Baltics/ Poland/ Sloavakia/Czech ride report

[Trevtassie]

OK, due to the fact that even the Greeks thought it was really hot, we recently modified our tour of Athens to Venice to a Helsinki to Prague Tour. Here's my summation of each country, which we kind of hurtled through, so not really deep impressions.

Estonia: Eurovelo 10. Pine trees, you like pine trees?, very good... Roads good, drivers great towards cyclists and each other. Uses euros so food and stuff reasonably exe, beer cheapish. Flat as a tack, coast pretty boring. Plenty of free forest campsites, even supplied with firewood, but generally no water supply. Like a cheaper version of Finland
Latvia: Eurovelo 10. then free range towards Poland. Hmmm less pine trees, bit more other trees, still a fair few trees. Roads good, but drivers mad buggers when there is an Ed Sheeran concert on on Friday night and half the country is trying to get there and the other half is trying to get away. Treated us great, but goddamn there were some near misses between cars trucks and motorbikes. Have some kind of weird road system in place on some highways with not quite 4 lanes. Wide verge that is used by slower vehicles while faster ones squeeze past. System relies on everybody paying lots of attention. Bit scary when you are in that wide verge. Riga is nice, like a bargain basement Prague. Euro, but cheaper again than Estonia. Only main roads sealed mostly, so lots of traffic on them, heaps of trucks. Flat and a little boring. Some campsites
Lithuania: Heading south to squeeze between Belarus and Kalinngrad, both which require many hoops to get visas. Flat farmland until close to Poland. Euro, but even cheaper again. Roads more sealed than Latvia. cars and trucks good. Some campsites. castles here and there.
Poland. Nice rolling hills. lots of cheap or free campsites or agrotourist homestays. Very cheap, uses the Zlolty. Drivers nice. Castles galore. Nice mountains in the south, but avoid Zakopane- massive tourist trap. Trains super cheap and very bike friendly with either special bike carriages or racks in carriages for bikes. Definitely worth a return visit.
Slovakia: Hills, nice enough, lots of back roads. Euro so a bit exe. Some castles, didn't stay long, popped back into Poland
Czech: Bike heaven in terms of bike paths, routes and info. Online resources available and plenty of signs showing all sorts of bike routes. Enough hills to keep things interesting, but also flat routes along rivers. an abundance of castles and historic stuff everywhere. Not so many campgrounds no free forest ones, some of dubious quality, noisy and dirty. Plenty of other accommodation in Penzions, hotels etc so more easily done that way, unless you are good at approaching farmers. Uses Czech Crowns, but still exe compared to Poland and on a par with Lithuania and Latvia.For some reason the Czechs believe they have the cheapestbeer in Europe, obviously they don't get to Poland much. Drivers great, except for one douchebag who did a high speed punishment pass on an empty country road. Great place to tour except for the accommodation situation costing a bit, unless you arranged your riding around campgrounds which were normally around $10 for two, except in busy places where it might jump to $20 for two. Need earplugs for the noisy jerks you may find in campgrounds. Actually need earplugs everywhere in summer, the buildings aren't designed for hot conditions, can get rowdy in cities with the windows open.

Overall, wouldn't mind riding in Poland and Czech again, but a bit slower and checking out more historical stuff.

[rowdyflat]

Agree Poland is a very nice place to ride = flat, pretty, lots of interesting towns ,castles , cheap , nice people and roads dont seem crowded.