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Welcome to the edge of the civilized world. You are now in the lands we call the wolven frontier.
You are now in the region You can experience the arctic winter as it's most horrid and it's most charming. In the countryside on clear, full moon night when it so cold Your nosehair freeze, You may experience the silence You have never known to exist.
But only until the wolves start their aria...
The deathstar You saw in Stockholm was Globen, an icehockey/event arena.
Actually I arrived on Wednesday but I haven't had much online time and still have a few things to sort out, like Abbey blocking my debit card as I was half way across Denmark and trying to buy petrol. God bless the British banking systems with integrated panic functionality. Don't phone me, no, no, no. Just block my card and send a letter during the postal strikes. Nice and efficient.
So anyway, the drive... Christ almighty what was I thinking? What a drive. Roadworks the length of England....
brilliant ferry crossing to Denmark....
epic bridges across Denmark....
mental rain across Sweden... (had to edge up in the fast lane behind lorries and just boot it through the spray, which was like driving through a waterfall each time. I actually found the road markings kind of inadequate. They don't seem to have cat's eyes)
a great ferry crossing to Finland..... and rather a lot of trees across Finland as you'd expect, lakes also featuring highly and we collapsed in the door with an extra 1500 miles on the car. It's not something I would want to consider doing by myself and even with 2 drivers it was tough enough going. Or maybe i'm just a big girl? The only bit we actually had any real trouble with was navigating Stockholm at 1:30 am. We came into the city centre looking for the hotel after about 12 hours in the car and ended up crossing several bridges, looking across at the area we knew we wanted to be. To be fair we should have planned the turns before we hit the city centre but we were shattered and trusting satnav, which was useless when we hit a tunnel and then discovered several turns whilst in the tunnel. We got there though. I can't say we did much in Stockholm apart from wander about, eat and ponder the spectacle of the death star that looked to have landed nearby. Might have been an observatory or something to be fair but I was tired and didn't give it too much thought.
So now I'm trying to settle into life in Kajaani (SLOW). Going through the customs process just now to register the car so I need to find LHD B6 headlights. €180 for an MOT and an extra €60 for the first time for some reason though. ouch. Add on about £600 of studded winter tyres and looks like I'll be driving it until one of us can go no further.
Stockholm is full of unnattractive women and unwelcome bars selling poor wines and revolting beers - Beware!
If you fancy something memorable - try the Ice-Bar.
Turku is a beautiful part of the world to drive through - especially along the river - look out for the steel sculptures of Whale Fins! Have a great and safe time!
haha. erm. yeah. my new year there I definitely didn't notice a ridiculous number of hot women and I didn't enjoy the beer.
Stockholm is full of unnattractive women and unwelcome bars selling poor wines and revolting beers - Beware!
If you fancy something memorable - try the Ice-Bar.
Turku is a beautiful part of the world to drive through - especially along the river - look out for the steel sculptures of Whale Fins! Have a great and safe time!
and download it for free, there is also every gas station there.
Yes, I have tomtom mate. cheers for the link
Originally posted by Acidburn
I thought the first was today?
good luck mate, make sure you post up international audi rescue on here.
Sweet mother of jesus i've missed the..... ah.. no, hang on. 1st November that should have been. doh!
Originally posted by geryS2
Nice trip ! hope to see some nice pics here very soon !
Good drive lucky u !
I think we'll stop over in Stockholm now and get the night boat as recommended so my dad can go nuts with his camera and so we get to appreciate the countries we're driving through instead of just staring at hundreds of miles of trees in the headlights
cheers Paul,
It's a risk but I've discovered too many people at senior management level who have confessed they wish they'd done something similar years ago. worst case scenario is i'm going on a 6 month holiday and coming back to Scotland again... erm... to no house or furniture. haha.
Definitely - if you have itchy feet then follow them. I don't regret my travels, but circumstances have somehow brought me back home after ~10yrs. I've still got the notion for it again - though it gets harder as you get older - emigrating I mean
insane schedule... why not take the night ferry to Turku or Helsinki?
on the Sweden bit: excelent roads for fast travelling, not many speedcameras and if they are there there are warning signs. I managed average speeds (acc tripcomp) of above 100kmh. just do as the locals do and drive at 20kmh above what the limit is you could check on www.camping.se which campings are still open then, and rent a cabin ("Stuga"), probably the cheapest accomodation with a fixed roof, usually 20-30€/night.
on the Finland bit: probably lots of cameras (especially the 1st half), so you'll want to stick to the speedlimit (certainly since you'll be a resident there so they will hit you hard is fined). price of 98 is about 1.40€.
cheers Paul,
It's a risk but I've discovered too many people at senior management level who have confessed they wish they'd done something similar years ago. worst case scenario is i'm going on a 6 month holiday and coming back to Scotland again... erm... to no house or furniture. haha.
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The only bit we actually had any real trouble with was navigating Stockholm at 1:30 am. We came into the city centre looking for the hotel after about 12 hours in the car and ended up crossing several bridges, looking across at the area we knew we wanted to be. To be fair we should have planned the turns before we hit the city centre but we were shattered and trusting satnav, which was useless when we hit a tunnel and then discovered several turns whilst in the tunnel. We got there though. I can't say we did much in Stockholm apart from wander about, eat and ponder the spectacle of the death star that looked to have landed nearby. Might have been an observatory or something to be fair but I was tired and didn't give it too much thought.
I thought the first was today?
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