Our journey from Scandinvia into eastern europe begins with another ferry crossing, this time on the Tallink ferry – Baltic Princess.

The sun is setting as we arrive, dipping slowly below the horizon, yet the light takes longer to fade.  We are slowly getting used to this, as the light up here in the Northern part of the Northern hempisphere hangs around for just that little bit longer.

We’re camped up in Pirita harbour, just a few kilometres east of Tallinn centre.  We’ve cleaned out the van, somehow it managed to get dirtier than ever, despite the fact we have been in a hostel for four days in Helsinki.

Our drive from the ferry port to here took us past some of the strangest constructions I have seen.  The all concrete construction casts them instantly as Soviet structures, the crumbling edges and mossy roofs tell a tale of a time forgotten.

The two structures, on either side of the main Pirita road line up to look out over the Baltic, back to Helsinki and Finland.  Sitting behind one of the structures is a large column, a soviet memorial to the war dead.

Across the harbour resides the facade of a monastry, it’s single remaining wall contains holes where windows once were but little else.

Yet if you look closely you start to see the real Tallinn, modern constructions are springing up, barely visible through the pine trees and internet access points are signposted everywhere.  For a country that has only been free for two decades it has already, in some respects, over taken some of the grand old powers in Europe.

The clash between old and new continues as we walk towards the old town of Tallinn.

Modern wood and glass clad extensions site atop old stonework foundations and buildings.

Tallinn’s old town is it’s real gem.  Hidden away behind stone walls complete with round towers and gatehouses it instantly grabs you, despite the fact that McDonalds has prime location just inside the city gates.

Here the contrast between old and new stops.  There is only one new building here and it makes no attempt to be sympathetic to the old. Yet here, unlike in the suburbs, it feels out of place.

The Town Hall is our destination to meet Sarah and Valerio, two travellers with whom we have arranged an evening, again the couchsurfing network has come in useful.

Over 500  years are contained in these brick walls, the cafes and bars are lively yet, if you manage to shut them out, or just peer down an alleyway or up one of the small streets you could quite believe that this city has changed very little since that time.  Until of course the small blue vans of the litter pickers arrive to keep this small piece of World Heritage clean and tidy.

A newspaper lying on the floor, it’s headline proclaiming something in a different alphabet, reminds me just how close we are to Russia.

After a few fairly reasonably priced drinks in the Hell Hunt, Estonia’s first bar, established in 1992 – we travellers disperse again, agreeing to meet Sarah tomorrow for some sightseeing.

If ever you want to get to know a religion the key thing is to look at its buildings. The sparse Lutherian church near the east gate, with its walls covered in coats of arms – deep brown wood and fading gold lettering to the immensenly white and gold Orthodox Cathedral sat high above the city.  Sarah insists that we see three of them, and she left the Lutherian interior as a surprise for us, so I shall leave the final church as a surprise for you.

After that we head to an unassuming restraunt entitled “Kompressor” where Sarah informs us that they do the best pancakes – and we are not dissapointed, the taste and the quantity suppress our appetite for ferry buffets for now.

Our evening walk leads us out to the park on the east side of town, past the art museum and it’s pretty garden and out to another memorial on the edge of the ice blue Baltic.

Estonia has lost its Soviet feel, what remains are now more quirky artifacts that concrete monsters, the drive towards modernism is surprising though here the people are noticeably more reserved than the Scandinavians.

Coming into Tallinn is like no other city I have been to, it is a complete melting pot of different cultures, different times and different architecture.  A truly unique city that should be on every one’s “to do” list.

…

We stayed at Pirita Harbour Camping.
Camping cost us 200eek (11gbp) per night including electric hookup and toilets, but no showers.
Wifi access is included but you have to send a text to the council run system to gain access for a 24hour period.  The SMS will be charged at your normal rate and there are no other charges.

Please leave a comment, even if just to say hi!

After a few more hours sleep and a long shower, our ferry deposited us on the shores of Finalnd.

Although I swear to you it felt as if we had never left land. The Stockholm archipelago, consisting of some 24,000 islands, kept close company to us throughout the first part of the journey, then after a small crossing of completely empty sea, it was back through an archipelago on the Finnish side.

