Way Home through Germany

An epilogue

From Travemünde to Lübeck it is less than 20 kilometers. I take a day off, have the first beer for more than a month and have a look at the historical center. * The next day I pass by Hamburg (Friedrichsruhe) and spend the night in the youth hostel of Undeloh. I cross the Lüneburger Heide where I have to push my bike for the first time this trip as the roads are too sandy for cycling. From here I have to suffer of straight head winds until the end.

But now I can see my destination not too far away: Bonn. On the way I visit my aunt at Arnsberg and my parents in Wuppertal.

Skandinavia - looking back

After 4600 km through Sweden, Norway and Finnland I recall the most impressive journey of my life. I had many lovely days, very few but hard rainy days and great wild camping sites at wonderful swedish lakes. Norway, the most expensive country on my way, did impress me most. There is scenery and colors and a vaste country side and going by Hurtigruten through the fjords is something very special. The North Cape itself is just a name although even the last miles are very beautiful.
Finnland could not keep pace with that, even more, I was rather disappointed. There is always a space of woods between the road and the lakes, so that you don't see much of them. To me Finnland was the country of the «1000 invisible lakes». On the other side Finnland has the best camping sites I have ever seen. There are hot showers, camp fires and a lot of every day equipement. Helsinki is not that interesting either.
The sensuous peak of the journey was the arrival in Mo I Rana. Once before and never again I have been so happy when getting to a day's destination. And even the spectacular arrival at the North Cape was not that tremendous.
I adapted my food to the small budget, milk, müsli, raisins, apples and bananas, some mushrooms, bread, cheese and sausages. However, all this is of much better quality than on the british isles. So I didn't starve.
It was a very long trip with a lot of new experiences. The diary concludes this tour with the following sentence:

«5863 km - sometimes I think, that was really enough!»