Route Map – 165 km:
Today only 165 km to Kaliningrad. Dull and rainy weather but excellent roads and bridges and low traffic volume.
I believe my data volume on my Austrian contract has already been exhausted and I did not have any Russian map on my Garmin Navigation Set. Luckily I printed the GPS coordinates of the camp site during my preparations. Garmin provided at least the present coordinates of my vehicle online. It was very demanding to watch and analyse the running numbers on the screen and behave well in traffic at the same time. Round about lunch time I found my hotel which has a motor-home parking area attached.
Camping at the fringe of town:
Personal rating: 3/5
http://www.baltica-hotel.ru/en/camping.html
The camp site is very basic but electricity is available and the site manager was very helpful and friendly. The shower was only in the basement of the hotel and was clean and efficient. Luxurious would be a slight exaggeration though.
From Hotel Baltica to town with public transport bus:
At the reception of the hotel I changed some money and got advice how to use the bus which had a station in front of the hotel. I decided to go for it and found an elderly lady as conductor selling the tickets. I was not in the mood to ask everybody whether they speak English so I was just riding the bus and got off when it looked to be in the center. I strolled around in the the mist, shot a few pictures, had a coffee and cake in a shopping mall and looked for the bus again. As I took the wrong direction, I fulfilled a complete round of that line back to the hotel.
Some green areas in between
In the case of Kaliningrad my motivation to go there on route to the North Kapp was uncertain from the outset. Finally I decided to ‘”take it with”. But my preparation was half hearted and I missed the “Bernstein Museum”, the Aquarium and surely many other attractions.
There will be another window in the future.