Iron Curtain Cycle Trail

Has anyone done this? (or even part of it)
If so, were you able to find places to pitch a tent or did you B&B or what?
Did you use the guidebook maps or take your own? If the guidebooks, were they sufficient?
Do the guidebooks have additional information in them? Such as....?
Was there much main road cycling? Would it make OK walking? (I'm interested in walking it, but only if a good portion is NOT on main drags)
How did you get to the beginning of the trail (assuming you started at the top of Finland)? Was there public transport available?

(And yes, I know we're just about to go hop along the Camino de Santiago, but I've just heard of this trail and seeing as we started our married life in Poland just as the iron curtain was falling, it would make a wonderful 25th wedding anniversary trip to retrace that part of the world - and that's only three years away!!!! Just have to work out how to get round the Schengen issue for an extended stay in the area)

I'd never heard of it so I looked it up- kinda annoying that there's no map but I know a lot of the towns for the Hungary and surrounds part. Sounds like it's not a complete trail yet tho?

I mean I guess I like the idea of walking through the old Iron Curtain but doesn't sound like this route is well worked out yet. Doesn't mean I don't think you can do it tho- pretty much any country has great walks around/across the country that are meant for people not cyclists, even, but I don't know how much documentation there is and you might run into issues with languages for info (Google Chrome to work around that maybe?). Hungary has several famous walks across and around the country (well famous to Hungarians) for example, and my cousin did a holiday once spending a week or two hiking across Slovakia into Poland.

Regardless though, I wouldn't do this adventure without camping gear (most European sites always keep a few spots for people on long term cycling or walking tours), but even if there is no hotel/pension in town I'm sure in most places you'll find people more than happy to make a little money by lending out a room for the night. I think one of the bigger issues in the smaller places in particular would be language though- most older people learned only Russian in school besides their local language, and they won't exactly speak it willingly.

There's a vague map: http://www2.ironcurtaintrail.eu/uploads ... 012_01.jpg
Also three booklets with routes apparently in detail
Iron Curtain Trail Part 1: Along the "Green Belt" from the Barents Sea to the German-Polish Border (ISBN 978-3-85000-277-6, 15,90 EUR)

Iron Curtain Trail Part 2: Along the "Green Belt" from Usedom along the German-German Border Trail to the Czech border (ISBN 978-3-85000-278-3, 15,90 EUR)

Iron Curtain Trail Part 3: From the German-Czech border to the Black Sea (ISBN 978-3-85000-279-0, 15,90 EUR).

We would definitely take tents/sleeping gear/basic cooking gear and hope to pitch in farmers' fields.
I can't find anything about anyone who has done the complete trail yet - not even by bike, so I doubt anyone has walked it. All the more exciting!

http://www.ironcurtaintrail.eu/en/die_e ... index.html

Hi,
Excellent map link to follow.

It is fascinating how far east the iron curtain has retreated in these last 20 years, and yet it still remains. Thanks for posting that map.

That's a terrific trek, from Finland's arctic all the way to Turkey. One forgets how gargantuan the Soviet Union really was....

I might say all kinds of things that I cannot support with facts, but I think that much of this 'route' is absolutely seat-of-your-pants traveling. Bulgaria and Romania are still backwaters of visitorship. Germany, Czech, and Hungary should be the easiest parts. I would expect that as you move into the former Yugoslavia (non EU) the goings will become much rockier. These are very traveler undeveloped places.

The Baltic countries (all EU) are fairly easily navigated even if undeveloped, and largely friendly to outsiders {money}. Latvia will be the most soviet and difficult of this lot.

You should expect most of it to be off-the-grid traveling. Catching local buses, hitching local rides, attempting to fathom backroad unoffficial connections and lodgings from half a dozen countries full of people who do not speak English.

If you are good at winging things and are humble, and decent at feigning languages you cannot understand, you can make a go of it. What an adventure.

Let us know how how it goes for you. You are one intrepid traveler. You may be a first-ist for the Iron Curtain Trail.

Apart from the Nordic countries, we have previously travelled in all of them, and largely without incident. What we haven't done is walk for 25km a day carrying camping gear.
And today when it is pouring with rain I start wondering how much I would like to be waking up and pulling down a tent and heading on to the road all wet!
Ultimately not deterred at this point!

Another detail to consider- if you did the entire trail walking 25km/day, my back of the envelope calculation says you can't feasibly do this in less than a year at minimum.

With the exception of a very tiny part of the trail in the south it can and will snow, sometimes quite a lot! And it can get seriously cold anywhere, this past winter virtually everywhere on the trail dipped to -20C at some point.

So if rain doesn't sound appealing, just think about a bit about being stuck in a blizzard where the windchill is well below freezing.