Day 1 and 2
Day 1
Slept in a bit (surprise, hehe). But schedule was made with sufficient threshold so I've made it to the ferry ahead of time. Also, was stopped halfway by police to participate in their 'breathalyzer action'.This was my first trip on such a big ferry, so yes this thing it is a bit impressive :)
Adding 'lunch' option to the ticket was a good idea (yeah, I was motivated by some ongoing promotion on the website, but still). Really good lunch... But amount of food some people can consume is quite insane. It's no surprise that in Finland and even in Estonia overweight is an issue.
'Fun' fact I learned: with such large ferries you need to add at least 30 minutes to the scheduled arrival time, to get the 'off the boat' time.
After disembarking, Finnish police / border guard stopped the car with Poland license plates (maybe their beards looked a bit suspicious, I don't know). I decided not to bother with GPS - like, "I can find E75 just by looking at road signs". Oh, naive me. Road signs use mostly 'internal' numbering, by which "E75" is a "4", which I didn't know. E75 appears on the signs later, when you're more-or less out of town 😀 But, using the GPS and after a few wrong turns, I got on the right road. At times E75 is 2+2 with 120 KM/h limit, but that luxury ends real quick.
Overall, road is good and the more you're to the north, the less traffic you see. Mostly it's 100 km/h speed limit, which is also cool. Overtaking lines appear quite often. Closer to Oulu, there are lots of speed cameras, but scenery also gets better. Also there's a radio station with music like soundtracks to Aki Kaurismäki movies, which 'delivers'. So I got to the Kemi without adventures, but it was quite a long day (started driving like 8.00 in the morning, and ended close to midnight).
Daily mileage: 917 km
Day 2 - Kemi-Tromsø
It was Sunday, Lidl shop was on the way. It was closed, first thought was that "it's closed on Sundays altogether" (not uncommon in Europe), but seeing couple of cars and bikes on the lot, gave me idea to look a bit closer. And there it was, opening from 11.00. So let's wait. But after visiting it, I also found a big 'Prisma' mall just around the corner, but that's details, right? 😀First time in life bought the E10-marked petrol (double-checking the manual that it's compatible). The closer to North you are, the more cracks on the road you see, but still, road is good,
there are no 'bye-bye my wheels' potholes. Just before Finland-Norway border I met couple of absolutely indifferent deers, ON the road itself. They can't be bothered by such insignificant things like passing vehicles 😀
On the Norway side, road to Tromsø is really scenic (by my standards), especially considering the good weather. Even because of that road, drive was worth it. Two consecutive roundabouts in the tunnel in Tromsø also impressed me, especially considering that GPS got me only through the first one.😊
Daily mileage: 662 km
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