Nah, I'm sure you'll be fine if you've driven in those places.

Tverskoi is just another part of the big, dirty city; it is (barely) within walking distance of the center, but not nearly as close, or as nice, as Kitai Gorod, which as I mentioned is old Moscow and very cool. I think there are lots of small inexpensive hotels there as well, although I can't say I've stayed in any of them (I have an apartment in Moscow).

You can easily drive from St Pete to Moscow in one day on the main highway, but it will suck for the reasons described above. I would use your GPS to chart some routes along smaller roads to Tver, Valday, or wherever, spend the night there, then into Moscow the next day. I would try to avoid entering Moscow at rush hour.

Anyway, sounds like you've got this travel stuff figured out, just wanted to make sure you don't psyche yourself out for traveling in Russia.

I just checked on Google maps Teverskoi District and LOL it goes out a fair way. I was initially looking at places somewhere no further than Tsvetnoy Boulevard and preferably closer to say Kuznetsky Most.

I'm a bit of an urban explorer - so walking around isn't really an issue as long as it isn't thru boring drab places. When I was in Helsinki in 2015, I was staying in Ruoholahti and was happy walking the 20-30 mins into the centre and taking different routes every day\time.

But point taken - closer I am to the centre the better.


I'll have a look on Google maps for less hectic routes between St Pete's and Moscow.

There's always that mix of apprehension of the unknown and excitement, etc. but I think it will be like the 1st time I rode out on my Street Triple on my own, after a short period of time - it was like "normal". LOL

Thanks

Kuznetski Most is also very central, and very nice, although I'm not sure how many hotels are there...there's the Savoy, the Peter the Great (or something like that), probably others that I don't know.

Anyway, sounds like you've got the right attitude and experience, I'm sure you'll have a good trip. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

I've kind of less loosely worked out the outward run.

The image below should hopefully show a fairly good representation of the outward run.



Calais* - Antwerp - Arnhem - Bremen\Hamburg - Szczecin (or Swinoujscie) - Gdanansk* - Kaliningrad* - Kaunas* - Riga* - Tartu* - Narva - St Petersburg* - Valday - Moscow*.

The one's with * are more fixed in my mind, the other's have some flexibility and generally open to route advice.

The return run is almost a vague notion. LOL

I have 2 notional plans for the return leg -

1. Moscow to Latvia, i.e. going around Belarus over the north.



The 2nd is - I only looked it up today and looks maybe, well different if nothing else - is go south from Moscow to Kiev, i.e. go round Belarus the southern way.



With option 1 - I'd skirt a route back fairly close to the route out. Whereas with option 2 - a whole new country (Ukraine) and the possibility of other, like the Czech Republic. I'd have approx 10 days to leave Moscow and hit Calais.

Any thoughts\advice greatly appreciated.

Personally I would definitely take the second route back, the first one is practically a repeat of the way out.

On the trip out, it is a shame to miss Tallin, it is a pretty cool city.

I don't know if they've fixed it already, but a couple of years ago the Latvian section of the Moscow-Riga highway was, well, non-existent. On the Russian side it's actually a decent road, across the border it's terrible broken asphalt and two lanes through villages.

That's probably a better option. You get to see Kiev and Lviv, the better Polish cities in the south, Prague, etc. Plus if you schedule it in advance, you can do a tour of Chernobyl.

I was there for almost a week back in June 2015 - fantastic time, wonderful city and so easy to get round on foot.

Choice A - would be Tartu-Narva, stay the night in Narva and leave in the morning, cross and hopefully get to St Petersburg for around 12-1pm. Giving a feeling that the day isn't spent in transit and actually in a destination, if that makes any sense. But then again sometimes it's the journey that matters.

Choice B - Tartu-Tallin. Stay on the east side between the Old Town and Kadriorg, out on Narva maantee and out on the E20 some miles out of town. Leave Tallin say around 8am and (hope to) be in Narva for around 11am. Cross over and hopefully be in St Petersburg for 3pm. But with this option it's straight through Narva more or less.

Anyone any thoughts? Open to suggestions. I suppose it's the choice of a night in Tallinn and the Coastal road (sort of) or a night in Narva and the inland\lake Peipus road.