All of this meant that our journey was incredibly smooth,  In fact the Baltic Ocean has been incredibly flat wherever we have been near it’s shores.  This ocean is so tucked away that it does not have a tide.  It’s incredible ice blue waters seem to invite you in at every chance, though those that take the chance at this time of year must ensure that there is a sauna nearby to survive without getting hypothermia.

We headed into Turku, the old Finnish capital during the time when the Swedes owned most of the lands we have travelled through.

We’re hoping to get a hostel here and join what looks like a parade of boiler suited students.  This is actually their “drinking dress” and it allows them to do silly stuff such as rolling in the grass and getting covered in beer without destroying any of their normal clothes.  I think this throws the Finnish hurtling into first place for practical yet crazy Scandinavians.

Unfortunately all of the hostels are booked, the campsites are shut at this hour and we have little choice but to roll on towards the heady lights of Helsinki.

It is late at night by the time we arrive at our hostel in Espoo, a late night made later by the fact that we have jumped another time zone, now being two hours ahead of London – oh and it is only just getting dark at half past 11.  Which is really screwing with our body clocks.

THe next morning brings a day of just chilling out, enjoying the brilliantly beautiful beaches of Espoo and the Baltic Coastline, the pine trees add an exotic, almost meditterainean feel the just seems out of place in a country where there are only two months that are called “summer”.  The sandy beaches also look out of place, it is only the giant rocks, seen strewn about the landscape and forming cliff edges and formations almost everywhere (our hostel has a roundabout around one such rock in the car park, it’s just too big to be moved), yes – it is only these that remind you that you are in a country more used to snow than sun.

After a day of doing, well not much really, we head into the city of Helsinki.  We took the van.  Not a good idea.  Sat Nav does not cope with small streets.  We do not cope with cobbles.  Van does not cope with tight corners.  We all fall out, but make amends once we find a cool car park.  Apart from the Sat Nav, that has got a lot of apologising to do.

The first thing that surprises us about Helsinki is the incredible, imposing and – in this sunlight – bloody reflective, Cathedral.

It sits up on a plinth, it’s own small plateau in the rising above the streets of Helsinki and commands every tourist to climb the seemingly endless amount of steps up to it.

The interior is lavishly decorated with gold dripping down from every chandelier and up from every candlestick.  It is in stark contrast to the red building sitting on the other side of the river.  The Orthodox Cathedral looks very formal, though its own imposing power is most definitately there, it does not command such a large square or plinth for itself.

We are meeting up with another person from Couchsurfing.org.  This website is a must for travellers, we have found so many different people already and always had a good time.

Sara meets us outside of the white Cathedral and takes us across on yet another boat to the small island of Suomenlinna, literaly translated to Finnish Fortress.

There are two sides to this place.  One is the newer looking Russian side, with small garrisons, shops and other administrative wooden huts dotted around.  Across a small wooden bridge is found the much grander and larger castle.  Our view of this is distracted though by the hot weather and the view of the Baltic, so blue, lapping against a small sandy beach and our destination is set.

The afternoon passes us almost without saying a word, then Luke and I return the van to the youth hostel (sat nav is still in the dog house) and travel back into Helsinki by bus, for tonight is Eurovision night and Luke, Sara and I have a date with a large tv screen and a large, cold beer.

It’s Friday, we are all fully recovered after a relaxing stopover at Del’s place and from this campsite, situated right on the edge of a lake.

We are ready to tackle the onslought that will be Stockholm, a complete weekend of meeting people (via couch surfing), walking around, having a look at what is going on and so on.

For once we are actually up reasonably early (about 9 am – ok well it is early for us!) The bright red van is packed, ready to go, we’ve got 50 litres of fresh water and nothing stopping us from the 300kilometre journey that will take us to the vibrant capital of this strange country.

I say strange country and actually I do mean it.

Sweden is probably one of the few countries where they almost “expect” you to visit at only certain times.  Every person we have met says that we should come back in the summer, apparently the biggest party is the midsummer celebrations, where the partying continues into the next morning, noon and even night.

Yet, travelling at this time of year we have seen not many campervans about really and the few youth hostels we have looked into are only open if you have booked them, not the “rock up and book in” type of hostels that exist almost everywhere else I have been.

