Date: 25 – 29/08/2017
From/To: Kautokeino – Helsinki
Distance: 1535 Km
Total Distance: 14046 Km
Weather: Sunny, Cold, Rain
Road: Paved
We sat out the rain in Kautokeino for a day and were contemplating to wait even a bit longer but checking the forecast we realised that the temperature would drop dramatically. The temperature was predicted to be close to freezing -2 degrees until lunch time the day after , so we decided to leave.
A the start of our ride the temperature dropped to four degrees for a couple of hours.
Here a quick shot from our border crossing.
Here we had a short stop at the petrol station, with some warm coffee. Not long after we passed the Arctic circle, this time on the street.
The campground that we earmarked for our stay was completely booked, they had a meeting of Norwegian motorcycle riders and only some ‘Luxury’ cabins were available, which was really outside of our price range. So we had a short talk with a couple of riders before we continued to the next camp ground, which was in woopwoop. Here we found a fantastic cabin, with its own sauna, and a marvellous view from the balcony.
We liked so much that we stayed an extra day. The next day we started early. When we were riding in the back streets, a nice windy road through beautiful forest, I was day dreaming, well, until a guy with a yellow vest jumped on the road and waved his arms franticly. It was a copper and I had to blow. At this point I thought that’s it, but after the result was negative I was invited to sit in the police car. The officer told me that I was speeding. I must have overlooked a 40km/h sign, doing, well let’s say double that. He said that with my excessive speed I would lose my driver licence L, he doesn’t like to do it, so he recorded the speed where I wouldn’t lose my license, but I got a fine. He did ask a couple of questions, one was my monthly income???? As it turned out, the fine for speeding in a 40 zone, regardless how much, is 240Euro, or 18 day sets of your income. So my income was not high enough, payed just 240Euro and so did Sigrid L. Apparently the highest fine in FineLand was 103.000 Euro, so 240 Euro are not too bad. Here you can see the nice copper which jumped in my way and on the right hand side, Sigrid being processed J
Close to Helsinki we got onto a highway where you could legally drive 120km/h J. We arrived at our booked apartment in Helsinki. We parked the bikes so we could see them from the balcony.
Here is the sign on the parking lot.
To make things worse, in the morning we had a parking ticket, 60Euro/person. First we thougth it was because the parking inspector couldn’t see the parking disk, after tranlating the fine, we found out that parking for motorcycles was not allowed here, only cars and trucks (bummer). These were the most expensive days during our trip.
Anyway, we went with the public transport to Helsinki. First we stopped at the Helsinki Cathdral, which was impressive, but it was quite crouded as well
So we were headding for the side streets where it was less crouded. During the walk we found a seal eating a fish. Sigrid is trying to get a fish, which didn’t work. So she tried it again with the next seal.
Below are some nice pictures from Helsinki
When reading the map, a local approached us and gave us a tip to go to one hotel, use the elevator to go to the top level, then walk another level and there is a coffee. So we did. The view from there was great. We saw the roof with small glass pyramids on it.
Here is Sigrid leaving the coffee.
Some more sots from some sculpures and some faces at the house entrance.
We hopped onto the ferry to have a look at the Fortress of Suomenlinna. This is a fortess that was used from the Swedish and the Russians, depending who was occupying this island at the time.
First we visited a small island connected via a bridge. There was the marine accademy located, not much to see except two old cannons and a sculpture.
When we walked to the southern end of the main island, we came across an Norwegian submarine from the second world war. Certainly we were keen to have a look at it. In this tiny boater were twenty man, with maximum 16 bunks.
From here we continued to the southern tip, where the defence walls and cannons were. Sigrid is waiting to ride a cannon ball trying to imitate Münchhausen.
On the left a picture from one defence section and on the right, the Kings Gate.
On the ferry on our way back we found a pool in the middle of the habour, it was one of the public pools and saunas in Helsinki.
Before returning home we had a look at the Uspenski Cathedral which was nice to look at from the outside but closed. After walking back to the Central station (picture on the right) we caught our bus home.