Riku’s travel weblog

I wanted to write an entry in Dublin before I got to bed at the hotel, but they have different kind of wall sockets in Ireland, and I was, therefore, unable to recharge my laptop.

Dublin was pretty cool in many ways. Nice old buildings, relatively friendly people, good beer and excellent pub food. On the other hand, there were some very ugly (and, they said, dangerous) suburban areas, including the one where my hotel was. I thought I wanted to try driving on the wrong side of the road, but when I saw the traffic, I didn’t think that way any more.

The flight to Dublin was plain horror (no pun intended), but the flight from there to Lisbon was much more comfortable. I broke my earphones, though, by keeping them in my back pocket during the flight. Tonight I’m going to take a night bus to Seville, so I definitely need to buy new ones before that.

When I got to Lisbon center with an airport bus the first thing that happened was that I was offered drugs. That wasn’t the last time though. Pretty much the only people who speak English here are these drug guys. I heard that drugs are legal here, and they obviously think a foreign man traveling alone might be interested. Ironically, after what happened in Maastricht once, I wouldn’t even think about smoking cannabis alone, much less with no friends even in the same country. And I’m definitely not interested in experimenting anything new.

As I mentioned already, I will be taking a night bus to Seville tonight. Trying to find the bus station was quite an experiment. I went to the correct subway station (called <something> zoo, which reminded me of Berlin), but the signs weren’t good enough (not for me, anyway), so I went from there to the opposite direction. I found a place called Pasteleria Helsinquia (or something like that), which they told me had taken its name from the Helsinki Summer Olympics in 1952, as it was founded that year.

I did find the bus station and got my ticket. On the way back my RFID subway ticket refused to work, so I needed to buy a new one. Subway tickets in Lisbon are supposed to work for the whole day until 1:00 in the morning when the traffic stops. Mine, however, lasted for just two trips. With my new subway ticket I went to the train, which took me two stations closer to my hotel until the subway traffic was interrupted for an unexplained (so it seemed, I don’t understand Portuguese) reason, and after 15 minutes of waiting, I decided to walk back to the hotel.

The Internet connection at the hotel (10€ for 24h) is the worst I’ve used. Ever. That includes the dial-ups during the first half of the 90’s.

I have hotel booked from tomorrow to Monday morning in Algeciras, which is the Spanish side town next to Gibraltar. I have no idea how I’m going to get there from Seville, but I guess I’ll figure something out. I was planning to stay there for just two nights, but the price difference between flights to London on Sunday and on Monday is more than the cost of an extra night at the hotel, and I really haven’t anything against one more night at a pool bar in southern Spain. From London I will fly back to Helsinki the same day, although I need to change planes in Vilnius, so I won’t be back in Helsinki until 0:20 in the Tuesday morning. However, the flights via Vilnius, at 150€, were the cheapest option by a large margin.

Right now, however, I’m going to take a shower (if you can call a dripping water hose that) and then take another look at the city before checking in for the bus ride at 21:00.

Ok. While I’m far too tired to be in a mood for sitting 3 hours in a plane, I’m heading to the airport now. I will fly to Dublin, where I have far too little time to spend, as the flight schedules didn’t really work out that well. My next plane will leave at 7:15 local time (luckily it’s two hours less there than here) to Lisbon tomorrow morning. Everything after that is open, although I do have some ideas.

As always, I was able to fit everything I believe I’m going to need in my laptop bag. Need to buy new socks, though, on my way to the airport. A washing machine with drying function together with exceptional laziness are a sock-destroying combination.

I got home last Friday morning by Viking Mariella ferry from Stockholm.

After I left Rouen I wanted to finally climb to the Eiffel tower. Taking the stairs. I failed. I just couldn’t. Got to the second floor, though, which is pretty high, too.

Then I headed home. I didn’t find any decent place to sleep, so I slept an hour and a half by a German motorway, and then continued north. I thought of taking a ship directly from Germany to Finland, but as I was unable to find a travel agency that would sell me the tickets, I decided to drive to Stockholm, first taking a ferry from Germany to Denmark and then from Denmark to Sweden, and take a ferry to Helsinki from Stockholm.