These issues were about to play havoc with us.

So stockholm yer – er no, well maybe not right away.

We usually have to muck around a bit to get the van started, using a bit of full throttle and patience, but she will eventually start.  But not this time.  There was nothing.  The battery was turning the engine over but the engine just didn’t want to kick in.
Phone call number 1… breakdown company to arrange a truck and techie to come out to us.

Luckily for us the campsite guy seems to know what he is doing with engines, the old (antique) volvo digger in the background takes about 30minutes to start he tells us as, dressed already in workman’s overalls, he heads straight under the bonnet of our stricken van.

After some prodding, poking and more attempts to start the van we have completely exhausted our battery, but our man in blue overalls thinks that it is most probably air in the fuel system – I had changed the fuel filter just a day ago and, although she started first time then, it seemed to be the causing a problem now.

Phone call number 2… What is an LDV Convoy?
Of course once I had rung my breakdown company and told them I was broken down abroad they had transferred my “file” to their european call centre, who had no idea what an LDV Convoy is, strangely enough not many people outside of the UK have – it had already caused a stir amongst the repair garage in Germany, from where we had bought the fuel filter.

So after trying their systems one final time we (the lovely sounding Emily and I) decided it would be easiest to call it a Ford Transit, as that is the engine we have.

The campsite guy returns now with a battery charger and promptly plugs in the van before heading off to help an older couple with their awning – is there no end to this man’s talents?

Phone Call number 3… Ok Mr Gardner, we have a truck on it’s way to you, but where are you?

Yes – I have no idea how that can work either, but between a few postal codes, Nei’s (no) and Ja’s (Yes), from the campsite guy-turned-navigation-system and the lovely Emily looking on Google maps we manage to find our precise location, down to the last tree.

Around half an hour later the truck arrives, almost as red as our van – but not quite, our campsite guy has now turned into translator and is explaining as well as helping the techie from the recovery firm.

Both conclude that it is probably air in the pipes and that – with a bit of persuasion, a jumpstart from the truck and a heap of luck that the van should eventually turn over.

An hour of fiddling, a half hour of looking and fifteen minutes of head scratching later and we are still not moving, nor starting and with the weather having turned from a fairly fine morning into and afternoon of rain that would embarass even the most powerful of showers it was decided that the van will have to go to the workshop.

Now this would be fine if we were in England, most workshops are open until 5pm on a Friday, and probably open saturday morning at least, alas we are not in England, we are in Sweden – meaning that the workshop has already shut and that it will not be open until Monday morning… Crap.

The journey to the workshop takes us into the town of Skovde… pronounced “Hurvdur” apparently.

Chatting to our recovery driver on the way it turns our that he is a busy man.  His normal job is in a factory that makes shop furniture, most notably for the UK retail chain “Next”. He is also a fireman whenever his pager goes off and the recovery driver every third weekend and he has an interest in classic American cars, owning a Pontiac himself, although my memory fails me as to which.

Phone Call number 4… Mr Gardner, we were just wondering how things were going with your car…

Well yes, that was that, we had no van until Monday, we had gathered a few belongings, plus our sleeping bags and headed out of the workshop (which was being locked up) and into the Preem fuel station around the corner where we took up temporary residence.

We find a seat in the Preem shop and grab a quick coffee, the friendly attendant informs us that some of the small packets of sweets on the font of the des are “free samples”, but she had that look in her eye that just seemed to say it all, pity.  Still Ihave never been one to pass up a free bag of sweet goodness and dig into a meatball baguette, that unfortunately wasn’t free.

Phone call number 5… Mr Gardner, we have checked your policy and you have a hire car available, will you be needing it?

Well hell yer – the same thing applies to free cars as it does to sweets, offer it to me and I will take it.  After double checking the location of the Preem garage the lovely Emily tells us that our car will be here shortly, I jokingly ask for a Ferrari, knowing full well that the Toyota Yaris that I am entitled to will not be the most thrilling ride in the world.

Phone Call number 6… Mr Gardner, Emily here, your Saab will be here shortly…

My What?!  How on earth did… that’s not a Toyo… don’t ask questions, just accept. OK I say and await our luxury car (and yes, in comparrison to an LDV convoy anything is luxury, but this was like proper nice.

