The ride
How long: 10 days
From: North Cape (Norway)
Destination: Lugano (Switzerland)
Km: 4’173km
Countries: 8
European capitals: 7
Breathtaking Points Of Interest: Uncountable
Intro
When you decide to leave alone for a journey of over 10’000km with destination the northernmost point of Europe, it means taking into account unexpected events, unfavorable weather, even very long stages, wake up at 3 am, tiredness and pain. But do we really care? No! For me it was just the unforgettable and memorable part that I expected to experience that prompted me to plan, leave and keep the schedule that I had prepared from the very first moment when, in February, I looked at the map of Europe and I said to myself “I want to go up there”.
Many have gone there and, after having this experience, I hope that many others will leave for this adventure – so I said to myself “how can I make it unforgettable?”
I have a page on Instagram @baggerslife with almost 10,000 followers – of which the vast majority have never met in person – I started involving them, asking for advice and inviting them to contact me for a ride or even just for a beer together when I was passing through the their city. Even I could not believe how many came forward and, believe me, the journey has turned into something magical.
After 10,513km, 13 countries, 9 capitals, an enormous number of cities and villages and an infinity of breathtaking views, lots of water and many many followers I met on the street, I returned to Lugano. Where it all started 21 days earlier.
My diary
If you arrived in the North Cape, you visited, you took your usual photos and, shortly after, you think “I’m only halfway through the journey! Now it is better that I leave for the next 5,000km all the way home “. You already knew it, but having reached the northernmost point of Europe and having to leave is not easy. Dejected, you put on your rain suit and leave.
You do not yet know that the road you will take will be one of the most beautiful in your life. The last Norwegian fjords at 4am with the rising sun, the first beautiful herds of reindeer with their huge velvet antlers by the roadside. Then you’ll see thousands, but you don’t know yet.
You enter Finland, Lapland. Lakes as far as the eye can see, pine forests, roads that seem to have been made with an artist’s brush. When they asked me what is the most beautiful place I have seen in these 21 days, I always answered Finnish Lapland. And in the meantime, you are heading back south, the 3 degrees of Lofoten are just a memory, here there are already 20-25 and that evening you start packing your ski clothing in your bag.
We all dreamed as children of going to Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, right? At 39, that dream came true with a nice selfie on his throne!
Finland is long, but you know you have to get to Helsinki because the Capital Chapter is waiting for you for dinner and the next morning you have the ferry together to go to Tallinn where all the Baltic Chapters will celebrate their 10th birthday. 5 chapter – 150 motorcycles – who speak very strange languages, but you feel at home among friends that you seem to have known for a lifetime. Those from Helsinki have now adopted me and I compete for them in the mechanical bull, 26 seconds before falling, we finish second. You are so happy!
Still dazed from the night before, at 7 in the morning you have the alarm. You are going to the other 2 Baltic capitals, Riga and Vilnius. Between one and the other I found a mystical place, a place of local worship, the Hill of Crosses. It is estimated that there are more than 400,000 of them. You have goosebumps.
Shortly thereafter, after a stop in the lovely Kaunas, you arrive in Warsaw. It was not the first time for me, 15 years ago it was a beautiful city, but poor. Now it has become a rich and fantastic western city with glass skyscrapers and ancient buildings. A gem of Eastern Europe, perhaps the most beautiful city I visited on my tour.
Southern Poland gives you Krakow. Shortly after you enter the Czech Republic and a short stop at the Brno Circuit is a must. You stop to see the cars and motorbikes pass at the bend, it’s very hot, you leave for Prague. Beautiful, but my option was to sleep in Plzen. Not just any place, but the city of the most famous brewery in the world. You already know how the evening will end, but you don’t expect to sit at the bar, to meet and drink with lots of people just because you don’t “look like the place”.
There are 2 days left until your arrival, you are happy and sad at the same time. I sleep in Munich, shortly because the next day you will have the last 5-600km to home. There is little left and you hope that everything will go well like the previous 10,000km.
You’re on your way, your friends are coming towards you for the last 50km. It doesn’t seem real to you.
10,513km, 13 countries, 9 capitals. You are exhausted, but you have to wash the bike, piece by piece after having taken it all apart, because you have never seen it in that state.
Now the bike shines, you are tired, you have to go back to work, but what you lived in those 3 weeks will remain with you for your entire life. You will have thousands of photos on your phone, you will show them to anyone you know while you tell the story you know by heart, but what you have left will be much more than that, it will be the memory that you have done it all by yourself and you would already like to do it again!
You arrived. It’s all pretty damn great.
Alby
Gallery
