Holland-Denmark-Sweden-Finland

[ranathari]

I'm starting to sort out my plans for the summer now uni's drawing to an end (until it all starts again in September) and I'm thinking of doing a Euro tour.

My girlfriend's family live in Finland, around 100km away from Helsinki, and they've invited me to stay with them. I'm thinking of using this as the basis for my tour by doing Harwich-Den Haag, then riding through Holland to Denmark, across the bridge into Sweden, then up to Stockholm and onto the ferry to Helsinki. It's about 1300 miles, which is probably doable over 5 days if I take a tent on the back and end each day at a campsite or a B&B.

Does anyone have any advice to offer about these countries, any possible routes or general advice? It'll be my first multi-day tour so I'd rather stick to the back roads and get the most out of the countryside instead of sitting upright on the motorways.

Rough route is something like this, although I need to decide on which roads would be the most fun rather than just doing it point-to-point:

http://www.ranathari.eclipse.co.uk/route.png

[Tim in Belgium]

There are very few fun roads in Holland, so I would aim to get through it as quickly as possible, hopefully finding some fun elsewhere. Have a great trip, looks like it could be quite an adventure.....

[orose]

Might be worth looking at the Harwich - Denmark ferry as an alternative to bypass Holland then. Only problem is that its a 17 hour crossing or something stupid like that.

[ranathari]

Thanks for the suggestions.

It looks like Harwich-Denmark is completely out of consideration: there's only one ferry on that route and they won't let you book without a cabin, making it about £400 for a round trip!

If Holland's that boring to ride through then I'll just hop on the motorway and get to Germany and then into Denmark as fast as I can. That way I can slow down and enjoy some roads, maybe some of the ones on the Marguerite Route or similar. Going to have to put aside some time to find great roads on Google Earth.