Maybe time for another straight account of how it went. No photos.
When we got to Simpele, we found that the accommodation mentioned in the route guide was actually another 10km on and our informant, a girl in a news kiosk, either was not sure how to explain where it is or simply was not sure herself. But she had a local map with ads and one was for accommodation in the town, with an address. We went there. Shut. But a phone number on the door and we phoned that. They could offer us use of an appartment and gave details over the phone of how to get the key. We followed these and very comfortable it was. Paid the next day. Then on to Imatra.
The route to Imatra goes down what is named in the guide as museum street. It is an old road, dating from the time of the Swedish/Russian border and we naively assumed there would be museums about this bit of history. It was only quite a distance down this road that we realised the road itself was the museum. Quite convenient for road bnuilders really; it had some quite exceptionally steep gradients that elsewhere would have been eased by a bit of cutting and banking - but this would have altered it and you can't do that to a road that is a museum. A bit like a tree preservation order; this is a road preservatkion order! Anyway, we never found a real museum, about the border, at the end of museum street, and eventually got to Imatra where we rewarded ourselves with a restaurant meal.
The last "official" section of the Finland bit of the route is from Imatra, but it is long one and recommended to do it in two days. We did this, and also varied it to take in a canal that runs from Lake Saimaa to the sea. We left Imatra and pretty soon found we were on the wrong road, though we could rectify this and did. But directions from the route guide were not easy to follow and we made more mistakes. We ended going past a very modern looking gas pumping station near the border, then along the border, and then dithered a bit until we got back on track and arrived in Nuijamaa, on the correct route and where the canal leaves Finnish territory and enters Russia. There was supposed to be various services in Nuijamaa, a shop and cafe in particular, but we never found these either; but we found the church (locked) with the most wonderfully peaceful churchyard that made it all seem OK again.
Then to the road starting alongside the canal, which also took a bit of finding, and on. It was actually marked as a national cycle trail, which was something of a treat. As I have said this was a variation from the described route for us, but seemed an attractive option. It was and will be in the next post in this blog.
Tom
When we got to Simpele, we found that the accommodation mentioned in the route guide was actually another 10km on and our informant, a girl in a news kiosk, either was not sure how to explain where it is or simply was not sure herself. But she had a local map with ads and one was for accommodation in the town, with an address. We went there. Shut. But a phone number on the door and we phoned that. They could offer us use of an appartment and gave details over the phone of how to get the key. We followed these and very comfortable it was. Paid the next day. Then on to Imatra.
The route to Imatra goes down what is named in the guide as museum street. It is an old road, dating from the time of the Swedish/Russian border and we naively assumed there would be museums about this bit of history. It was only quite a distance down this road that we realised the road itself was the museum. Quite convenient for road bnuilders really; it had some quite exceptionally steep gradients that elsewhere would have been eased by a bit of cutting and banking - but this would have altered it and you can't do that to a road that is a museum. A bit like a tree preservation order; this is a road preservatkion order! Anyway, we never found a real museum, about the border, at the end of museum street, and eventually got to Imatra where we rewarded ourselves with a restaurant meal.
The last "official" section of the Finland bit of the route is from Imatra, but it is long one and recommended to do it in two days. We did this, and also varied it to take in a canal that runs from Lake Saimaa to the sea. We left Imatra and pretty soon found we were on the wrong road, though we could rectify this and did. But directions from the route guide were not easy to follow and we made more mistakes. We ended going past a very modern looking gas pumping station near the border, then along the border, and then dithered a bit until we got back on track and arrived in Nuijamaa, on the correct route and where the canal leaves Finnish territory and enters Russia. There was supposed to be various services in Nuijamaa, a shop and cafe in particular, but we never found these either; but we found the church (locked) with the most wonderfully peaceful churchyard that made it all seem OK again.
Then to the road starting alongside the canal, which also took a bit of finding, and on. It was actually marked as a national cycle trail, which was something of a treat. As I have said this was a variation from the described route for us, but seemed an attractive option. It was and will be in the next post in this blog.
Tom
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