I stayed overnight in a hotel in Linköping, about 200 km from Stockholm, and then drove to Stockholm the next day. I have to say I got the best food on this whole trip on the ferry (Mariella is known for its great restaurants).

I have been very tired after the trip, but I’d say it was worth it. Or at least I keep saying so until my credit card bill arrives… :/

When I headed to Andorra I planned on seeing the place and then going on back to France. However, I chose a road that looked like the shortest path to Andorra, and that was quite a tiring experience. It was raining, the road was going up an down on the mountains, and there even was a cow once standing on the road. Looking at the view in the valley. I’m not kidding.

So, once I got to Andorra I decided to stay there. I have a recommendation: don’t buy any fuel more than necessary to get to Andorra if you are going there. It’s really cheap there. I paid 0.854 € a liter for diesel fuel, and petrol was quite cheap too. I had filled my tank somewhere near Barcelona, so I was only able to buy 25 liters or so.  The hotel was cheap, too, but not as great as it looked on the outside. It was well worth its price, though.

The only person working in the hotel that actually spoke good English was the Uruguayan bartender. The non-dubbed television seems to do its trick. I had a beer and spoke with the guy for a while.

The next morning I headed north. I wanted to go as north as possible, but Le Tour de France changed my plans once again. The road was blocked for hours. This is what I can’t quite understand: for hours there are just sponsor vehicles driving down the road. Then all the bicyclers come and pass the place within 15 minutes. So, the roads are a mess, not because of the actual competition, but because of the sponsors. Why don’t they just advertise on TV? Most French people watch the competition on TV, anyway, and just few on location.

So I only got to Toulouse that day. The next morning I started to feel home-sick, and decided to drive directly home after Paris, skipping Brussels and Amsterdam. Taking a week-end vacation by plane to both of those cities is not that much more expensive than staying for a night in both on this trip, since traveling by car is pretty expensive.

I drove to Rouen and was surprised how much I still remember of the city. Last time I was here was in October 1997, I flew here on my 19th birthday. When on a trip like this you come to a place you can actually remember, it feels a bit like coming home. Even though in this case it has been 10 years.

I’m heading to Paris now, I finally want to get to that tower. I have been passing through Paris eight times, and I still haven’t been in the tower. Then I try to get to Frankfurt tonight, and tomorrow I’ll head to Stockholm to get a ship back to Finland. I don’t know, yet, if I’m going to need sleep on the way to Stockholm. If I get too tired, I’ll stay overnight somewhere. But right now I just want to get back home as soon as possible. Over three weeks abroad, alone, as well as 10000 km, is too much.

I wanted to find a beach that was not overpopulated by tourists, and found one just about 40 km from Barcelona. The best part of it was that it seemed to be a nude beach - at least many locals were butt-naked. I forgot to pack my swimming shorts. So I decided to go back there tomorrow morning, and got to this nice, but expensive, hotel. It seems that the next hotel would have been back in Barcelona, so my other option would have been to drive on, but I still wanted to sunbathe by the Mediterranean… It’s awesome.

And within few days I will get to see the Atlantic for the first time…

Last time I was able to access the Internet with my laptop I was between Milan and Venice. Now I’m in Barcelona. In between I have been to Venice, Rimini, Rome, driven the entire Via Aurelia, that is, both Italian and French Riviera, and finally got to Barcelona yesterday. So where do I start…

Italy. That country sucks. I have never been to another place where people are as hostile to tourists. There were exceptions, of course, but mainly the attitude is “fuck you tourist, go home.”

In Italy there are virtually no traffic rules, and the few they have don’t apply to motorcycles. All the road signs are purely decoration, as are the lane markings on the streets. Like everywhere in the world, stop signs are in English. The Italian people, however, don’t understand English. Some jerk broke my mirror and just drove away.

