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We have made it back after 3600 miles / 5800 km – phew. Anyway….back to our last update.

The day in Berlin was an epic in the end. We saw all the sights, East Side gallery paintings on the wall, Bauhaus museum, Schloss Charlottenburg (huge palace with free gardens), Reichstag and the Brandenburg gate. After dashing to the train station for our last connection we missed it by 20 secs.

This is just a quick update as the internet access in Odense tourist info is free, but you have to stand !!

My planning was a little out and we have gone full circle and reached Denmark again a week too early. As a result we are relaxing on the island of Fyn in Odense for a few days. I have just had my first Danish open sandwich – very tasty but small.

We spent a wet day in Malbork. The Polish can teach us a thing or two about queuing !! We queued for 30 mins in the rain for tickets to Malbork castle, only to get to the audio guide point to find we had the wrong tickets and we could not change them – grrr.

We had a hot day in Vilnius looking at yet more churches, towers and eating out. We at a brewery and had beer with beer snacks (cold smoked pigs ear strips, 4 types of cheese and deep fried bread) followed by mushroom soup served in a loaf of bread and traditional cold beetroot soup served with roast potatoes. It was nice but a little off putting as it looked like raspberry milkshake.

Our last day in Sigulda we spent walikng aroung the town, across the huge river valley and cable car back. Ian spent 3 hours being Tarzan in an adventure park full of blokes in climbing harnesses swinging on ropes, wooden bridges going through tunnels etc. The last bit he was ‘Super Tarzan’ and took a series of zip wires down the side of the valley.

Tallinn wore us out with its huge array of history and souvenir shops at every corner. The next day we headed West and met up with an English family doing a year long meandering car trip to Australia. Its always fun to say ‘morning’ to people you hear speaking English as there are not many of us out here. We have seen yet more manor houses and castles.

We spent 6 days in the end in Vuolenkoski looked after very well by David and Kirsti. David makes a great tour guide and we saw loads of towers, more trees and lakes and churches. We also did a boat trip to Heinola that was very relaxing. Also our knowledge of the Finnish language improved dramatically – not that it took much.

We spent a day and a half in Stockholm in the end and had our first meal out of this trip. We decided we ought to try something different so we had 4 types of pickled herring and gravlax as starters and reindeer strips in a rich mushroom sauce and deer rack of ribs as mains. We shared all the dishes.

Its been very eventful so far but we have arranged for the new wheel to be delivered to Finland so we just have to make it there. We spent the afternoon in Gothenburg and visited the Röhsska Design museum which was full of lovely Skandinavian stuff. It took us a while to escape Gothenburg. Denmark was great for cycle paths, every effort is made to keep you seperate from the cars.

We had a slow start in the UK due to our pedals initially being out of sync, but we got of to a good start. The UK was fairly dull but we did find some interesting leafy bits inside the M25 north of London. Essex was not exciting – especially in the rain, but the houses did feature some interesting plaster techniques – a bit like Artex on the walls !