I did read somewhere, may on this site that the Riga-Tartu-Narva run is very picturesque, etc. that's what swung in in favour of that. Plus there might be someone to catch up with in Tartu. .

I think with the state of the roads plus as Motoreiter posted it would be practically a repeat of the way out. I probably wouldn't get a tour of Chernobyl - just not enough time.

Yep the plan is (loosely speaking LOL) to stop at least 1 night in Kiev and then stop in Lviv. Just looking at Google maps - that shows the journey to be around 340 miles. Ticking "Avoid Highways" doesn't change the mileage LOL but the page still shows the journey to be along the E40.

Maybe then onto Krakow and somehow to Prague. Google maps seems to want to shove you thru Brno and then up to Prague. Krakow - Brno, somewhere in the region of 200 miles and then Brno - Prague somewhere in the region of 140 miles.

Or would it be better going further in Southern Poland maybe to Wroclaw and then SW to Czech?

Many Thanks

The coastal road is only very intermittently coastal. It's possible to hug the coast for much of the way, and that can be both pretty and fun, but much, much slower. The main road is... fine. Good conditions, separated multi-lane highway for a lot of the distance.

The last stretch, between Jõhvi and Narva, can be dangerous - it's just good enough to fool you into thinking you have visibility, but curvy enough that you really don't. Plenty of accidents there.

I mean, it's not bad I guess. For me, I do the Riga-Valmiera-Tartu stretch a few times a year anyway, so it's old hat now. Other than just outside Riga, you're on single-lane roads all the way, but there isn't as much HGV traffic.

Believe it. At that point you're in territory where avoiding highways does not get you much. Broken communist-era roads full of traffic, frequent villages, meh. I took the local road from Linz into Prague last year, because I didn't want to retrace the Vienna-Brno leg I'd done by car previously, and that was the wrong choice.

Just spoken to the Insurance company as they don't give the ability to download the insurance certificate from the system and to confirm what countries are covered.

They've emailed me a pdf of the certificate and also a Green card (at no cost) so that's cool.

I wasn't expecting Russia to be covered but did ask about Ukraine - under the policy there's no cover for that.

Does anyone know if you can purchase that at the border, similar to what you can at a Russian border?

Just a visit to Manchester next week for the Visa, in terms of paperwork. That and the local post office for an international driving licence\permit. And the EU health card thingie which I think can be done online.

Got the TomTom fully updated with the latest Europe & Russia maps - now to just bodge some kind of mount. LOL

Thought it might be a good idea to get some headlamp protectors and a radiator grille protector.

Well - finally got my arse to Manchester and handed the Russian visa form and LOI (from the above site - dead easy and instant), they took fingerprints and after 160 odd GBP for a double entry tourist visa, I left. Chap said I should have it around next Tuesday, giving me a week in hand.

After Saturday's little ride - the bike's dash said service due. So rang the local dealer - they're only 1.5 miles from home. No chance of a service till middle of July. :

So rang around and there's one around Doncaster who can do it next Thursday afternoon.

Probably get tyres next Friday.

That gives me a week and a half to sort out the pannier racks. It means taking the short tail tidy off and putting the original one back on. As with all things - makes you wonder why on earth the previous owner shortened the wires to the indicators. Bloody moron. So that means another 43 pounds to get a new loom section.

Ordinarily I'd just get the soldering iron out - but it's a bit of a rat's nest in there and would rather not have soldered joints go during the trip.

Day 1 is getting closer. LOL

Absolutely. There will be kiosks around the border station selling it.

Well - good news on a few fronts and some neutral. Passport has come back from the Russian embassy - got the visa. Double entry tourist visa 37 days (with a max stay of 30).

Ordered some headlamp protectors and a radiator guard - reasoning that the if either of them took a hit whilst out and about, it wouldn't half cause issues. Just need to fit them today\tomorrow.

Got a new battery for the phone (main one) and will carry a spare phone. Got some extra sd cards to get for the helmet cams and the SLR to get, but that's local.

Neutral - chopped off the extra bits off the pannier frames and now need to seriously pull my thumbs out of my arse and weld on the extra bits to fit the bike. That's the neutral bit - any more delays on this front and it'll be annoying.