Radtour Eiserner Vorhang, Teil 1: Klaipeda-Grense Jakobselv

Text message, May, 15, at 9.32: Good morning from Pikseke Camping at the fringe of Haapsalu. It's run by a Finn and attracts many Finns, so I've trained my Finnish skills this morning. It went okay, and during the three weeks I'm going to spend in Finland, they will surely improve. I arrived here early in the evening and had time to do some shopping and have a pizza in the town centre. I want to have a closer look at it today, as the stage today is quite short. And buy that sleeping bag for Arctic usage. Tonight it wasn't so cold. A few drops of rain this morning. Now it's just overcast and dry and only a little wind. Yesterday I had smoked fish for lunch. Two girls sold them from a stall at the roadside. I had them in Lihula (the fish, not the girls ;-), a very worn down and derelict little town. It's a bit disturbing they haven't made more progress here in 25 years since independence came. But Haapsalu looks agreeable enough. Many wooden houses. All right, many could do with a coat of paint. But the town's charm seemed intact yesterday evening. My goal today is a nature camp site in the little village of Vihterpalu. An then on to Tallinn tomorrow. Good Monday to everybody. Helmuth. PS Strange, but the Finns call Estonia, which is called Eesti in Estonian, Viro. So closely the languages can't be related. But yesterday I made good use of the relationship. A road sign said 'vana sild'. It wasn't hard to guess that it meant 'vanha silta' in Finnish, which means 'old bridge'. It turned out an interesting and beautiful visit.