Day 50 – Tour de Finlande 2010: Vantaa – Porvoo

Big changes in just a few days. First of all it seems the hot weather has gone for good. I just took back the long johns that I used in Lapland, as the temperature went down to 14-15 degrees the last week. One month ago it was 35, so the different is not that small.

So, the last time I blogged something I was in Turku. From there I quickly went by train back to Helsinki as time was running out. Basically I had to be in Espoo for the Espoo Ciné film festival, which ended the day before yesterday. During this time I didn't drop cycling, as living in Helsinki I did my 20-25 km per day going back and forth between the capital and Espoo.

Furthermore I had to attend a party in Kerava, and when going there by bike (approx. 25 km from Helsinki city centre) I experienced for the first time what means to cycle in a big town: you get lost many times. Of course I had maps in my phone, but when you get in the woods somewhere with no street signs, I can tell you it's always hard to make a choice at a crossroad: and most of the times it's the wrong one.

That is also what happened this morning when I left Vantaa towards Porvoo. The metropolitan area of the Finnish capital is very well equipped with motorways, and also with cycling roads for the local traffic. I mean local, that is, it's good if you have to go from one block to another, it's deadly if you want to get out of the metropolis, as they are not designed for that! To make a long story short: it's easy to get trapped in a huge network of roads by bicycle, and in Finland this fortunately happens only in the Helsinki metropolitan area. I was so relieved when, after 25 km, I found the first street sign with Porvoo written on it. Didn't care about the road number, and whether there was a shorter way to do it, just happy I got the right one after all.

I got to Porvoo at 4 in the afternoon, just to find out that the museums here are surprisingly closed every Monday *and* Tuesday. Well, I managed anyway to visit the cathedral, and cycle around the old town with its wooden houses, which is one of the most picturesque in Finland.

You can feel that autumn is close not only from the temperatures but also from the light. I bought some food and left the town at around half eight, and I had to hurry in finding a proper forest where to sleep. At nine it already started to be so dark, that I had to use the torch to check that I put everything in the tent.

Funnily enough, today I was thinking for some reasons about bears, and I just heard from the news they saw a bear with a couple of cubs just 22 km from here. Well, let's think positive: it's a big distance, especially when you've got children 🙂

PS: Yes, the air mattress still has a hole, completely forgot it!!!

Day 50 – Tour de Finlande 2010: Vantaa – Porvoo

Trip distance: 85 km
Actual trip time: 4 h 50 m
Distance from day 1: 4086 km

 

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