Soon after acquiring V 6 MOG on 1 January 2000 we started to plan a central European tour. This tour in 2002 took us via southern Poland to Krakow and beyond to the Ukraine border before turning south through Slovakia and Hungary. We visited a still war torn Croatia before we set off home via Austria, Germany and France.

I mention these earlier trips only to demonstrate our experience in driving long distances over unfamiliar territory.
These trips would be fascinating in any vehicle, but in a Morgan, in places a Morgan has seldom if ever been seen, the extra experiences gained, particularly the reactions of ordinary people, can be really rewarding.

Itching for another challenge, I had been hankering for another long trip and I would refer to this vaguely as “I want to drive round the Baltic”. We could see a window of opportunity approaching for May/ June 2005. Certain things had to be rearranged and I had to persuade my vice-chairman to take the important May meeting of Foxton Parish Council. But I was set, nothing was going to stand in the way.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of planning when it comes to these long trips and the acquisition of good up to date maps and information about the countries to be visited is essential to getting the best out of the tour.

My first task was to rough out the distances and decide an approximate route. Where would we go, how far was it, how long is it likely to take in total. This overall plan is needed before working up the detail and I had a problem “I wanted to drive round the Baltic” and you quickly find that there are bits of water that get in the way.

Generally we do not do large cities in the Morgan, much preferring to visit as a city break. So I did not want to “do” St. Petersburg on this trip, but was there an alternative? What about bypassing the city to the south and heading for Karelia via Petrozavodsk? Was this an option? What about a night on the White Sea before heading west in to Finland?

Cheryl and I spent weeks pondering these options. The Russian tourist office was very patient with our enquiries but nothing seemed easy. Visas had to be acquired before leaving. We could not get visas without an invitation and that meant we had to book somewhere first. Have you ever tried to get accommodation in Petrozavodsk on the net?

We just could not seem to escape the clutches of St. Petersburg. The more we asked the less sensible this part of the trip was becoming. The Karelia tourist web site was not very clear as to which roads if any were asphalted and a Russian contact suggested that they were liable to look like potato fields anyway! Then there was that Lotus 7 that was hijacked on the main road to St Petersburg. Cheryl was worried and I gave in. Plan B took us to Vilnius to catch the ferry to Helsinki. This turned out to be a good decision as we were to be met off the ferry by Arto Peltonen, Secretary of the Swedish Morgan club. He and his wife Liisa made us very welcome and showed us Helsinki. We had a noggin at his house and a scenic run together with Lotus collector Hans Nordstrom and his friend to Porvoo where we had booked our next night.

Liisa surprised us by showing us a 1998 picture of Anglemog at Old Mynd. She and Arto had joined us for the scenic run at MOG 98 and there was VUO 754 J, my 71 4/4 in the photo. But more of Finland later….