As-salâmu 'alaikum: 16 Juli 2008

Järvenpää - Asikkala ~120 km

In the morning: wind and clouds - I really didn't want to get up... However, I startet my tour for this day at 10, not so bad...

I decided not to use the big roads, but only the small ones, some of them were unsurfaced (=unasphaltiert). And very soon I had to remember, what I read in the Finland guide: "Going by bike: Finland is not flat like a plate." Up and down, up and down, speed was changing from 10 km/h to 45 km/h and viceversa with a frequency of 1/120 Hz. (You can see, I'm NEVER bored on my bike, I just find always something to think about and calculate...)

On the airport I met a men, who asked me about my plans. He answered me, that he often goes by bike here around, and with my 21-gear-bike, he told me, I would have to get off my bike for pushing it. Getting off my bike? For pushing it??? Never! Just for the strawberries, growing right next to the street! And how much of them... So I got off my bike... every 10 Minutes, I guess... Even though they are growing besides the street they would have seen less cars then if they were growing in my Grandmas garden.

Because of all these strawberries time passed, street not... So in the afternoon I had to hurry up. And I did. I had to! The man of the camping yesterday evening told me, that I would NEVER reach Asikkala, because it is just too far away... He'll see... It was quite hard, I admit, but I did it. I arrived there at 18.30.

But now the more intresting question: where to stay tonight? No camping around here, so I had to look for some B&B, Hotel, something like that. At the Info there was mentioned only one Hotel. A Spa-Hotel. Fear... how expensive will it be? 75 Euro per night... Ok, is there any other possibility? Yes, there is a B&B, very new (therefore it was not on the map), so I can go there. Yes, but also B&B is 50 Euro per night... Exhausted as I was, I just couldn't go on, so I had to stay there.

On the map Asikkala seemed to be a city. But in reality it's just a little village, there was absolutley nothing but a channel between two lakes. So in the evening I went to the northern lake to see the sunset. Beautiful! Just... Sunset is at 22.45... The reason (Vernunft) says: "Go to bed, you have to get up tomorrow early", the aesthetics say: "Stay here, it's soooo beautiful". So I stayed... Well done.