 10km south of Rapla. As I got my tent settled up, skies broke and sun came out - good timing again, at least I get to try to dry my wet clothes. And dinner a la carte was meatballs in rakettispagetti with some spices, also ate tortilla in Tallinn's old town. By the way it comes actually dark in the night here in south :o