A few minutes later the guys and gal from Avis turn up with a gleaming Saab 95 Turbo, running on Ethanol… certainly have to remember that when we fill up.

Somehow Luke and I have turned into a family of four with a heap of luggage, and I, dear readers, am now mysteriously Dr Gardner.

I told you “Emily” was lovely…

So off we shoot towards the vibrant capital of this strange country – well we will do once I stop reaching down the wrong side for the gear stick, Luke is worried that at some point I will just open the door and eject myself whilst reaching for 4th gear.

That’s all folks, till the morning!

Hi guys and girls, well my planned updates did not work, so here I will try again, the updates are currently a week behind our tour, but over the course of a few days we will all be back on schedule, of course that is if everything goes to plan, which it invariably won’t.  That is all part of the adventure of course!

After stocking up on a few things in Germany (where things are a weee bit cheaper) we headed across the border to the country of Denmark.

We were headed for a place called Dalby, on the isle of Lyo, the middle of the three main parts of Denmark. Our journey took us through some tiny roads, with the van only just fitting round some of the corners and a few blind summits that has us praying that nobody was coming the other way!

Once we reached Dalby we were greeted warmly at a very plush looking campsite, which is not the 50DKK stellplatz we were looking for.

The campsite attendant informs us that he has no knowledge of the stellplatz and that we aren’t the first to call him about it.  It would appear that are usualy accurate Stellplatz Bordatlas has let us down, which is actually a complete first!

After refusing the polite offer of a place for only 220DKK (about 5 times our budget) we moved off to the nearest place available in the harbour town of Skaelskor.

The journey took us over the first of two major bridges in Denmark, between Lyo and Zealand.  We had heard from other campervaners that this bridges are incredibly expensive and prepared ourselves for a hefty 500krone fee, but at just 212krone we were pleasantly surprised!

It would appear that Danish bridges work out the price on length more than weight or height of the vehicle, so our smaller van (when compared to other “proper” campervans) has once again come up trumps and saved us a few bob.

Once across the bridge we headed south, by this time it was getting dark and we find out that our light beam adjusters (The UK drives on the left, Europe on the right – so headlamp adjusters have to be fitted) are not fitted correctly and neaither of our headlamps is spreading much light on the road.

The sat-nav dumped us out at the entrance to the harbour, where we found a spot and promptly turned in for the night, it had been rather tiring driving all them blasted lanes!

We were woken at some ungodly hour, early in the morning by the trendy harbour master with his sunglasses perched on his baseball cap, bluetooth ear piece in, and designer stubble trimmed to perfection. In well versed English he extracted 90krone from us and pointed us to a spot where we would be less “in the way” and be able to plug into electric.

The sunny weather is still tagging along with us for the ride so we set off in best summer-tourist wear for the Skaelskor Touritst Information Centre…

more tomorrow, one is quite tired, it is 12am!  must sleep!

Howdy all,

I am not sure if Blogger has issues or if it is just me but the last post seems to have some sort of issue accepting comments. Bizarre! Try this one – hope it works!

I be off on me holidays in about 5 hours (and counting) and I need one of those “split-screens” that they have on the rather brilliant 24 series to clearly demonstrate just how many tasks I am trying to do all at once so that I can get going!

I have been looking through the Google Analytics package to see how most of you are finding my little piece of bloga firma and have found (without surprise) that it is from the wonderful Blogs of Note.

Then I found out that some of you were also arriving from Search engines. So i thought I would be all clever like and actually answers one of the questions from the search phrases, seeing as they are related to this blog anyway.

One of the most popular is asking “How long to drive round Europe?”

Well I think that this is the wrong way to approach it. There is just so much to see that you could spend months, years, decades or centuries just travelling round Europe.

The best thing to do is select a few destinations (and not whole countries, yer we’re gonna DO Italy, Yuh huh… quite a LOT to DO!) Keep it down to individual campsites / areas. “Doing Rome” is a plausible statement. You could spend a couple of days in Rome then move on to your next destination.

The trick is to have a plan about how you’re going to plan bear with me it does make sense.

If you have a few people travelling with you then all try and pick on destination of your own. Set all the destinations then see how far the journey is.

