Back to Europe: Nice to see EU

September 15, 2013

Narva, the town I entered into on the other side of the bridge, was a funny place. It is absolutely steeped in history, with several churches and the whole town once being a giant fortress (the main wall is gone but there are smaller ones left, and the main fort still overlooks everything.) I found lots of information boards in English and an apparant effort to promote tourism. But on the other hand there were a remarkable number of tower blocks, more even than in Russia, and plenty of run down buildings and a general ramshackleness (its a word, look it up)

The information boards gave me an early insight into the troubled past of this country. For example, here is a famous lion:

A lion statue was built to commemorate the 1700 Battle of Narva in which tremendous numbers of Russians and Swedes died fighting here. Presumably it was meant as a reminder of the horrors of war in a 'lets never be so stupid and ever let this happen again' sort of way. But this lion that I saw here in Narva now is just a replica, because the original was destroyed during the Second World War. Oh, the irony! Oh well, lets build another one and see if we can do better this time shall we?

The fort in Narva, on the left, was originally built by the Danes and looks like it has got the beating of the Russian fort...

...until you turn your head to the right and see how far the Russian one extends!!

This nice looking church was completely surrounded by ugly concrete tower blocks, hiding it from view

I cycled out of town on a very nice bicycle path which was being very well used by people jogging and cycling. It was getting dark and all I needed was a place to camp, but there was nowhere. The trees were all gone! For the past week I had travelled through unending forest in Russia, and crossing one river had completely changed the landsape to nothing but open farmland. If ever there was an example of how mankind changes the landscape this was it! But I finally found a few trees and camped there and, although the ground was horribly bumpy and there were dogs barking nearby, I settled in and made the best of it.

Today's ride: 11 km (7 miles)
Total: 5,679 km (3,527 miles)

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