{"id":19116,"date":"2025-05-19T14:54:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T18:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/auto-draft\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T17:18:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:18:43","slug":"a-chilly-start-and-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/cycling-travels\/cycling-europe\/northern-europe-2025\/a-chilly-start-and-first-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"A chilly start and first impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our typical initial few days of a trip serve us well to establish some first impressions regarding our new environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food: We noticed that deli offering at grocery stores do not appear to be a thing here – unlike in Japan. There are wide range of restaurants including plenty of fast food, kebab, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication: A bit of a surprise to us is that English is not widely understood and\/or spoken. Also in terms of friendliness, we don’t expect to be greeted with any smiles along our way but folks are quite ready to help when asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infrastructure: Roads are in very good condition. The bicycle path network we encountered on our first cycling day was surprisingly good. The city and countryside environments are also very clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accommodation: Apartment rentals as opposed to hotels are more popular on Booking.com.<\/p>\n\n\n