Northern Europe 2026 - by van from the Syrenka to the Little Mermaid

Between two mermaids

The journey begins in front of one mermaid and ends in front of another, and the two could not be more different.

Warsaw's Syrenka stands in the middle of the Market Square, sword raised and shield in hand. She is a warrior: she defends the city, and she has been on Warsaw's coat of arms for centuries. Thirteen days and a little over six thousand kilometres later, on the Langelinie rock in Copenhagen, Andersen's Little Mermaid sits small and melancholy, and reliably disappoints anyone who reaches her expecting something grand.

A warrior on the way out, a dreamer on the way back. In between, six more capitals, the forests of the Finnish lakes, one night crossing the Baltic by ship, and the whole fjord coast.

The trip in numbers

Days	17, 8 to 24 August 2026
Driven	~9,600 km
Countries crossed	13
Capitals	8 — Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen
Ferries	351 km at sea
On foot and by bike	95 km
Longest day	1,087 km, the drive home on 24 August
Shortest day	186 km, Tartu to Tallinn

A third of the distance sits in two blocks: 1,714 km to reach Warsaw and 1,693 km to get home from Copenhagen. In between, thirteen days in which the van almost never covered more than five hundred kilometres a day.

Day by day

Day 1 · Saturday 8 August — Tigliole to Lavamünd

722 km · Italy → Austria

Left home around 11. The Po plain, then Friuli, then the border. Dinner at the Rosenberger in Völkermarkt and arrival at the Lavamünd campsite around 21, in Carinthia, where the Drava leaves Austria for Slovenia.

Day 2 · Sunday 9 August — Lavamünd to Koluszki

794 km · Austria → Czechia → Poland

The longest day of the outward leg, and the one that left the least behind: away around 8, three countries, and one long afternoon stop in the middle of Poland. Night at Koluszki, on the road between Łódź and Warsaw — twelve hours stationary, which halfway through a transfer like this is the sensible thing.

Day 3 · Monday 10 August — Warsaw to Vilnius

650 km · Poland → Lithuania · 18 km on foot

Warsaw in the morning, and not from the expected side: starting from Karmelicka, in what was the ghetto. Then east on foot, inside the walls of the old town: around 11 the Rynek Starego Miasta, and in the middle of the square the Syrenka this trip is named after. A little over an hour among the houses on the square, then back to the van. In the afternoon, the road to the Baltic. Camping Vilnius City around 19, and out again in the evening — eighteen kilometres on foot, the most of the whole trip.

Day 4 · Tuesday 11 August — Vilnius to Riga

408 km · Lithuania → Latvia

The day with the most stops of any. Away around 8, west out of Vilnius, with a stop at the viewing deck over the island castle of Trakai. Mid-afternoon, the Hill of Crosses: not a monument but an accumulation — hundreds of thousands of crosses left there one at a time, bulldozed three times by the Soviets and three times grown back. Then the border and Rundāle Palace, Rastrelli's baroque planted in the middle of the Latvian countryside, an hour and a half. Riga around 18.

Day 5 · Wednesday 12 August — Riga to Tartu

281 km · Latvia → Estonia

Morning in central Riga: the cathedral, the House of the Black Heads — the one rebuilt in the nineties, the original was flattened by bombing — and the Esplanāde. Then north with a stop at Valmiera, the Estonian border, and Tartu in the evening, with a good hour on the town hall square before returning to the caravan park around 23.

Day 6 · Thursday 13 August — Tartu to Tallinn

186 km · Estonia

The shortest day of the trip. A few hours of driving, Tallinn before midday, and the whole afternoon in the old town: St Nicholas' Church, the Kiek in de Kök bastion, and a stop at Hell Hunt, the city's oldest pub. Night at the campsite inside the walls.

Day 7 · Friday 14 August — Tallinn to Savonlinna

402 km, 99 of them by ferry · Estonia → Finland

Up before six for the boat. Ashore at Helsinki's West Terminal around 9 and half a day in the city - the white Lutheran cathedral above Senate Square, and a short walk away the Uspenski Cathedral, Orthodox and the largest in western Europe: the two churches face each other five hundred metres apart and tell you on their own where the border runs. In the afternoon, east towards the lakes, reaching Vuohimäki, at Savonlinna, around 19.

