2017/08/02

Day 04: Stepankovo - Moskau - Nischni Nowgorod - Tscheboksary

A really nice place I was staying for the night, with a swimming pond and a cockrow as morning alarm. Most of the guests are from Moscow and here for enjoying the good air and the calm surrounding. Breakfast is supposed not to be before 9, but they trying their best to serve me an earlier breakfast. However, I have to pay with Euro, because the Visa card here (also to surprise of Denis) does not work. Now, many foreigners didn't stay here yet, I guess ;-).

The adventure continues. A new road to Moscow, also the ringroad is easy to ride. This time at refueling I have to tell how many liters I want. First they select the wrong octane for the pump. An employee of the service station has to fuel up the 92 gas to his car, than I can fill my paid quantity in 95 octan. Must fill up again later. At the later gas stop a woman happily waving to the foreigner gave me an apple! Very nice!

The farther away you get from Moscow, the worse are the roads. Some of them have damaged lanes from the trucks, especially between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. And actually, no one really sticks to speed limits, not even the police.

I ride through small villages with wind-swept wooden houses that have very beautifully decorated windows. It seems that about a third are inhabited, a third are sheds and a third is probably abandoned. But I don't stop for photos, the time is running ...

I always see people sitting along the street selling berries or mushrooms. Yesterday, I saw a lot of bearskin or wolfskin sellers.

In the evening at Hotel Imperia, no one speaks a foreign language and apparently they are also not accustomed to people, who can't speak Russian.