It’s all around us

Crossing the border from Russia to Finland into the very big unknown.
A man waiting behind us at the customs asked “So where are you going with these bicycles?” – “To Gibraltar”. He laughed and the customs lady glanced at us with an expression of shock. We smiled and proceeded forward.

Finland. It was relatively easy to cycle. Finnish roads were of great quality (no doubts, they still are), one time we got on a highway by mistake and local police had to chase us off, haha. Once we separated for more than a kilometre and got lost as we went different ways at the crossroads and didn’t have local simcards, but then thanks to sheer luck we found each other again. During the day we would do steady 100-110 kms enjoying the landscapes and at nights we would fight huge mosquitoes that were the proud owners of Finnish forests.

In Helsinki we were hosted by Nick, my good old friend, and in Turku we used couchsurfing, thanks to which we met Vadim and Nastya, as I call them – my flying magicians. Flying – because they are skydiving instructors, magicians – well, some people have this feeling about them, you know.

Otherwise, we camped in the forest and cooked our meals – as we brought everything with us (kilos of “dry” food from Russia!).

In Turku, just after 5 days since we had left, I got into an accident. A car hit me when I was on a bike. It was our mutual fault and a great lesson learnt. Like in a movie, I flew for several meters and ended up on the road just to open my eyes after a short blackout and to see a worried woman asking me not to move. The ambulance came but I refused to go anywhere as we had our ferry to Stockholm in an hour. I asked the ambulance to bring us to the port instead. Oh that stoic behavior… when I look back at this moment I am amazed at how silly that action was, but what was done is done. The only thing I remember from that long 11h ferry ride is that I am lying on the deck, not being able to move much as my back hurts a lot and Lina bringing me chocolate from the buffet to cheer me up. I didn’t want her (or myself) to panic, so I was trying to smile and joke. What a disaster.

Sweden. Stockholm greeted us with grey weather and another wonderful couchsurfer Jakob who showed us around. I had no idea what was happening to my back, but it took me good 10 minutes every day to get up or vice versa to put myself in the horizontal position. After 3 days of rest, we decided to hit the road again though I was still in relative pain. There was no way to go to the hospital as I didn’t have any proper insurance and we both had around 400 euros each in the pocket, and we didn’t know what to do really apart from cycling further, so I really tried to believe that it was a very bad contusion and it would pass in a week (3 months later I would find out that it was a fracture of the L1 vertebra 🫢). We cycled out of Stockholm, but after a day of cycling, I understood that the pain wasn’t quite manageable so we decided to hitchike a truck from after Södertälje. That’s how we met Alma and her boyfriend (a truck driver who picked us up!). We stayed with them for a night and the next day went in a truck with another driver from the same company all the way to Helsingborg – to catch a ferry to Denmark. Unfortunately, our cycling across Sweden wasn’t very long, but we met amazing people, and most probably, saved my spine.

Denmark. A ferry ride from Helsingborg to Helsingør was only 15 minutes or so and was at 5 am. We started cycling from there to Copenhagen and were amazed at how flat and how consistent the bike lane was. It was a beautiful day, the back wasn’t hurting that much, there was the sea on the left and the sun was just rising. Sometimes there were cows, sometimes other cyclists, it was peaceful and welcoming.

After some very smooth 50k we arrived in Copenhagen – the city, that we immediately fell in love with. Aesthetic streets, lots of bikes, charming architecture, sweet people… everything was very welcoming. We used couchsurfing again this time and stayed at the apartment of a lady-filmmaker that we didn’t even meet, as she was away – but her partner welcomed us. Surely, we went to Christiania the next day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

Even though we were charmed by the city, it was time to leave after several days of rest and cycle direction Gedser – all the way in the south of the country – to take a ferry to Rostock in Germany.
A memorable day: as the first night in between the capital and Gedser approached we figured that it was a bit fresh for camping and we were looking for a church to ask to stay. We were passing by McDonalds (which has been our only go-to for Internet and planning our further route) and asked the cashier if he knew if there was a church nearby. He heard our story, saw our bikes and without a hesitation invited us to his home where he gave us a room and a great meal. 💚 Our hearts were full of joy and gratitude as so many strangers were helping us along the way.

The second day of cycling to Gedser was challenging. The wind was so strong that even though we pushed hard our computers showed 10 km/h speed! The smell of livestock was also killing us – the 80 kilometers where cycled with tears in our eyes. Eventually, we reached the small port, waited for the ferry, put our bikes in the vehicle area and somehow got a free ride by staying in the vehicle area for 2 hours.

Germany. Hi Rostock! Took us some time to get out of the city. After so many events, people, kilometers, we were feeling a bit tired, so the opportunity of staying with my uncle (it was my first time seeing him as he moved to Germany in 1994!) and his family in Berlin for some days seemed very appealing. German roads had been the best so far – cycling lanes were everywhere, even in the deepest countryside, the roads were of great quality, and there were a lot of people traveling by bicycle! Pleased we were. The days in Berlin went really well, there was time to visit the city, to connect with the relatives and to have fun.

Having left Berlin, we cycled direction of Hamburg to see Lina’s relatives who lived in the countryside not far from the city. Then, the way would go through central Germany, and soon we would have had to decide whether we cross the Alps or take an alternative route through the Netherlands and Belgium. My back was still hurting, especially when pushing uphill, but it was manageable and I was still enjoying all the kilometres, the views, the meetings. Sometimes, it was still becoming quite hard emotionally to cycle 100k per day into the unknown, sometimes we would shed a tear in some nameless fields, but how precious these moments were and how much, I believe, they taught us about ourselves.

In the next post I will write about the second half of our journey, which includes stolen bikes, industrial zones, french forests, spanish heat and lots of avocados and the Mediterranean. 🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🥑🌊

Have a good day,

Lots of love,

Lucy