A marathon journey- but a hugely worthwhile one!
If you think it's a long way from our home here in the south of Scotland, to Finland, via car- you'd be right! This will be our third time completing the journey by car, and again, we have altered the route slightly from the previous journeys.
In 2006, we drove across Sweden, having sailed to Gothenburg from Newcastle. Then, we sailed from Stockholm to Helsinki aboard the fantastic Silja Line ferries that cross daily between the two countries.
In 2008 we flew into Helsinki and hired a car.
Then in 2010, we again drove from Scotland, this time sailing from Newcastle to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and driving from there to Lubeck in northern Germany. From there, we caught a FinnLines ferry right up the Baltic Sea to Helsinki and this was a really fantastic sailing, as we relaxed for two nights and enjoyed endless saunas and jacuzzis on board, while sunbathing on deck! The only downside was that it was rather expensive!! We then returned by sailing from Helsinki to Stockholm in Sweden again by using the Silja Line service, then we drove right through Sweden and Denmark, on through Germany and back to Amsterdam to the DFDS terminal ready to sail back to Newcastle! A marathon journey indeed, and one which took us five days to complete!
This year, the lure of driving again is strong- it's the best way to get to Finland in our opinion as the adventure starts the moment you leave home and head to the first ferry. So, our route in 2011 will again take us from our home in south east Scotland to Newcastle, around 90 miles away, to the DFDS ferry terminal, where we will sail again to Ijmuiden, close to Amsterdam. This overnight service is reasonable, but the cabins have always been very small, so this year, we have booked a larger "Commodore" style cabin, which should ensure a more comfortable sleep for me, the driver! It's only slightly more expensive, but appears to be much more roomy and is higher up, away from the engines!
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Once we drive off the ferry in Ijmuiden we then have all day to drive across the Netherlands in a north easterly direction, heading for the German border, where we then continue on towards and past Bremen, then Hamburg and up towards the north coast, where we arrive at our departure point of Travemunde, close to Lubeck. This journey of around 350 miles is the longest of the whole trip, but it's surprisingly easy to drive, as it's all on motorways, and the German part allows you to travel very quickly (if you need to!) on the Autobahns. To be honest, we don't need to, so we'll drive at a comfortable speed, and stop off at various points for rests and refreshments.
Last year, we arrived in Travemunde at 1645hrs, ready for an early dinner. This year, we plan to arrive quite a bit later, perhaps between 1800hrs and 1900hrs, and have dinner in the town at a local restaurant. Our ferry doesn't sail until 0300hrs, but you can board from around 2200hrs, so we'll have loads of time!
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So, once we arrive in Travemunde, and get on the Finnlines boat, we'll head off to bed and wake well en route the next morning, as we sail right up the Baltic Sea!
Last year, it was glorious weather, so we spent the day on the deck, sunbathing and taking saunas. We hope to do the same again this time round! We'll stay on board for two nights, waking very early on the second morning for a quick breakfast before disembarking at Helsinki, ready for the journey north-east to our final destination, close to Juva.
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The journey from Helsinki to our cottage is around 290kms, and should take around 4 hours, complete with stops for refreshments.
Once we get to our cottage, we will definitely be ready to unpack and relax, and light the wood-burning sauna, ready to unwind totally, before jumping into the lake and cooling off. Finland's National Vegetable, sausages, will be ready to barbeque!
At the start of this post, I said it is a long way from the south of Scotland to our destination in Finland. True, but most of it is sea. So, the total driving distance is much less than you might imagine:
It's 90 miles from our house to Newcastle port.
It's around 350 miles from Ijmuiden to Travemunde in Germany.
It's around 179 miles to our cottage in Finland from Helsinki port.
That's a total of 619 miles, to get us almost to the Russian border! Put it another way, if we were to drive south from our house towards France, we'd get as far as mid Normandy in France, about an hour north of Paris, before we'd have travelled the same distance! That's food for thought!
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