The Iron Curtain Trail

[Polite]

My plan is something like this:

Starting at Nordkapp, cycling down through Finland, hugging the coast through Latvia and down towards Hamburg.

At this point I'm thinking of doing some trips to cities I don't really know (Berlin, Prague, Budapest) before I then go back to Hamburg. Or I might just keep cycling down to Romania and train back to Hamburg.

From there, pick up EuroVelo 10 up to the top of Denmark, follow the coast towards The Netherlands and from there, possibly the Pilgrim's route down to France for the Camino de Santiago.

I'm keen for some advice from all you wily, hardcore tourers who have done much more than my usual 3 weeks summer touring in France:

- best time of year to take the challenge on
- timescale ideas for a 80km a day, reasonably fit 50 something
- best starting points (north to south etc)
- any experiences of doing something similar
- I'm a fair-weather camper so probably hostels/warmshowers.org/b&bs
- any other ideas/thoughts

Thanks in advance.

[foxyrider]

There is a waymarked route from the Baltic to the Czech border tracing the West/East German border -there is an Esterbauer guide book available.

[steelframe]

If you are interested in the iron curtain trail I would highly recommend "The cyclist who went out in the cold" by Tim Moore - a very good read, as funny as informative.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0224100203

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YVpF6PPm8

https://road.cc/content/review/222750-c ... t-out-cold