Day 3 – August 18, 2016 – Helsinki

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At 9am our ferry arrived near Helsinki. After leaving the ship we went by bike to the City Center of Helsinki. Here we parked our bike near Helsinki main station. So we were free to discover the city. First we went to the parliament and the national museum, but without entering the exhabitions. Helsinki’s main square is the Senate Square. Here the Cathedral, the Goverment Place and the House of Estates are located. In the middle of the square is a statue of Alexander II. We also saw the Market Square, the port of Helsinki and St. Jonn’s Church. At 18:00pm we went by Linda Line Express ferry to Tallinn. Unfortunatly in Tallinn it started raining. So we rushed to our campingspot for the night near the beach in the northwest of Tallinn. 
Jonas and Lukas

Day 2 – August 17, 2016 – seaday on Finnstar

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We woke up around 11am and enjoyed the branch. The ferry has a restaurant, a shop and a bar. We had a 3 bed cabin with a TV and a bathroom. We stayed 29 hours on the ship. Most of the time we spent in our cabin watching SitComs and Olympia or writing this blog. Thanks to our dad we had 3 meals on the ship. 

Jonas and Lukas

Day 1 – August 16, 2016 – Saxony to Travemünde

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After the breakfast we started our adventure by cycling to the closest train station from our home in saxony. We used 5 different trains with 4 changes to get to our destination. Maybe because of the nice weather there were many cyclist out there in the trains and in some trains there was very little room for our bikes. But in the end we arrived in time in the Hansestadt Lübeck. Here we got support by a friend from my university showing us around in the city centre. We started at the „Holstentor“, one of the two remaining gates of Lübeck, built in the 15 th century. The old town of Lübeck is UNESCO world cultural heritage. Exspacaly because of the 7 church towers. We went up on the Jakobi church plattform to look over the city und the region. In the evening we biked to Travemünde, a small town direcly at the Baltic Sea. At 10pm we checked in the the ferry to Helsinki. We were the only pessangers with bicycles on the Finnstar, a ship of the Finnlines company. Around 1am we’re going to bed in our cabins and by 2am we were finally lying down after setting our watches on Helsiki time.

Jonas and Lukas

Only a few days left…

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Thuesday the tour finally starts. I’m so excited! First we ride by train to Lübeck and in the night we continue our trip on the ferry to Helsinki.

What you can expect on our website?

I bought a Prepaid Tarif with Internet for the whole of Europe. So I hope I can upload some of the best pictures every day and write a short summary on this blog. I think the biggest challenges in doing this are time and my motivation. But I don’t know how long my battery will last on the trip.

Tomorrow I will pack my bike and on Monday I have bought the last things for the trip. Hopefully I make another article about the things I take with me.

I hope to produce a video or some videos from the trip about the nature and our experience. Let’s see what happens!

Jonas

 

 

A lifelogging camera – The Narrative Clip 2

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I bought the Narrative Clip 2, a life logging or wearable camera last month. It can take a photo every 30 seconds and is also able to capture videos. I brought it not especially for the tour, but on a bike I think its the perfect camera. I want to capture the special moments on our tour from my perspective. So its able to take pictures hands-free and easily.

The company

The Narrative Clip manufactures by Memoto, a Swedish startup founded in 2012. I bought the second version of its „most wearable camera“. The company have a massive delay between ordering the clip and delivering it, hopefully because so many people want this camera. Perhaps the delivery time of the clip 2 is now better, check out http://getnarrative.com/orderlookup for that info.

Specifications

The clip is very small in his demission, very light and also fits perfect in every pocket. It is designed to pin it at our shirt with a mount. The camera can capture with 8 MP and 1080p videos. The clip has WLAN for uploading the captured pictures directly to the narrative cloud and bluetooth to control the clip with our phone. So you can change the interval auf photo taking or the double or tripple tap gesture.

Opinion

Until now the experience with the clip is fascinating. The pictures are realy different and maybe the best thing is, that people don’t make a photo face or a special pose on the photos. Is is just like it happed. It took a while to understand all options, the app and the webapp, but now its easier to find the best photos. The clip has less configuration options and setting, this make the clip easy to use but sometimes it is a bit frustrating.

Jonas

Booking the ferry

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In April we booked the ferry from Travemünde to Helsinki. The start date of our trip is now fixed. We start August 17, 2016. First we ride by train to Travemünde and enter the ferry at 3 o’clock in the morning. After 30 hours on the ship we arrive in Helsinki. This is the plan for the first days.

The booking process on finnlines.com was a bit scary, because the system looks very old. But in the end we have a ticket for two person, two bikes, dinner, breakfast and a cabin for 550€. Not cheap but necessary for our trip.

We also looked for other options like riding by bus. But in the end we thought the ferry is the best option to transport the bikes.

The tour in detail

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The facts of the tour:

  • kilometers: 1800 km
  • planned time: 30 days
  • planned kilometers pro day: 100 km/d
  • cities on the tour: Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warszawa, Łódź, Kalisz, Bolesławiec, Bautzen, Dresden

To find the best way for cyclists we use the navigation service „komoot“. The services is available as App for iPhone, Android and in the web komoot.de. You can see our tour here.

We want to stay over night in tent and in cities we go to hostels. More information coming soon. Stay tuned!