At the beginning of the tour you can not prepare for everything and so we drove relatively unprepared to the Baltic States and were very surprised. The nature is beautiful, the people are wonderful and you can find the best places to sleep you can wish for! So if you ever want to make an outdoor adventure: Whether hiking, biking or paddling - the Baltic States are only to recommend!
Saturday 08.07.
Since I had promised pancakes for the morning, I drove off bright and early through the idyllic forest/residential area to the "Dino" to get milk. We used the time until the pancakes had reached their brownness to talk more about sleepy.bike, a new network that is being developed by Maria and others. Maria also suggested that we stay another day, as she wanted to show us her workshop and talk more about sleepy.bike. Since we really enjoyed the time with her and her plans sounded very tempting, we agreed to this proposal. Unfortunately, we left our camera and cell phones in the house, so we can't show you photos of her workshop and her little hobbit house in her parents' backyard. You'll just have to trust us that both had their own charm and definitely inspired us.
Sunday 09.07.
Rarely has a day on our bike tour started so creatively - Maria made us another flag with the logo of sleepy.bike as well as potato stamps, with which we creatively let off steam in the guestbook.
This immense creativity led to the fact that we left about 12:00 and found ourselfs, after a few gravel roads, right next to the highway. Why highway? Well because we are just a bike and the road right next to it somehow made the most sense. A bit further we enjoyed a very international dinner at a parking lot: Croatian tuna, Polish bread and Romanian chocolate for dessert - traveling can be interesting! After we drove a few kilometers straight next to the highway (unfortunately not as fast as the cars on the other side of the crash barrier), we asked a man in a small village if we could sleep in his garden. So close to the highway we were not quite comfortable wildcamping... Thanks to https://deepl.com we could communicate and find a good place in the garden, where we were a bit out of sight of the dogs. Apparently not good enough, as we had to learn the next morning...
Monday 10.07.
What actually goes on in the heads of dogs?! Some winding must have been wrong, because the dog discovered our tent in the night at 3:00 again (although he had seen us and the acceptance of his owner the evening before). And began to bark... And didn't stop either. With our background history and dogs, it was impossible for me to sleep anymore - even headphones and music didn't help. Just as I wondered how some dogs can be so stupid, I wondered how Tilman could sleep in peace with that barking.... Well, in the end we decided to dismantle the tent at 4:00 and just drive on. Also to love all surrounding neighbors.
The morning air was pleasantly cool - only the noise of the highway next door was a bit disturbing, although it probably hadn't reached its maximum yet.
When we arrived around 8:00 at Lidl to have breakfast, we already had 50km on the speedometer. We don't know how this could happen :DIn Ostrów Mazowiecka there was also a planetarium that we wanted to visit. Standing in front of a locked entrance gate and a guard with a gun, we realized very quickly that we would probably not add a planetarium to our list today. Together with the nice guard we found out that the former planetarium is located on a military area and therefore not open to the public. Well... since it was time to catch up on some sleep anyway, we used the shade of the trees around a war memorial for our lunch break. Lunch break at 10:00. When it went on, I took over the navigation, which was not so difficult, because it went mostly straight. In between with a bit of off-road, which in Poland apparently means sand with annoying tractor tracks that give you a good shake. When we, thanks to my rusty navigation skills, missed a turn by 100m, a car stopped next to us and asked if we were okay and if we needed anything - super sweet! And when we eventually left the highway behind us it was also a bit curvier.
After some time we met the "Green Velo" - a bike path along the border of Poland. So we rode on a super paved section through dense forests (with moose and wild bison), fields and moors. For a long time we met again bicycle tourists because of the good infrastructure. Since around us, everythin was marked as nature reserve, we looked on the map beforehand just to find a place on the border of forest and field, where no reserve was listed. There we fought against an armada of mosquitoes while the sun was leaning towards the horizon and in the end we fell asleep in our tent without the annoying buzzing. With 172km in our legs.
Tuesday 11.07.
After the day yesterday, we slept a little longer and also found a few kilometers later a nice rest area of the Green Velo. Even with animal visit!