In Italy there are three kinds of food: home cooking, pizza and expensive stuff that tastes like crap. I wasn’t at anyone’s home, and one time of expensive crap was enough, so I ate pizza for the most of the time. Pizza is about the only thing Italian people can do right. Hell, they are still celebrating the only intelligent Italian guy ever, although the poor uomo universale died nearly 500 years ago.

The Italian people don’t simply have problems with understanding English. They have problems with understanding in general. In a pharmacy I found that the word carbon is so different from the Italian word carbona that there is no way a trained pharmacist could understand it.

I’ve never felt so relieved to get to France.

They say French people are unfriendly and French traffic is a mess. Nearly a week in Italy may have dropped my expectations a bit, but still I’d say French people were wonderful and French traffic was very sane. I drove to Marseille from Italy the day before yesterday, and everything was fine so far.

There is, however, a thing you should check before traveling to France in summer. That is, whether Tour de France happens to be in the very city you are traveling to the very day you are going to be there. Finding a cheap hotel room proved impossible. Finding a hotel room at all was very difficult.

When I left Marseille yesterday morning, I asked where Tour de France is going next. Montpellier. The exact city I was going to go to next. So I just drove directly to Barcelona.

The most important thing you need when you are using the underground in Barcelona is ability to make good guesses. First, you need to guess what ticket you need to buy. Then you have to guess what train line you need. And the final guess you need to make is where the platform is. The ticket vending machine is great. You have options like T-10 etc., and changing the language to English simply changes the text on the top of the screen to “select your ticket.” Once you get the ticket, you need to get to the right platform on the first guess. If you go to the wrong platform, you need to buy another ticket. Too many wrong guesses can get very expensive.

I thought I’d stay in Barcelona for two nights, but this city seems too expensive for me, so I will start driving north to Andorra and then to France. I don’t know exactly how far north I’m going to drive, but I’m not in a hurry. I will probably stay in Spain for another night.

I wanted to see the BMW museum in Munich, because the last time I was in Munich it was being renovated. Well, after three years, it still was. So I went to see Munich from the Olympiaturm. Who said you can’t see the entire Munich in one day?

I then proceeded to Liechtenstein. On the way I saw mountains. Like, real mountains. Last time I’ve seen real mountains was when I went to Italian Riviera with my parents 22 years ago. The thought that I was actually not only going to see them, but to drive over them to Italy the next day, thrilled me.

Liechtenstein doesn’t appear to have their own border guards. The Swiss border guard on the border wanted to verify all my documents and search things like my spare tire and the bottom of my car. For all he knows, however, I could have been carrying bags full of cocaine, automatic weapons or Nazi gold-bricks - he didn’t even ask me to open them.

The hotel wasn’t so hard to find. I only knew the town (which wasn’t Vaduz), but even though my map didn’t know any other towns in Liechtenstein but Vaduz, the whole Liechtenstein is located on sides of one road. No, not road. More like a street.

When I drove up to the hotel (it was 1,6 km above sea-level) I saw nice views on the way. Like cranes from the above and that kind of stuff. On the next day, when I drove back, I even saw actual clouds from the above - on solid ground. The hotel was small, and the staff understood so little English that even my German was working better.

The Alps look great.

Then yesterday I headed to Milan. I had decided to use small country roads instead of the motorways for two reasons. One of them was the Swiss motorway tax, that cannot be paid for a period shorter than a year, and I was driving there for a day. But yet more importantly, I wanted to see more of the Alps than just the motorway tunnels.

I know many people find roads an uninteresting subject, but the Swiss roads really have interesting properties comparing to roads in other countries. Usually, roads are built horizontally. In Switzerland they are built vertically. This has several advantages. Normal horizontal roads can go from south to north or from north-east to south-west or whatever. Swiss roads all have two directions: up and down. This reduces pedal wear. If you are driving an automatic car like I am, you only need one pedal for each direction. With manual transmission you only need two.

Finally, the speed limits are a perfect example of Swiss efficiency. No radar speed traps are required to catch the violators. The local police can simply go down to the valley and pick up their pieces.

