heading north
Hi audience, it's me, yes that "me", the "myself", the "I" along with the collection of all the alter egos, a nerd collects over the years. Let's talk destination, route and inspiration for the project.
At the beginning there was the internet with it's humongous amounts of amazing pictures. Looking at the documentaties, reading blogs and seeing the photos of Norway you can't miss the pictures of aurora borealis.
The idea was born - I want to see the aurora borealis for myself."
That amazing and wonderous nature phenomena. As it turns out i might not see it after all, as the goal is to roll and not get stuck in the snow. I will be on the road during summer and early fall, so a slim chance to see the northern lights.
Still, the first seed to grow the project from. I'm excited, nervous and happy to dive into a variant of myself that just feels - calm, well, at home on the road. In other words - free.
Now, it is end of April 2023 i'm in the final stages of preparations for the bikepacking trip and soon to embark on the journey - a rough route is set, equipment is ready and the bike - a custom built Salsa Fargo (Far=Go) i've built for the trip just feels great.
Let's have a closer look at the...
route
I thought about just listing the destinations as I roughly planned them out, on second thought let's talk about the idea on "how" i like to pick my routes first:
There is most of the times an idea at the core, you hear about an amazing location or something the like, that acts as a guiding star and there is obviously a place to start from. In between I roughly sprinkle possible waypoints, amazing places, events, visits (friends), places of culture, events and so on.
It is never a task list where to tick every single checkbox - a journey to embrace - not a race, at least for me - give it a try.
Add to that a prooven feel for how far you can travel a day, week. How many hours you feel well in the saddle and you get a set of options, a certain range for every day.
For some trips i've used paper maps and a compass for navigation. Just a general direction and not knowing in every detail whats behind the next corner. Nice and simple :)
I'll start in Stuttgart - Germany, the town I live in. Hills, trees, loads of cars and some human beeings. From there taking a swing to Colone - visiting my sister who made a nice living for her there and after spending a few days there go on all the way up to the north sea, passing by Bremen and Hamburg.
Germany to Denmark
Next to Denmark with two options: All the way up and taking the ferry to crossing the sea to norway (Hirtshals - DN -> Kristiansand - NO), to Gothenburg - SW or taking the bridge, enjoying Copenhagen for a day or two and continuing up the coast to norway.
Norway to Cape North
Along the coast up we go, hope theres no headwind, rain or snow. Some towns, maybe Trolltunga - one of the examples for a place that sounded way to good to miss. A mountain with a rock tongue hovering over a fjord looking like a amazing painting.
Might be an instagram spot, if so...head north into the wilderness, chance to find something even more awesome with less social media presence is really good, so I hear.
Further north let's hop over to the lofoten islands via ferry and continue on from there. Charming thing about norway, loads of well etablished bike routes in one of the richest country in europe.
What to do once you reach cape north - end of the road? No, enjoy it and then do a Forest Gump turn around. Remember the scene in his ultra distance running phase:
"I felt like running, so I did. At one point I hit the ocean so I just did turn around and countinued." (Go ahead watch the movie, i won't tell you that I paraphrased that line - Have fun, still one of my favorite movies of all times).
Norway to Finnland
The only reason for a nerd to venture into Finnland is to place a shrine for Linus Torvalds in Helsinki. You can quote me on it and the same time: I know and love to be wrong on that :) Seeing a lot more amazing sights, jaw dropping nature, wonderful people and get in touch with Sámi culture (Not specific to Finland, rather to the northern regions of Norway and Finland)
One of the places I like to visit is a old postal road known as the "Arctic Post Road" bike route from Alta, Norway to Ylläs, Finland, meandering through the hilly terrain, stretching over a distance of roughly 400km.
Finland to Estonia
From Helsinki to Talin by crossing the baltic sea by ferry - If I made it that far these sre two beautiful cities with loads to discover and a great chance to get some contrast to my nomadic lifestyle and take in some city life and stay for a few days. Let's see, not there yet.
From Tallin to Pärnu would be an option and from there on to Riga in Latvia.
Latvia
No plans yet - enjoy.
Lithuania
From Lithuania to Poland we need to funnel through a small corridor between Kaliningrad and Belarus.
Poland
In Poland I thought about two possible routes:
Warsaw to Katowice (north east to south west) and then on to Czech (+1 country) or westwards towards Berlin.
Germany
In case i've choosen the Berlin route, a visit there would be welcome one - my old home turf for six years:
"Berlin all'et haus - ik hab dir vermisst".
It is strange how much you can miss a place. The myriad of options whatever one desires and interrests are, you will find a way to dive into them as deeply as you like - never sleeping never resting - embedded in rich history and culture - soft with some very rough edges.
Not many places you will see a guy dragging a fridge by holding on to the electric cord up the hill towards Prenzlauer Berg in bright daylight. Barely making way and producing a screeking noise as the metal frame scratches along the concrete. Somehow it felt so strangely normal ~ welcome to berlin :)
The route from Czech
To Bavaria heading westwards to Baden Württemberg in Germany, from there back to Stuttgart.
Complimenting the stories about what happend I thought to include some music, thoughts or whatever resonates with me that day.
Music of the day