jfink
0
- Joined
- May 29, 2007
- Messages
- 3,979
- Reaction score
- 785
- Location
- Conroe, Tx
- First Name
- Joe
- Last Name
- Fink
We are in Parnu, Estonia and have taken a day off. I have been traveling since the 25th of May, Chuck even earlier. I thought I would take this chance to update our travels.
After Nordkapp and all the tunnels, we spent the night in Olderfjord. Nothing special, restaurant closed at 7p. We were the lucky ones, we got in at 6:45p. I had a cold cucumber, lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwich and a couple beers. Total price, about $30. Chuck two reheated slices of pizza and a couple beers and paid about $35. Prices are high for everything, and although they tell us it is the height of tourist season, many hotels are shut down and restaurants don't stay open much after 7p.
After Olderfjord, we ended up in Finland. I posted a little already about Sodankyla and the humor of the wait staff. However, again, the hotel was barely occupied. I am getting the impression that they don't get a lot of tourism up here period.
Many more Reindeer/Caribou:
Some of Chuck's old girlfriends:
But this was his favorite (he really did push me to post this):
When the tides are out it leaves these mud flats. Perhaps not a much as the Bay of Fundy, but the tides do seem extreme on the Arctic Ocean.
From Sodankyla we avoided the bigger cities and took some remarkable back roads. There was very little traffic, in fact no traffic at all. Industry seems to be primarily agriculture and logging. There are lots of logging trucks and lumber mills everywhere we went.
Finland is F L A T! Maybe flatter than Texas. We were told they have 83,000 lakes left from the last ice age. I can say there are a lot of lakes and plenty of bridges to get over them.
The next night, we had planned on staying at a hotel listed in the Garmin data we got from OpenStreetMaps. Unfortunately, the hotel was closed (it's the busy season you know???). Chuck found a hotel on his "Apple Phone" about 10 miles down the road and we gave it a try.
I have to say, I was a bit skeptical when we pulled up and I walked in. The lady who ran was just inside the door but spoke absolutely not one word of English and I spoke only one word of Finnish Kiitos (Keytos) or Thank You. She motioned me in and we ended up having one of the better stays of the trip. I would have taken a picture of her, but I thought it might be rude to take a picture without being able to ask. We ended up eating sandwiches again from a gas station and getting eaten alive by mosquitos out on the veranda.
The next day we continues on smaller routes that ended up turning to dirt. It wasn't planned that way, that's just the way it turned out. We rode about 30 miles or so on dirt and let me tell you, a Goldwing just isn't the right tool for that job. The dirt roads were pretty well maintained and if I had been on the KTM 990 this would have been no issue. But with the small throw of the suspension on the Wing, it was a very bumpy ride. And being in the middle of a country I knew very little about, a dirt road on a Goldwing was probably not the right place to be.
more to come ...
After Nordkapp and all the tunnels, we spent the night in Olderfjord. Nothing special, restaurant closed at 7p. We were the lucky ones, we got in at 6:45p. I had a cold cucumber, lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwich and a couple beers. Total price, about $30. Chuck two reheated slices of pizza and a couple beers and paid about $35. Prices are high for everything, and although they tell us it is the height of tourist season, many hotels are shut down and restaurants don't stay open much after 7p.
After Olderfjord, we ended up in Finland. I posted a little already about Sodankyla and the humor of the wait staff. However, again, the hotel was barely occupied. I am getting the impression that they don't get a lot of tourism up here period.
Many more Reindeer/Caribou:
Some of Chuck's old girlfriends:
But this was his favorite (he really did push me to post this):
When the tides are out it leaves these mud flats. Perhaps not a much as the Bay of Fundy, but the tides do seem extreme on the Arctic Ocean.
From Sodankyla we avoided the bigger cities and took some remarkable back roads. There was very little traffic, in fact no traffic at all. Industry seems to be primarily agriculture and logging. There are lots of logging trucks and lumber mills everywhere we went.
Finland is F L A T! Maybe flatter than Texas. We were told they have 83,000 lakes left from the last ice age. I can say there are a lot of lakes and plenty of bridges to get over them.
The next night, we had planned on staying at a hotel listed in the Garmin data we got from OpenStreetMaps. Unfortunately, the hotel was closed (it's the busy season you know???). Chuck found a hotel on his "Apple Phone" about 10 miles down the road and we gave it a try.
I have to say, I was a bit skeptical when we pulled up and I walked in. The lady who ran was just inside the door but spoke absolutely not one word of English and I spoke only one word of Finnish Kiitos (Keytos) or Thank You. She motioned me in and we ended up having one of the better stays of the trip. I would have taken a picture of her, but I thought it might be rude to take a picture without being able to ask. We ended up eating sandwiches again from a gas station and getting eaten alive by mosquitos out on the veranda.
The next day we continues on smaller routes that ended up turning to dirt. It wasn't planned that way, that's just the way it turned out. We rode about 30 miles or so on dirt and let me tell you, a Goldwing just isn't the right tool for that job. The dirt roads were pretty well maintained and if I had been on the KTM 990 this would have been no issue. But with the small throw of the suspension on the Wing, it was a very bumpy ride. And being in the middle of a country I knew very little about, a dirt road on a Goldwing was probably not the right place to be.
more to come ...
Last edited: