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The United Kingdom

Ready to leave my flat in Malvern. The view from my flat. Now I'm just wasting a bit of time taking photographs while I wait to see if it stops raining. The finger post at Teddington Hands on the road from Tewkesbury to Stow. This isn't a very interesting picture; I just got excited at seeing a Lithuanian car on the Oxford ring road. Still in Oxford, repairing what at first seemed like a disastrous total collapse of the pannier rack. It turned out that nothing had actually broken and some screws had just come out. I managed to find them all remarkably easily and make the rack as good as new. A slightly unusual signpost at the bottom of Stokenchurch Hill. I don't know whose glasses those are hanging on it. The top of Stokenchurch Hill. The tower is a familiar sight from the M40, which runs parallel to my route. This was a new way to approach to London for me and I think I preferred it to my usual route along the A4 from Heathrow, although the cycle lanes were not as good as this all the way. The subway under the old M41 at Shepherd's Bush. The view from my Kensington hotel of a much grander hotel, which was vaguely familiar to me from when I had lived around here for a few weeks seven years previously. London, seen from inside a fancy shopping arcade. It had been remarkably quick and easy to find a shop selling spare inner tubes so I now had several hours to kill while a local travel agent obtained a Russian visa for me. Some filming going on by Tower Bridge. The Tower of London. My bike in Kensington. Demolition work in the middle of the roundabout between Westminster Bridge and Waterloo Station. My visa still wasn't ready so I stood and watched these machines for a while. I wasn't the only one. Showing off my Russian visa in the rather eerie Underground station at Westminster. Sir Norman Foster's Gherkin, the Swiss Re tower, which I passed on my way through London's financial district. Although it was hard to find cycle route 51 in Colchester, the section between there and Harwich was the most absurdly well signposted cycle route I have ever seen. There were reminders of the route number every few hundred metres and numerous other signs. Inexplicably, the signs were particularly keen...

The Netherlands

The ferry terminal at Hoek Van Holland. The journey from here to Rotterdam seemed rather familiar as I had been the same way a couple of years earlier. A view of the ferry which had brought me across the North Sea during the night. A lifting railway bridge over a canal. It looks like the trains don't get any power while they are on the bridge. Looking the other way along the canal from the same viewpoint as the previous picture. Cobbled streets, a sight which would become rather familiar. At least the Dutch ones were nice and smooth. Rotterdam. Rotterdam, featuring me and my bike. Another view of Rotterdam, including a strange-looking green police station in the distance. An unusual block of flats. The pink paving is the cycle lane, a convention which is used throughout Germany and Poland as well as the Netherlands. Here's an impressive road; most of it is taken up by the cycle lanes. More Dutchness. This is Gouda, where they make the cheese. I'm sheltering under some trees hoping that the rain shower will end. What the picture is meant to be showing, although it's a bit hard to see, is somebody cycling with an unbrella up. Another view from the same place. This town is called Oudewater, by the way. This machine was amazing. On the outskirts of Utrecht, I decided not to ride any further in the rain and made a phone call to book a hotel in the city. This machine, which offered a choice of languages, then told me where the hotel was and printed out a... The view from my hotel in Utrecht. It was still raining a bit so I was glad I had decided to stop here. A wet cycle path. The hotel was undergoing a bit of renovation. Bikes outside the station in Utrecht. They fill the area behind the columns too and continue like this all the way to the end of the road. Utrecht. Utrecht. Utrecht. Utrecht. Another good wide cycle route. This one is leading out of Utrecht. A general view in the Amersfoort area. Amersfoort. Rain in the woods near Garderen. A small theme park near Apeldoorn. A cycle lane and a contraflow skating lane in Apeldoorn. The bridge into Deventer. Apparently, the film A Bridge Too Far was shot here. I haven't seen it. Deventer, seen from the bridge. A view from the other side of the bridge. Deventer, seen from the bridge again. Another view from the same bridge. It's raining again. It doesn't really bother me now though as I'm in the hotel. Rather better weather now and I've stopped in Holten to book a hotel for tonight in Osnabrück. Unexpectedly, I spoke to the same man who had dealt with my booking for Deventer the previous night. There's a drive-by rubbish bin by the right-hand edge of the road. These are quite common in the Netherlands. A town called Borne. Another view of Borne. It's nowhere special but I thought it was quite pretty and I was having a rest and taking a few pictures. The shape of the route marker in the bottom right is another distinctive feature of the Netherlands. The road has gone a bit funny now. Perhaps this isn't the right way. I don't think I can ride across that. I think this was the most lost that I got on the entire trip. Eventually, I found this map at a bus stop and took a photograph of it so that I could navigate from my camera display. The problem seems to be that this whole development is new and doesn't appear on my paper map. Still trying to get out of Hengelo. A shady spot in which to escape from the hot Sun.

Germany

I've just crossed into Germany. Here are the new speed limits. These things are all over Germany. More cobbles. I'm following a signed cycle route here. The German cycle routes like to go over as many hills as possible, even where the main road stays at the bottom of a valley, so they can be rather tiring. The views are good though. A place called Bad Bentheim. In the Netherlands, cycle routes signs always tell you where you might end up if you follow them. The Germans don't seem worried by such details. Rheine, not the only town I encountered in Germany which had one of these. A major canal between Hörstel and Ibbenbüren. I'll see plenty more canals tomorrow. A more informative sign. A wedding in Laggenbeck. The view from my hotel in Osnabrück. I don't know what this is. I never saw anything come out of it. Recharging my Walkman in Osnabrück. It was good to see that this home-made contraption worked. Osnabrück, looking rather quiet on a Sunday morning. Osnabrück. Osnabrück. For a moment, I thought the route went this way. Luckily, I had just taken a slightly wrong turn. After experimenting with the signed cycle routes for a while and being sent on a convoluted route up and down hills, I decided it would be far more sensible to let the Mittellandkanal's towpaths take me straight to Hannover. The canal again. This is near Bad Essen. Minden, where my canal passes over another. The older of the two parallel aqueducts on the Mittellandkanal. Buildings associated with the canal junction. One of the aqueducts. A path below the two aqueducts. A slight deviation from the towpath. An enormous slag heap of some kind near Wunstorf. I passed several of these in Germany. More wind turbines. These ones are near Ostermunzel. Nothing in particular. Another peculiarly German sight: bales of hay dressed up as a person. A British cemetery on the road into Hannover. The road into Hannover. Unusually, here they aren't using the convention of pink paving for the cycle path. The route into Hannover was quite long and a little confusing. Here, I've just stopped to try to work out where I am. More cobbles as I continue to head towards the city centre. A less pretty view of Hannover. Central Hannover. Hannover. Hannover. I spent a few minutes here studying my hotel brochure and trying to work out where the Hotel Ibis was. It is of course that building across the road, just to the left of the McDonald's sign. The one with the big sign on the roof. Ah, the all time classic. Unfortunately, today isn't Saturday. The view from my window in Hannover. I just liked the way the Sun was reflecting off that building in the distance. I bought this map in a petrol station. It's designed for cyclists but is a little confusing at first. The quieter a road is, the more prominent it is on the map. If a road has dots along the side, it means it has a separate cyle path. The thin... A building near the hotel in Hannover. The Hindenburg lock at Anderten. I soon decided I couldn't face another day on the monotonous towpath and chose to use the cycling map to find a more interesting route instead. A view from a bridleway near Münstedt. I've stopped for a break in the woods, next to the appropriately named Pisserbach stream which, according to a sign on a tree, once formed the boundary of the Hannoverian kingdom. Bundesstraße 1, a road which I will now follow pretty closely all the way to the Polish border. It's not as busy as its name suggests. A view of Braunschweig, today's half-way town. A rather flashy traffic information sign on the way into Braunschweig. Braunschweig again. This is where the cycle lane finally gave up and I had to mix with the proper traffic again for pretty much the first time since leaving Harwich. Part of the old border between East and West Germany. A view along the old border. Erxleben. Another wind farm. Another section of the B1, again still not looking very busy. Magdeburg appearing in the distance as I come over a hill. Tonight's hotel is in a suburb of this city. I'm using the old photographing maps technique of navigation again. This one was in a estate agent's window. University Square in Magdeburg. University Square in Magdeburg. My bike pretending to be a dog outside a petrol station. The hotel. Not really one of the best. Not an ideal start to the day; only a few minutes after leaving the hotel, I came to a road which had been dug up. The town of Loitsche seems to have put up the mock pit wheel to let people know that it is in a mining area, as if that enormous mine completely dominating the skyline wasn't evidence enough. I had to cheat slightly here. By the time I realised there wasn't a bridge here, I had come too far to consider finding an alternative route so I had to let this little ferry carry me across the River Elbe. On board the ferry. A cobbled street in the village of Schartau. The rather pretty centre of Burg. Slightly further up the street in Burg. It's not very easy to see but the inscription on the right-hand side of the obelisk points to my destination for today, Berlin 110 km. A bridge over the canal in Genthin. This place is called Plaue. A view of the Plauer See. A rather old-looking bridge over a channel into the Plauer See. Brandenburg. The City Hall of Brandenburg's old city. Part of Brandenburg's old city. A more industrial part of Brandenburg. In Germany, you never have that problem of coming into a town and not knowing when the church services are. Almost every town seems to have signs like these. Any idea what this is? That's right - it's a pumping station. The Old Market in Potsdam. On the road from Potsdam to Berlin. A rather smart suburb of Berlin. Mexico Square station on Argentina Avenue. I think I took this picture at the wrong time. They let me go in front after this. The one immediately in front of me looks like he's got one of the bikes which you can hire from the railway company. A thatched underground station! Whatever next? This looks like it must be one of Berlin's main shopping areas. I'm afraid I don't really know much about where I am. The view along Kurfürstendamm towards the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. An unexpectedly large station at Berlin Zoo. I'm now slightly lost in the Tiergarten park. The Victory Column, which I think is meant to be a famous landmark in Berlin. I had never heard of it before though. 17th of June Street, which runs for about five miles in a straight line from out in the countryside right into the heart of Berlin. Heading towards the Brandenburg Gate. Unlike the traffic lanes, the cycle lane carries on straight through that right-hand arch. Posing in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It actually looks better from this side but I didn't want to have to set up the camera's timer again. The German Historical Museum. Part of Humboldt University. Alexander Square. I like the way the road has been removed but the tramlines which were embedded in it have been left behind. My hotel was in a kind of shopping centre. This is the view from outside the lift. The roof of the same courtyard. The hotel's corridors seemed less plush than any other part of it. The underground station at Samariterstraße. The tube train was a bit strange in that there were no partitions of any kind between the carriages so the inside was one long open space. When it went round corners, it gave the impression of being inside a big snake. I came back to Alexander Square to do some sightseeing but ended up just sitting here, eating a bag of plums and two bars of chocolate and then going back to the hotel. The world clock in the foreground is unusual. Of particular interest to me, it gives the current... Another general view of Berlin. Müncheberg, a small town on the way to the Polish border. Need a fireplace? Then why not go to Poland for one? This sign is only about a mile short of the border. There was a big group of cyclists here but they moved off before I could get the camera out.

Poland

After an unpromising start, the Polish roads rapidly became rather good. There was a cycle way for most of the way on this day. I want to know where I can get a lolly that size! The only slight flaw with the cycle paths in this area. I saw a sign like this once in Sweden. That's probably quite a helpful map. Unfortunately, some idiot has put it in the middle of a big flower bed so I can't get any closer to it on either side than this. No trouble reading this sign though. My guide book warned me that Poles are fond of big dogs and made it sound like I would be in constant danger from them. I saw plenty of dogs during my time in the country and very few of them were any bigger than this. Planning my next day's route in the hotel in Gorzów Wielkopolski. Storks. There are nests on the tops of telegraph poles in every village but I didn't see many of the birds themselves. My careful plans for today rather revolved around being able to cross this bridge. Unfortunately, a lorry full of sand appears to have crashed on it and it doesn't look like re-opening for a while. I think these photographers had come here because of the lorry crash but they now seem more interested in the storks. Taking a detour through the woods as a result of the blocked bridge. Cobbled bridges now. How does that happen? Unlinke in Gorzów Wielkopolski the previous night, I had no difficulty in finding my hotel in Pila, even though it had changed its name since the map was printed. It's that unmissable building up ahead. The view from my window in Pila. A pleasant Saturday morning in Pila. The view in the other direction along the River Gwda. Some Polish scenery. I didn't have far to go on this day so I spent a while just enjoying the view. Good flat countryside. One of the roadside shrines which are quite common in Poland. Apparently, this cycle route goes from Calais to St. Petersburg. It looks like it takes an unnecessarily long and wiggly route though. Central Bydgoszcz. The Bydgoszcz Opera building. Another view of Bydgoszcz. Actually, I'm having difficulty finding my hotel but taking a lot of photographs while I look for it so that I can kid myself that I'm just sightseeing. The streets in the old part of town are rather pretty. Not that pleasant to ride on though. This will make finding the hotel easier. Every building has an official sign like this with its street number on it. It's not very easy to see the sign up that pole from here but I was just bemused to see that Poland has the shop £-stretcher when it doesn't have pounds. I've found the hotel now. It's a bit odd that a room with only one single bed had space for four people to sit down comfortably. The view from my window. You can see the railway station if you know where to look. I'm now wondering whether to try finding some dinner it that unfeasibly small Egyptian restaurant by the side of the road. Quite a big hotel, this. I decided against dinner, as usual. I'm not sure what this picture was meant to show. Just the colour of the evening sky, I think. Here are some guests arriving for a wedding. They rather dominated the hotel, especially in the middle of the night when they let off some fireworks which seemed to come up to the height of my window and then explode. Look, there's the bride. And part of the car. Today's ride was the shortest so far (except for my rest days in London and Berlin), which was lucky because it was raining. The weather is starting to clear up now though. This is the bridge across the River Vistula into tonight's town of Torun. A tourist boat on the Vistula. Copernicus lived in Torun. John Paul II didn't though, as far as I'm aware. The bike safely locked up outside another hotel. The round building, apparently a former gas holder, is now Torun's planetarium. This place is like the Stratford-upon-Avon of astronomy. However, most of the attractions close at four o'clock on a Sunday. Guess what time it is now. I hadn't expected quite this many tourists. Since they had gone to the trouble of posing, I thought I should take a picture here. A view of the main square No idea what that is. Another view of the main square. The building on the right is the Town Hall. The statue, of course, is Copernicus. That's the bridge which I crossed on my way into Torun. I seem to have caught a duck in flight on the right of the picture. One of the gates of the old town. Torun's leaning tower. A final view of the old town, through that arch. Fairly obviously, this is the cinema. I'm just on my way back from the supermarket at the moment. I didn't realise when I booked this hotel that it would have its own facilities for horse riding, canoeing and all that sort of thing. It's quite a big place. That's just the car park. Here's another view of the car park. There are a couple of reasons for it this time. Firstly, you can see my bike at the back of the red van. The point I was trying to make though was the contrast between the size of the tiny Polish dog just... This was an interestingly twisty elevated passageway running through the woods between the hotel's two main buildings. It seems that the people building the passage had tried to miss as many trees as possible but this one was in the way so they just built round it. On the outside,... The hotel's reception. This area is known as the Polish Lake District. I thought this village was very pretty. The weather has improved since Torun too and the air was still enough that from here I could hear the service going on in that church. Now that's a Post Office. One of the gates of Olsztyn's town centre. This is pretty much the hilliest part of my route. This is a place called Lutry. I don't know why there is a stop sign at a level crossing which clearly hasn't seen a train in years. The even stranger thing was that every car I saw did stop. A view of Reszel in the distance. The address of tonight's hotel seemed to have bits missing, as did its name in fact, so I wasn't quite sure whether it would be in Reszel, a town which looked rather too small to have hotels, or in Swieta Lipka, a village... Just a random factory. There were a few other cyclists on this road. Just round the corner was an enormous decorated sign advertising Reszel. I was starting to get an idea that there was something funny about these towns. Reszel Castle. This town has a surprising number of tourists and several hotels. No sign of the Hotel 500 yet though. Reszel's Town Hall. If I had needed booze, any of these shops would have been perfect. Unfortunately, sweets are rather harder to find. Reszel's main square seen from a different angle. I'm in the hotel now. It turns out it was in Swieta Lipka, along with that church and not much else, which is why the hotel's address doesn't bother with the name of the street. The Hotel 500, also known, inexplicably, as the Hotel w. I'm just trying to show that there are a couple of other buildings in the place. The church, reflecting the warm evening sunlight. Apparently, all sorts of miracles have happened here and the place is very popular with pilgrims. According to my guidebook, it's busiest on dates such as the Feast of the Assumption, which I recently found out is today. The village was heaving when... The last remaining visitors, and a few tourist shops where I was able to get some useful maps. I've got a very short ride scheduled for today and it's not even raining so I think I might do a bit of sightseeing. This is the inside of the church, already full of tourists. At the moment, we are being treated to a lengthy demonstration of the organ. Another view of the church's interior. Look, there's a priest. Looks like it's going to be a lovely day. This is the Wolf's Lair, the secret headquarters of the Nazi High command during World War II. All of the bunkers were destroyed at the end of the war. This particular one is notable for being the room where somebody tried to blow up Hitler with a bomb in a... A less substantial brick bunker. More trees, more bunkers. Most of these trees would have been here when the bunkers were in use. That's probably why the place was never discovered. Look at the size of this bunker. Are those twigs really doing anything to support that? This was Hitler's own bunker. He spent most of the war in here. This was Herman Göring's bunker. Hello. I like the way it says ATTENTION, NO ENTRANCE next to that really inviting entrance. The voices coming from inside suggest that a not everybody heeds the notice. This looked better in real life. As today's ride is so short, I'm taking an opportunity to service the bike. It should be okay to go to Russia after this. Another lake. Behind me is a swing bridge. When it's open, traffic lights let boats through in one direction at a time. That's why there is a procession of little boats coming through here at the moment. This is Gizycko, where I will be sleeping tonight. The waterfront area int Gizycko. There's some kind of jazz festival going on here. I'm just enjoying the warm evening. It looks like I'm not the only one. Just a pretty picture. The harbour. The Gizycko sunset. Scenery in the Gizycko area. A road through the woods. Eating Jaffa Cakes at a rest area in the woods. There are boards like this in woods all over Poland. Perhaps people tend to forget which telephone number is for which of the emergency services. Police stations and Fire stations also normally have the appropriate telephone number displayed in large figures on the outside. Very flat scenery as I approach Suwalki. A lot of the major towns in this region of Poland are currently having cycle paths installed. Unfortunately, they aren't quite ready yet. I booked all the hotels from here onwards before leaving home but didn't really have a plan for how to get here so reaching Suwalki feels like... The view from the hotel room in Suwalki. The hotel was a bit strange. Its back looked a lot better than its front for a start. The road out of Suwalki, and a petrol station which was to provide tonight's dinner. The road to the Lithuanian border.

Lithuania

For my first couple of hours in Lithuania, every tiny track or driveway turning off the road had a sign like this which seems to imply that there's a laser around here somewhere. Just a view of the scenery. This is the road from Kalvarija to Marijampolé, part of a virtally straight route all the way from the border to Kaunas. This particular section has now been by-passed, which is how I'm able to stand in the middle of it safely. I haven't seen many cows over the past few weeks. I rather like the look of the town of Marijampolé and certainly had no difficulty finding a cash machine. It's very sunny here too. I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to show in this picture though. Come and see Lithuania's amazing one-way road. I never found out why the traffic coming south was so heavy when virtually nothing else was going my way. Some kind of monument by the roadside in Veiveriai. For some reason, the Lithuanian flag seems to me to have an odd combination of colours. A view of Kaunas from across the River Nemunas. I didn't realise I had been gradually gaining height over the day so the rapid descent to this point came as a bit of a surprise. One of Kaunas' funicular railways. And a bike. No wonder that pleasure cruise doesn't seem to have had many takers. The City Gardens. A view along Laisves Avenue towards St. Michael's Church. There was a woman going along this road with a tape measure recording the girth of each tree. It must have taken her a while to do the whole road. My room in Kaunas. This was the cheapest hotel I had on the trip. The great thing was that it doesn't do breakfast so its guests are sent for a fantastic complimentary buffet breakfast at a much better hotel a couple of blocks away. The bathroom. What you can't see here is the wire which is stretched above the edge of the bath at about neck height. It was useful for drying clothes on but a bit dangerous. Perhaps it once supported a shower curtain. Another view of the hotel. The windows give an idea of how plush the hotel may once have been. The front of the hotel. When I first saw it, I wasn't convinced that it was open. I'm not sure why; I think the lobby is just a bit dark. The Statue of Freedom in Kaunas, with an eternal flame in the background. A closer view of the eternal flame, now with some kind of improvised skate park in its background. Another part of Kaunas. For a long time, I was unable to find any bins in Kaunas. Eventually, I found that this was because they are all buried in the ground. Once I discovered that, it was like I was in a whole new world of bins. Another view along Laisves Avenue. St. Michael's church. Another funicular. This one goes up Green Hill. The view along Daukanto street from outside my hotel through the main shopping area towards the Nemunas. Part of Kaunas' old town. It's interesting that the road appears to curve straight into the front of that building. Another part of the old town. There seem to be at least three weddings going on in this square. A busy Saturday morning in the park at the confluence of the Nemunas and the Viliya. Here are those wedding parties again. Here they are again look. There are two brides at the same church now, the Christ's Resurrection Basilica on Green Hill. I think the purpose of getting married in Kaunas is to have your photograph taken in as many different places as possible. The guests now appear to be on the roof. I think you know where this is by now. There aren't many cycle racks in Kaunas. I ended up parking my bike outside a bank. It's just to the left of that pole on the right. This is where I was having breakfast, in the Takioji Neris Hotel. It's a bit more opulent than my bedroom, isn't it? This is the Kaunas Philharmonic. A small roadside carving. There are things like this all over the place but this is one of the smallest and most detailed that I've seen. More scenery. Another wood carving. I don't know what the huge baseball cap is for. The scenery has become much flatter again. The main road suddenly announced that it didn't allow bikes so I'm about to venture onto some gravel back roads. This is part of a motel near Seduva. Just more scenery really. I'm on quite a major road at this point and taking a break sitting on the crash barrier, which isn't very comfortable. A rather dity train near Radviliskis. A slight twitch of the handlears to get out of the way of an approaching car started an uncontrollable ocsillation on the gravel here. The village of Silenai. A view of the St. Peter & Paul Church from the Hotel Saulys in Siauliai. Inside the hotel. Haystacks on the outskirts of Joniskis. The reason why I'm hiding in the trees is that there's also a bull in the field.

Latvia

One of the first things I saw after crossing into Latvia was this bubbly indoor tennis court. Jelgava. I don't know why that would make anyone want to buy a lawnmower. Another part of Jelgava. That's where I'm going. An unusual navigation technique. There's no mistaking when you enter Riga. I would have stopped on the other side of this sign but there were quite a few police there and I wasn't entirely sure that I should have been riding on this road. Now I've got to work out how to cross it. The Vansu Tilts bridge ver the River Daugava. A view from the bridge. A view down the Daugava from the bridge. Riga's old town seen from the bridge. Posing on the bridge. I'm not really asleep. The old town. I see I'm on cobbles again. This road is called Pils Iela. There's a Russian flag flying there on the right, look. Unusual registration on that car too. It's turned into rather a nice evening. This square is known as Doma Laukums. I'm now outside St. Peter's Church. I'm a bit surprised to see that statue of a chicken on top of a cat on top of a dog on top of a donkey here. The same four creatures, normally arranged in the same way, are found all over Bremen in Germany.... The spire of St. Peter's. The view from my balcony down into Marstalu Iela. Riga's evening skyline. The view from my balcony again, this time in the dark. That place with the red and blue lights is listed in my guidebook as one of Riga's trendiest nightspots. Fortunately, there wasn't much noise coming out of it. Peldu Iela. There on the right is one of Riga's silliest-named bars, John Lemon. You might just be able to make out the picture on the window of two lemons wearing Lennon-style shades. I'm afraid I don't know what that's meant to represent. The Latvian Academy of Sciences. Just some railway sidings. No, I'm not lost; I've worked out exactly where I am now. The weather has been pretty bad for the last few hours but it's clearing up now so I can see what's around me. Trees.

Estonia

Valga, an Estonian town joined onto the Latvian town of Valka. The region near the border resembles a wild west town which has recently suffered a major fire, and most of the roads have been dug up. There are cycle racks here however, which I never saw in Latvia. I like the little topiary deer on the left. Unusually, the Hotel Metsis included my room number on my reservation confirmation when I booked it before leaving home. I've therefore known for over a month that I would be in this room tonight so it's quite exciting to finally see it. They seem to have difficulty finishing words in Estonia. Breakfast. Look at the size of that fireplace. I bet it gets cold outside in the winter. I had a good look at this hotel's website at home before coming on this trip so it all feels eerily familiar. Some kind of monument. Helpful comments, these, aren't they? This doesn't help; the road has been removed. Cycle route signs. Latvia didn't have these either. I've just passed through the village of Sangaste which, like pretty much every other village in Estonia, and even some barely populated places, has a public wi-fi hotspot. I'm not sure anywhere else has that. There's somebody with skis on wheels. I'm not sure if this road is open to all traffic or if it's just for cyclists and skiers. It's a pretty good road whatever it is; better than the ones in Latvia! Pühajärv, a sacred lake. Legend has it that the islands in it are the bodies of the charaters from some fabled war and all that sort of stuff. More startling is the story that the entire lake rained down out of the sky in one go. That one is presented... Another view of Pühajärv. The old vicarage in Otepää, where the Estonian flag was first flown. Tartu. The Weeping Cornflower monument in Tartu, with the former KGB cells in the background. Another view of Tartu. The bike locked up for the night in Tartu. The pedestrianized centre of Tartu. The Kissing Students fountain in front of the City Hall in Tartu's main square. Tartu's City Hall. Apparently, it was built on the rubble of the old city walls and then settled unevenly. It's now an art museum. Tartu University. More of Tartu. The Estonians don't really seem to use coins much so instead they have about as many different denominations of paper money as a Monopoly set. The smallest of these is only worth about 10p. No wonder Karl von Baer (1792-1876) looks so miffed. It must have been bad enough that... Having a rest. Today's ride is very hard going because of the wind. Lake Peipsi, seen from Mustvee. Contemplating the rather large country which lies on the other side of the lake. The Russian Orthodox church in Mustvee. More roadworks. These ones go on for about 12 miles. Fortunately, they are almost finished so I've been riding on spanking new Tarmac rather than the sand which goes underneath it. There may be cycle routes marked in Estonia but they don't look very efficient. Tartu is signed as being 88 km away on the proper road sign but 138 km away by the cycle route. I'm glad I came the normal way. It's not like there's any traffic here and... I've had to stop for another rest. This wind isn't easing up at all. A1, Sillamäe 11, Sinimäe 15, Narva 28, St. Petersburg 114. This is the first time I've seen it on a sign. It's possible that I might actually get there. The other good news is that I've now turned a corner and will have quite a tailwind for the rest of... It didn't take long to reach the Narva, thanks to the wind. This is the queue of lorries waiting to get into Russia. It's about five miles long at the moment but has gaps for the bus stops, like here. Luckily, smaller vehicles don't need to wait in the same... Narva in the early morning sunlight. Another view of Narva's rooftops.

The Russian Federation

In Russia, they don't just have bilinual signs; they sometimes have two completely separate signs. The cyrilic one is just behind me. Look where I am! St. Petersburg is built around the delta of the River Neva. My hotel is situated where two of the branches diverge. My bike is there at the bottom left. It's costing me loads to park it there but there are no proper racks, despite the hotel having loads of unused... Fireworks. My hotel room. These are good fireworks. It's not a bad-looking city really, is it? Every night in the summer, all the bridges are raised for a few hours to allow ships to pass through the city to the interior or Russia. The time has come to think about getting my bike home. Armed with this diagram, I'm hoping to be able to buy... well, you can see what I want to buy. The ship is the Cruiser Aurora, St. Petersburg's equivalent of HMS Belfast. It seems to be drawing the crowds on this Saturday morning. The Finland Station with Lenin Square in front of it. This is where Lenin arrived after returning from exile in Finland just before the revolution. I think the station was a different building then though. There's the man himself. The Liteyny Bridge. The Griboedova Canal and the Church on Spilled Blood, seen from Nevsky Prospekt, the city's main shopping street. Kazan Cathedral. Another view from the Liteyny Bridge. The astonishingly ugly building with the Samsung advert on top is my hotel. A view along the Neva. I could stand here for hours watching this view. I could spend ages looking at this view too. The good thing about this view is that you can't see the hotel. Rowers on the Neva. I didn't find a bike bag in the end so I made do with three rolls of clingfilm instead. Buying clingfilm is actually surprisingly hard because it doesn't have a picture of clingfilm on the packet, what with it not really looking like anything. I spent a good ten minutes...