If they are a few of you doing the driving then you can do many more miles, If it is just one or two people then make sure you get a good nights sleep otherwise you will be seriously affected by tiredness. Also, remember that in a lot of European countries you can stay in motorway service stations overnight, sleep in your van if you want to – save money!

If you haven’t got a set plan then take a map and a dart or something that makes a mark and lob it at said map, this must be done over your shoulder and well away from any livestock. These have heralded some of my greatest adventure travels. As you may end up in some quirky place you must be prepared to enjoy everything you see and accept the choices.

Alternatively, and currently my favourite destination planning device is Google Earth. Scroll over and just have a look at some of the photos (Panoramio) until you see something you like and then go there! Works brilliantly!

As for timings though – Plan some sort of plan first then work out how long you can take to drive round Europe.

Unless, of course, you have nothing to get back to. In which case put your right foot down and get that van rolling.

Speed limits in Europe.

UK motorways are a ludicrously slow 70mph (112kph) The rest of Europe is mostly at 80mph (130kph). Then of course there is Germany. Their Autobahns have no set speed limit (on some sections only) and you can expect a lot of BMW’s and Audi’s and Merc’s to be passing you at 130mph (209kph).

Beware though that Germany has also brought in a new rule for many parts of these de-restricted motorways and enforced an 80mph (130kph) limit between 10pm and 6am.

Equipment

Yes – something that has caught a few people out. Most countries in Europe require the following equipment by law, else you may face a fine. And there’s no point blaming it on the rental company. It’s your responsibility to be safe. Also for your own safety carry them. You never know, it might just save your life.

• First Aid kit
• Reflective Jacket
• Fire Extinguisher
• Sticker stating where the vehicle is registered (GB / D etc.)
• Spare Light bulb set
• Warning Triangle

Not having any of these could lead to be fined, or just hassled, there is also possibly more. Check before you go with your motoring association, they should know or be able to find out.

Lights

In Austria, and some other countries, you are required to have your lights on all the time, Day or Night. Don’t argue, just do it. Put a post it note, or make a sticker, to remind you and put in on the windshield or somewhere prominent.
Update – this is no longer the case in all of Austria, only certain counties – better check or just leave ‘em on! – thanks to Susi @ 2girlsincalifornia for the info

Also – a note for American visitors.

A note from a previous experience. Please remember that us lot over here in Europe mostly drive manual (stick drive) vehicles.
If you are looking to get a van to travel in then I can almost guarantee that this will be the case.
Automatics are very few and very far between, and will cost you a lot more to hire or rent.

Next time I will do some sort of information on the Insurance policies and how they work in Europe, Feel free to post any questions you may have in the comments.

That’s all for now. I hope this helps some of you. I will update you guys from our glorified car park some time next week.

Happy Travelling
Overland Si!

Thought I’d give my life story a rest for one minute to bring you some wonderful linkage to other sites around the blogosphere that may be of interest to you.

First off is “The Journey Continues“.

I found this blog whilst on Blog Search for anything tagged with Overland. Silama, the author is constructing his very own wagon for travelling across, well, anywhere I suppose. I have to say that this is one of my own dreams, construct (or buy) my own campervan / expedition vehicle.

Unfortunately my off-centre mind has now conjured up the image of me perched atop a truck pointing to the distance and declaring in a distinctly pirate fashion “We be a goin yonder thata way! yarrr”

I’m not sure why the pirates came about, perhaps thats another crazy plan that I’ve secretly got lodged in my mind.

Prepare ye’selves for “Pirate Wannabe” blog… coming soon, or perhaps not, still if enough of you ask then i’m sure I could photoshop something, you weirdos! hehe!

… And then this caught my eye….

Perhaps the mightiest beast of all beasts. Based on the Unimog, but almost completely rebuilt is this monolith.

The description of the MaxiMog sums it up really

“The base vehicle is a highly modified Mercedes Benz Unimog chassis with a custom body, completely new power plant, computer controlled suspension, and integrated electrical, hydraulics and electronics systems.
Many of the onboard navigation, power, lighting, communications, computation and electro-optics systems were developed specifically for this vehicle.”

