Our first week in Finland: we find a lot of nature, many mosquitoes and many lakes. But we enjoy it - this freedom!

Saturday 29.07.

Student flats have the advantage that the day always starts a little later. Today we had not much planned than to go to the "world naked bike ride". A big bike demo that we had already heard about. In London there are also hundreds of people. It's like a Critical Mass except that everyone is naked. To show how vulnerable cyclists often are in traffic. We had already contacted the organizer and were happy to meet Micheal. We were referred to him by Maria from Warsaw in the matter of sleepy.bike.

Michael was super pleased to meet us and we were happy too! Really pleasant contemporary.
Unfortunately, the alleged "warmest day of the year" was quite different this year. Well, that's how statistics work and shortly before the event started it started to rain heavily... I wonder if that's why so few people came? When it started, we were in any case not even a dozen and since I was in front on the cargo bike immovable driven through the rain, I renounced the "naked" and only participated in the "bike ride". We rode with the others through the city. A very different kind of sightseeing! Also unforgettable for the normal tourists. Probably it would have had more impact if more people had participated.... In between, we topped up our troop with a couple of girls from a bachelorette party, but they left us just before we reached our destination - the "Sompa Sauna". A sauna run by the public for the public. Typically Finnish! Right on the water to cool down from the heat. Although the heat was good for all of us. By the way, Gabriel, whom we had met at the first campsite in Estonia, we were able to convince to join us and he was one of the first in the sauna. All the others followed soon. As beginners, we first went to the moderate sauna, where I was immediately asked by a Finn which was the best sauna in Germany. My answer: he would probably be disappointed by any of them. Only Gabriel dared to enter the sauna of the next level. After he came out after about 30 seconds with a gush of steam again, we others did without further experiments with the hotter sauna.

Back with Alex in the shared flat it went immediately further into the "bike kitchen. Do you remember Bratislava? Exactly something like that only less crazy and extremly well organized! A dream for every hobbyist!
We tried of course various funny bikes and chatted forever with Alex.
A typically untypical, Finnish day in Helsinki.

Sunday 30.07.

A rich breakfast: fried egg with the remaining eggs and Finnish semolina with 1l milk. If that breakfast doesnt give enough energy for the first bicycle day in Finland! Allu decided to accompany us to the Planerarium in Vantaa . Which was our luck, because he knew a super nice way through the winding forest. A nightmare for navigation - unless you have a local with you :) So the first 20km flew by.

Tilman stayed outside and enjoyed the sun, while I went to the "Heureka" museum. Besides the planetarium, there were many other exhibits to discover. I got into conversation with the young woman at the counter and she was very excited and told me everything she knew. Shortly before the new show, I was even allowed to go into the dome with her colleague and take a closer look at the planetarium technology. Here they had again a slightly tilted planetarium in one direction. Unfortunately, all the people who mainly take care of the planetarium were on vacation, so I'll have to find out the details by mail. The two women I talked to were super nice and did the best they could.

By the way, in Finland they have again very good bike lanes and crossings. Practically under every car crossing there is a bicycle crossing, so you practically never come into contact with the cars. It can be sometimes annoying though, because you have to go up and down a lot.

For the first night in Finland we headed for one of the sites from Allu's database. Unfortunately, this was rather semi-optimal, as we could not push our bikes up over roots and large stones. So it was rather a place for hikers. So we kept searching, which was a bit more difficult since everything was privately marked and we didn't want to get problems on the first day. So we drove through a managed forest and struggled through the trails until we finally arrived at one of the "lavuus". Super nice and well thought out! An dry toilet, firewood, covered fireplace and a shelter. Why doesn't something like that work in Germany? Since it was already relatively late, we made no fire but ate in our tent, protected from mosquitoes a few cookies.

Monday 31.07.

Who comes late to bed may sleep in - at least on bike tour. Especially if you have such a nice place! So we had breakfast, signed the guestbook and set off. By the way, a group of Scouts from Germany was there before us.

We were very much looking forward to today's route, because it led directly through and over the great lake landscape in Finland. Our expectations were not disappointed! Such a beautiful and extraordinary landscape almost took our breath away to cycle. So first time for a break. Of course, right on the shore of a lake.

The lake landscape was very varied in terms of the elevation profile. We had the feeling that the lakes are at different altitude levels and you have to go up and down from lake to lake.

Besides lakes, we also drove a lot through forests and Tilman took another look at this fascinating landscape from the birds perspective. Too beautiful to be real. But then the weather changed and it began to rain. At a supermarket we sought shelter and waited out the worst.

Our motivation to go further was limited and instead of a lavuu we were satisfied with the open space next to a radio mast.

Tuesday 01.08.

Almost on time at 08:00 I was woken up by Tilman. Glad that we did not have to drive everything up again, we started. There were anyway a lot of height meters to do today. At one of the thousand lakes we made a break and nibbled rice waffles with peanut butter and jam. Finland is more hilly than I thought, because between here and the next lidl, just before Jyvaskyla, we started to sweat. So while I went shopping, clearly noticing the price increase, Tilman chatted with a gentleman who hitchhiked through South America in "his youth". With a kilogram of yogurt more in the belly we continued our way in the direction of the planetarium. Very strange that it was so far outside of the city... When we passed a bicycle park, we remembered that my tires could use a few more bars. The last time we had pumped them in Romania at about 30 ° C. When I asked in the store if I could borrow a pump briefly I was also immediately asked if I even know how such a pump works.... Cheeky! Tilman would not have been asked something like that. Well. To the surprise I knew how it works and gave it back a minute later.