Unfortunately, the previous quality of Green Velos did not quite prevail, so that we were suddenly - without warning in front of a torn bridge. With about 2 km of hard sandy road behind us. So going back was not really an option. We were preparing to carry our luggage and bikes over one after the other when the construction workers offered their help and even lifted Tilman in the excavator shovel over the creek! A completely different episode of "Tilman changes the vehicle"!
The sandy track + tractor tracks continued for a few more kilometers. With the consequence of headaches on my part. When we arrived around 15:00 in Antonow to shop we had driven just 50km and ate a little demotivated our ice cream. The surface of the following route was fortunately a little better, so that we finally had the feeling that we were actually making progress with all the energy we were putting in! We even managed to cross the Polish-Lithuanian border! Right at the border there was a secluded lake and we had the idea to sleep right on the border. Unfortunately, this was ruined by an uneven ground. Instead we found a nice plateau right next to it, between the trees. We could not have imagined such an idyllic evening while still in Antonov!
Wednesday 12.07.
Due to the the different time zones in Poland and Lithuania, we woke up in Lithuanian time a little later than usual. Which was also a bit of a downfall, because our first "guest" in the morning was the Lithuanian border police. Due to the NATO summit in Vilnius there are increased border controls and so the police found us as well. Since wild camping is legal in Lithuania and we looked innocently sleepy, the officials let it rest on a short ID check and a "have a nice day". Right after the border the road was perfectly asphalted for about 1 km and then unfortunately became a well known sand track for the next 8km. In between we took a break at a really nice lake.
Maybe Madita should have ridden with us through Lithuania instead of mountainous Croatia.... In general, our coming days are characterized by fields, houses, hills, lakes and nature reserves. We really noticed how we relaxed inside. Tilman said that the houses somehow reminded him a lot of Peterson and Findus. At the end of the day, the landscape was dominated by houses and fields - not ideal for wild camping. So we asked a woman in the garden and she immediately said "yes". Surprisingly she spoke very fluent German and we spent an interesting evening with a cup of tea at her place. Interesting were especially her ideas about the world, from flat earth, chemtrails to a tunnel for child trafficking between Kiev and the Vatican. But all in all it was easy to talk to her and she didn't defend her opinions very strongly but asked us a lot about our opinions, our experiences on bike tours and especially Tilman about life in Mexico. Here it showed again the different facets of the people. She was super sweet and hospitable to us, despite very (from our point of view) cranky world views. So you can't always pigeonhole a person based on individual ideas. They can be very versatile!
Thursday 13.07.
This day began as the previous one ended. Only with fewer mosquitos.
Fortified with coffee and honey, we drove on through forests and fields. With a small toilet stop at a gas station and another toilet stop in the forest. At one of the many lakes we also took a nap break.
At least one of us did. At that point we had only a fraction of the kilometers we wanted to make and the effort of the last hills added up to a motivation low on my part.
A little break sometimes works wonders and we took it upon ourselves to drive a little more relaxed in Finland, since wild camping is allowed and possible everywhere. Besides, Tilman was very happy because he had taken a cool photo of a fox.
It also helped that the roads got better again and we could fill up our water at a nice gentleman. So with a little more motivation we went up and down again, right through nature reserves with many lakes. In one reserve, we even found a free, hidden campsite right on the lake - seems like it's going to be one of those things: Wild camping by the lake. What could be more beautiful? :)
Friday 14.07.
Again we were whitnissing an incredible view in the morning! However, we did not take the same way back to the road that we had come from, but drove a bit further along the lake. The morning was super nice, even though we had to tackle a sandy road first. Tilman even got the drone up to see how it looks from above!
We drove again through nature reserves and dense forests, stopping only occasionally to snack or nap. Shortly after the city, where we filled up our supplies, Tilman briefly drove out to the right and started dancing with me - we had just completed our 15,000 tour kilometer!!!! If that's not a reason to rejoice!!! Sometimes it seems soooo far and sometimes you think: we have just seen a few countries!
In the late afternoon we arrived at our WS in Visaginas.
Alex has created a super cool project for young people and other interested people - Tochka. A multi-story part of a house, littered with books and art of all kinds. Workshops for making costumes or just rooms for reading or chatting. It's a good thing we're staying here for a whole day so we can clap photos all over the next blog entry! Alex showed us the room in which we are allowed to sleep - a paradise for children. Like in a pirate's cave! If that does not invite you to dream, I do not know!