Day 8 · Saturday 15 August — Savonlinna to Naantali

602 km · Finland

Finland crossed east to west. It starts below Olavinlinna, the fifteenth-century castle set on a rock in the middle of the water, then down through the lake district with the short stops this road invites — a birdwatching hide, a jetty, a kilometre of shoreline. Late afternoon Tampere, and around 18 the old town of Rauma, the largest wooden town in northern Europe, a UNESCO site. Then the port: check-in around 20 and boarding at Naantali that evening.

Day 9 · Sunday 16 August — Kapellskär to Gävle

547 km, 241 of them by ferry · Sweden

Ashore at Kapellskär around 7. Around 9, in Stockholm, the Vasa Museum: the warship that in 1628 sank after one thousand three hundred metres of sailing, raised whole from the harbour mud three and a half centuries later. Two hours, the longest stop any museum got on this trip. Then up the coast to Gävle, arriving around 21.

Day 10 · Monday 17 August — Gävle to Steinkjer

697 km · Sweden → Norway

The Swedish diagonal. Away around 7, into Härjedalen around midday — forest and bog, the last of Sweden before the mountains — and over into Norway in the afternoon. Mære, above the Trondheimsfjord, around 19.

Day 11 · Tuesday 18 August — Steinkjer to Trollstigen

440 km · Norway

The coastal day. Away around 7, Trondheim at half past nine, then down the road that hops the fjords by ferry: Halsa, and late in the afternoon Håholmen, on the Atlantic Road, eight kilometres of bridges jumping from skerry to skerry. Last ferry at Sølsnes and up to Trollstigen, sleeping at the viewpoint above the eleven hairpins.

Day 12 · Wednesday 19 August — Trollstigen to Bergen

481 km · Norway

The day of the two great fjords. Down from Trollstigen around 7 and at Geiranger around 9, a UNESCO site, where the fjord narrows between thousand-metre walls. Then all day southward with two ferries — Dragsvik and Hella — and in the evening Flåm, at the head of the innermost arm of the Sognefjord, Norway's longest and deepest. Pushing on to Trengereid, at the edge of Bergen, arriving around 23.

Day 13 · Thursday 20 August — Bergen to Stavanger

427 km · Norway · 8 km on foot

Morning in Bergen, then the Hardanger road: the suspension bridge, the viewpoint over the Opo, and the two waterfalls that are practically on the tarmac — Låtefossen, two jets crossing under the bridge, and Langfoss, six hundred and twelve metres. Ferry at Arsvågen and into Stavanger around 23.

Day 14 · Friday 21 August — Stavanger to Oslo

563 km · Norway

Away around 9, and around 10 at the Preikestolen fjellstue, at the foot of the pulpit. Then the Lysefjord ferry circuit — Forsand, the bridge, Hjelmeland — and from there the long haul east. Oslo in the evening, camped at Sjølyst Marina.

Day 15 · Saturday 22 August — Oslo to Copenhagen

625 km · Norway → Sweden → Denmark · 14 km on foot

Morning in central Oslo, then down the E6 along the whole Swedish coast: Strömstad, Mölndal on the edge of Gothenburg, Båstad in Scania. Copenhagen around 19. Fourteen kilometres on foot, nearly all of them in those two cities.

Day 16 · Sunday 23 August — Copenhagen to Lower Saxony

543 km · Denmark → Germany · 3 km on foot, 13 by bike

Copenhagen by bicycle, which is the only sensible way to do it. First stop around 9, at the far end of the Langelinie promenade: the Little Mermaid, who closes the trip where the other mermaid opened it — half an hour on the rock. Then Amalienborg, Rosenborg Castle, the Rundetårn with its spiral ramp instead of stairs, and a good hour at Nyhavn. Away around 14, and from there it is the way home: Denmark, the border, and Germany by night. Driving past midnight, beyond Hannover.

Day 17 · Monday 24 August — Lower Saxony to home

1,087 km · Germany → Austria → Switzerland → Italy

The longest day of the trip. Up around 8 after a few hours' sleep, then a thousand kilometres straight through: Germany all morning, Baden-Württemberg, Austrian Vorarlberg in the afternoon, Switzerland's Grisons, and the San Bernardino around six in the evening. Into Italy that evening. Home at half past one in the morning.