When we arrived at the Planetarium, it was unfortunately closed and also up at the observatory nobody was to be found. The website was also only in Finnish, which was a bit uninformative.

So we continued. Up and down. And then it started to rain. Again. According to the weather report, it should have looked like this for the last few days. Fortunately for us, you can't always trust it. In the drizzle we pushed our bikes through the forest to a fireplace with shelter.
So today there is again the warming fire and we even considered not to build the tent and to spend the night in the shelter. A big wasp nest in the hut made the plan unfortunately impossible. Now I am sitting in the dry tent, with a stomach full of warm food and am ready to disappear into the land of dreams.

Wednesday 02.08.

In the peace of the forest surrounding us, we leisurely packed up our things. This was followed by a disturbance of the green peace, when we pushed our bikes relatively loudly again over roots and stones towards the road. The further ride went through the green. On the right forest. Left forest. And (almost) no cars. So quiet days we had probably last on the channel from Brest to Nantes. At the entrance of the Pyhä-Häkin National Park we had a break. On the one hand it was roofed and on the other hand there was drinking water. The former was to our advantage, because it started to rain heavily. With the gray clouds that accompany us all day - no wonder.

But it seemed like we were lucky again. Unfortunately, this did not last long. Almost the day would have been boring, if there had not been a flat tire on the recumbent. In the middle of a busy road and in the pouring rain. Here again a small practical tip, if you are on the road with the bike: better to have a spare tube with you than to have to patch in the pouring rain!
Proper air pressure we could then give in the next village / house collection on it, thanks to a gentleman who provided us with his compressor.
Meanwhile, the rain had stopped and we have exchanged it for a sandy-stony road. You notice - the afternoon was a bit exhausting. But we were looking forward to our little campspot, this time unfortunately without wood, but with dry tent and warm sleeping bags :)

Thursday 03.08.

Although it had rained properly during the night, our outer tent was surprisingly dry the next morning - a stroke of luck, which is probably more due to the wind. We took our breakfast in the mosquito-free zone of our tent, and started relatively late into the day. What was also not so bad, because scenically not much changed. The roads were still not paved, but at least very passable. The forest was dense and if you looked in, it was full of large stones that were decorated over and over with moss. A rather mystical sight! Despite the rather mixed weather forecast, the sun shone through almost the whole day - perfect for the solar cell and the mind. The nevertheless very beautiful, but unvaried landscape somehow hit my mood, whereby it didn't help that the recumbent got another flat tire in the middle of a gravel road. At least we had sunshine and could have a look at the thing again in peace. Tilman even found the culprit this time: a piece of glass that was halfway deep in the tire and apparently only stabs the tube when you hit the exact spot with a rock. Which explains why the tube held its air for so long yesterday and today. Since we now found the culprit and also had time, we simply fixed it with a patch and hope thats it stays like this.

At a small crossroads we made a snack break. We were then interrupted by a car that apparently did not manage to make a small arc around our bikes on the very wide driveway. Instead, after a somewhat awkward communication, we had to push the bikes aside - and the way the car drove, they could have stopped there.

The last 20km to Haapajärvi we drove on an asphalted and somewhat larger road. Mostly downhill, which we liked very much :-)
In the town ("I love HPJ") we stocked up again our supplies. On the market place was apparently some folk festival. At least people danced to very Bavarian sounding folk music.
For camping, we headed towards one of the campfire sites listed on our map and were surprised with a luxury: endless wood, a large, clean cabin, and a clean compost toilet. We were just about to light the fire when a man from the village came and brought us another lighter. He probably saw us from his tractor. Not even 30 minutes later Helka came by on her quad and showed us some cool tips for the fire and somehow we also suddenly had an invitation to the sauna. Nothing more Finnish could not have happened to us. Helka and her husband own the land and they were very surprised to find foreign people in the cabin. Normally it is only used by locals. They picked us up with their hunting car and drove us to their nearby house, where the fire of the sauna was already burning. Such a luxury! Which we enjoyed of course and we felt how the heat did good to our muscles. Outdoors again, we chatted with the two for a long time. The communication went very well, because they were very interested in practicing their English and only had to ask the translator from time to time. With some people you just get along well right away. Despite a small language barrier :-)
As if the invitation to the sauna was not enough, we were also invited to breakfast the next morning and even driven back to the hut and the bikes.
We could not have dreamed of such an outcome of the day in the morning!

Friday 04.08.

Our first destination was not far: the house of our sauna hosts. The night before they asked us to eat porridge. Well, they had not only porridge but the whole table was full of goodies! We did not expect that! The breakfast suddenly evolved into a brunch, because we just got along with them so well that the time passed like in a plow!
The time at which we then really left we share here rather not.

A little bit it started to drizzle and we took a little break at a lavuu lake.

As we continued down the lonely road, we were actually met - to everyone's surprise - by another tourer! From Schleswig Holstein and on the way back from his Baltic Sea tour.

You can certainly imagine where we went afterwards: to a lavuu of course! Very nice place, but directly in the middle of two lakes and thus connected: Plague of mosquitoes. Somehow we managed to cook something to eat before we had to hide in the tent. Pure nature just.