I didn’t stop anywhere in Switzerland except to change a few words with two British motorcyclists and on the highest spot I have ever been in my life (2283 m IIRC).

Crossing the Italian border gave me this sensation like I was coming to another country. Oh well, I was, indeed, coming to another country, but I have done that a dozen times before during the past two weeks, and never has it felt quite like this. Everything changed. The buildings, the people, the cars, the plants people had on their front yards… Everything.

At about 19:00 I stopped in a city I suspected to be a suburb of Milan to find myself a place to rest. I found one in the third hotel I asked, but no-one in the hotel spoke English, so I still had no idea where I was (the Italian road signs don’t really help). So I headed out to find out.

There was an ice cream shop right around the corner, and the girl there spoke English, which was a relief. She found my questions (”Which city is this?”) somewhat funny, but she was very helpful (and hot, by the way). She told me we were, indeed, in a suburb of Milan, which was called Sesto something. There was a metro station just a few steps away that would take me to the center of Milan. And there was this “la notte bianca”, “white night” that night, which took half of the people in Milan to the streets of the city center. I left her a ridiculously large tip (considering the amount my ice cream cost), but she was very helpful (and, did I mention, hot).

When I got off the metro in the city, I had to stop for a moment at the top of the stairs to breathe. It was awesome. I just wandered around the city without even buying a beer and looked at the way people were having fun. And all that without alcohol! Just kidding. But somehow they could control their drinking in a way unknown to a Finn: everyone was piss-drunk, yet I saw no one vomiting on the streets or anything like that.

I finally got back to the hotel around midnight to get some sleep before next day’s drive, only to find out that in Italy, a cover on a bed is considered luxory beyond three star rating. I can’t sleep without a cover, so I just used the day cover.

The hotel breakfast wasn’t a bit more pleasing. There were buns. And then there was butter and a couple of sorts of marmalade to put on them. No ham, no cheese, no eggs, no almost anything. Well, at least there was yogurt. And the hotel wasn’t even cheap. I was rather pissed right from the morning when I started my car and headed to Venice.

It appears that I never saved the “previous” post I referred to in the previous post, so I will just type it again.

After I left Vienna I was pretty tired, so I didn’t spend much time in either Linz or Salzburg. I did take a walk in a riverside park in Linz, and I drove around Salzburg to find an open cafe (which I didn’t find), but other than that I pretty much drove directly to Munich.

I gave a ride to a couple of young hitch-hikers (the first ones on this trip) on the German border, and they showed me a place to leave my car for free near an S-Bahn station. Then I took a train to the central railway station. I found the hostel I had booked without any trouble.

Suddenly I had diarrhea and fever. I slept from just about the time I got to the hostel until I had to check out, with all my clothes on, shivering and sweating at the same time. I decided to rest another day in Munich and booked a room in a hotel 30 meters away from the hostel.

I really don’t know what happened the first time I was making this post, probably just screwed something up. People screw things up in fever.

After spending another day in Munich, this time in a Hotel, sleeping, I’ve decided to skip Bern and only drive to Vaduz today. I want to visit BMW museum first, though. And I need to get my car to oil service.

There is not much to write about anything since I made the previous post, really. I slept the whole day once I got into the hotel room. Perhaps I have more to write when I get to Vaduz.

Yesterday I went to the city with this Austrian guy who promised to show me some of the cool stuff in Vienna. I have to say that this really is an awesome city if you know where to go. I once again spent far more than my daily budget, but at least this time it was worth it.

The city hall is bigger than our house of parliament. The parks and squares were full of people, which would not be that surprising, as it was Saturday, had there not been such a lot of parks and squares. I also went to Prater (the great amusement park in Vienna) and saw Vienna from the above from the Riesenrad.

My today’s drive will be from Vienna to Munich. I will stop in Linz and Salzburg on the way. When I get to Munich I will probably leave my car somewhere in the suburbs, as I have heard that driving is not really fun in Munich, either. I already have a reservation in a hostel located 150 m from the central railway station, so it cannot be that hard to find.