Hey all,

In a change from the usual links to a.n.other website I have included below some literary goodness direct from the shores of (The) Amazon.

OVERLAND-A Mercedes-Benz Journey Through The Americas

Product Description
Overland-A Mercedes-Benz Journey Through The Americas-is a journey, a year-long road trip from Colorado to Argentina and back covering 34,000 miles through 17 countries. On this incredible journey, the author and his vehicle are faced with military roadblocks, confusing border crossings, high altitude mountain passes and steamy jungles. Not only does OVERLAND describe the hardships, lonliness and daily challenges of being behind the wheel day after day, it also speaks of the wonderfull people met on the road and the incredible beauty of the world we live in.

Sahara Overland, 2nd: A Route and Planning Guide

Happy Travellin‘ Reading

OverlandSi

Wooo – so I have finally managed to tear myself away from applying for jobs, packing for my skiing holiday, trying to build a better template for this blog and my normal daily work to bring you guys all an update – see the things I do for you ey! haha!

(That was of course sarcasm, unfortunately the internet does not have a sarcasm button – I think I might invent one)

So – how are you wonderful people?

First stop is a little life lesson. Don’t worry I’m not gonna get all self help on your ass!
I have just one thing to say… Rule Number 6. This is the only rule you really ever need in this life.

This rule comes from Benjamin Zander you can watch the video here. If you are having a crap day, or just an ordinary day, or even a good day. Go and watch this video. You will feel good afterwards. That I promise you.

I shall tell you all what Rule Number 6 is in the next post – it will spoil the video other wise.

After that life afferming lesson, how is the hunt for jobs going I hear you ask?

Well – I have found out that getting an overland job is going to be a lot harder than I thought (I never thought it would be a walk in the park by any stretch) and that some of the companies that were interested in me were a little “shady” and were known about the internet as bad payers, poor on safety and a whole host of other issues.

Since then, and after some replies to my post on the Thorn Tree Forum, I have decided to focus more on starting off within Europe. First hit on this was Busabout.com

These guys offer a “Hop-on-Hop-off” service throughout Europe and pretty much looks like a bloody good job.

You can download their 2009 brochure here (click clunk)

I don’t know about pay or anything as yet, but I’ve never really been in it for the money. Which is possibly one of the biggest problems I have being a salesman as I am currently!

So – a slight change to the original plan, but I told you it was going to be a long journey. I am most probably going to start off in a non-driving job whatever path I choose. Most insurance policies start from 23 or 25… which is just a mighty pain in the rear!

I’m off now to find more of these types of companies and keep the fires burning, but before I go….

There probably won’t be anymore blog posts until after the New Year. I’m off skiing!

We shall be driving down to Garmisch Partenkirchen and staying in the Alpencamp Wank – yes you did hear that correctly. We shall be skiing on Mount Wank.

I will offer a prize of 100 Entrecard credits to the person who gets the best joke about skiing in wank by the time I return – the 8th January 2009! Post your entry in the comments section below.

Oh and below should be the daily webcam image from where we are staying in our campervan in Wank… I’m starting to wonder if the use of this word will increase the search engine statistics or just get my blog blocked by all this NSFW stop things. OOPS!

And here’s another image of the pistes we shall be on…

I am hoping that these images will keep refreshing. They are taken from the webcam’s feed and that location is put into blogger directly. So you never know. I suppose the only way to find out is to keep coming back!

Well, I’m off back to work now – and to planning the ski-trip.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Happy Travellin’

Overland Si

Pic of the today comes from ThisFabTrek and the best description of what he is doing comes from the guy himself:

“I am Manfred. On 22nd of July 2004 I set out for a journey. A voyage that may last a long time, maybe my entire life, a trek to discover planet Earth.”

I think I may have to upscale my own plans

After a long long time, working away at normal jobs, going to university, starting courses i never really wanted to do and never really applied myself to I have decided that as of Yesterday (Monday the 24th November 2008)that i want to become an Overland Driver or at the very least some sort of Luddite on an overland drive

Quite momentous actually!

I’ll be blogging my journey from now to finding work, and hopefully beyond. If anyone fancies getting in touch with me please contact me somehow – (i’ll get something working, of that i am sure!

Anyways – First step – about me!

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