OSLO NORWAY

We had the good fortune of having the whole of the day to drive from Copenhagen to Oslo. So I took advantage of the time to do a bit of "sightseeing" of the swedish countryside.

COPENHAGEN

The drive from Gothenburg to Copenhagen was a short 4 hours interrupted by the Helsinborg to Helsingor ferry. We arrived at the Parken stadium about 6am in the morning and started the load in immediately.

ACROSS THE BALTIC TO SWEDEN

Before our drive to Naantali to catch the Kapelskar ferry, I was privileged to witness the old traditional Finnish pastime of finding a big rock and sitting on it and staring into space

We drove non-stop apart for the legal 45min.break from Kapelskar to Gothenburg, arriving around midnight ready for a 2 am load in on show day! The weather was atrocious with the rain lashing down onto the Ullevi Stadium but the crew pulled out all the stops and by mid-day it was all up and running and as a bonus the sun came out to give us a pleasant end to the day and concert.

Olympic Stadium Helsinki

This morning I awoke to a dark grey cloudy sky, rain and a temperature of 12 degrees Celsius, that is 32 degrees below the 44 we had experienced in Budapest just recently. It's load in day and there is not a bead of sweat in sight!

HELSINKI ROCKS

I would not like to have to remove this rock from my back garden!

FINLAND and "Back in the EEEU"

Well we are back in the EU after our eastern European adventure. Russia is changing, some say too slow, some say too fast. St. Petersburg has certainly embraced the capitalist dream, of all out consumerism, with huge shopping malls and new freeways springing up on the outskirts and all the usual American fast food outlets and designer label shops scattered around the city centre and yes you have to pay to get into the Hermitage, not like the first time I visited "Leningrad" and the roads had a lot less traffic on them then. But just 20 miles outside of St. Petersburg you can still see the Russian "peasants" sat by the roadside selling a few jars of homemade pickles or a bucket of potatoes and the police checkpoints are still in operations on some of the main highways out of towns.
The border customs are a lot busier than that of the old USSR days, with general haulage been allowed to bring in all those western goodies they all seem to crave for. If they relax the visa regulations and allow the cheap flights in "The Venice of the North" could well overtake Prague, etal, as the stag party haven! I am so glad I witnessed Leningrad and the crumbling USSR, now, that was a place to visit.
Oh yes, the concert, the Stones played a storming gig on their first visit to St. Petersburg and Sympathy for the Devil being my highlight. After the show all the trucks grouped in the Palace square and around 3am we were all police escorted in several convoys to the Russian-Finnish border past Vyborg and after a relatively short three and a half hours of bureaucratic customs formalities, we were back in the EU and the welcoming smooth road to Helsinki and the Olympic Stadium car park "luxury"!

Saint Petersburg

" I stuck around St. Petersburg

When I saw it was time for a change

Killed the Czar and his ministers

Anastasia screamed in vain"

Yesterday morning at 1:30 am we set off from Daugavpils, Latvia for the Russian Border it took us 5 hours to cross into Russia and then we had a police escort to St.Petersburg, a convoy of trucks hurtling through the Russian countryside was a sight to behold! Suspensions withholding after the battering they took due to the Russian roads we entered The Palace Square St. Petersburg around mid-day.

Chuckle Chuckle Vision

I was amazed and confused when I discovered one of the Chuckle Brothers acting as a polish stagehand, he spoke polish perfectly but he couldn't con me!

Warsaw, Poland ( Wacky races on the E75)

Well we made it to Warsaw yesterday after an eye opening drive up the E75 (motorway?) This road has traffic lights, zebra crossings and 24 hour bars and cardboard police cars! A recipe for disaster, too right! I was in a jam for 2 hours as the police sorted out a horrendous truck crash as this was going on, the polish drivers, cars and trucks, decided to do u turns on the motorway! When I finally got to the outskirts of Warsaw it took 2 hours to get 7 miles to the racecourse site of the gig. They have implemented a 5 seconds green light policy eat your heart out Ken Livingstone.

Gennyworld, On the Road Again!

It's been a long time but we have been out on tour since May 31st and here are some recent pics of gennyworld. Today we are in Brno, Czech Republic and after the show tonight we will be heading for Warsaw in pulsating Poland! the home of the infamous polish sausage arghhh!!!! Over the past few weeks we have been to Belgium,Germany, Holland ,France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Monte Negro, Serbia,Rumberling Romania, Hungary and we had the misfortune to have to drive through Slovakia where the police ripped off a few of the trucks! Dick Turpinski is alive and well and patrolling the highways of Slovakia, slow by name and slow by nature!

After the Romainian Adventure.

Hold on folks, are you ready for the return of gennyworld! We are in Brno, Czech Republic today and new postings will be coming shortly!!!!

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL AND THE HOME OF RUGBY

As we crossed the English channel, the sea was remarkably calm despite the storms we had driven through in northern France. The next afternoon we arrived at the home of rugby, Twickenham Stadium. It's a beautiful English summers day, rain and more rain, but who's complaining after the excessive heat of the last six weeks. This weekend sees the start of the English premiership football season and a nerve wracking wait for the results of Middlesbrough Football Club.

SAND & SEA

At midnight on the evening of the cancelled Valladolid concert the decision was made to send the trucks to El Ejido near Almeria southern Spain. After a 12 hour drive we arrived in el Ejido to remarkable cool weather for that part of Spain and found out the concert there was cancelled too. As the day wore on the wind started to blow and by evening it had turned into a stinging full blown sand storm. It was almost impossible to work outside in those conditions. The following morning I set of for Twickenham and England. A drive of 2555 kilometres awaited me! As I headed up through France the air conditioning in the truck was turned off and the hot weather we have had during the past six weeks faded into the distant past. Thunderstorms were now the order of the day as I approached Calais and the car ferry.

VALLADOLID Spain

Today's concert in Valladolid is cancelled and we are all waiting now for further instuctions as to where we are going next. I feel sorry for the people from Valladolid that were looking forward to The Rolling Stones coming to their city. Everything was ready this morning for the concert and a lot of hard work was put in by the crews to get it set up inside this stadium. The ramp to the stage, built by the steel crew was magnificent!

Estadio do Dragao, Porto

Here are a couple of pics of Gennyworld in place at the stadium which is home to Porto FC.

Nice and Porto

The cool weather in Nice lasted a couple of day’s which was good but that old thermometer is on the rise again. As I sit here in Porto Portugal its 36o and rising! The drive from Nice took a couple of days to get across Spain, then into the hilly terrain of Portugal. During my route between Palencia and Benavente I drove the national route N610 and came across some interesting roadworks where they stopped the oncoming traffic by placing a young lad in the middle of the road with a small stop sign, I hope he managed to get some life insurance! The roads in Portugal have some very steep hills to climb and descend and with 40 tons of Genny it’s no fun, thank god for the descent Volvo engine break! I must admit I do like Portugal (even if they beat us dubiously in the world cup) and Porto is an incredible old city.

The Swiss Arrows

Well, the “Open Air” concert at the Dubendorf Flugplatz certainly had it all; there was talk of up to 80000 people in attendance and a lot going on. The early morning rain held off and we were treated to an air display by the Swiss version of the Red Arrows just before The Stones took to the stage. One of the jet pilots put his jet through a complete Swiss roll, which was very tasty! I even witnessed a high ranking Swiss Government minister patting a dog belonging to a young security girl. She was impressed!
After the show with my Sunday driving permits in hand I headed through Switzerland to Geneva and the French border and beyond to Nice on the Cote D’azur and back to the heat! My route is via Grenoble, then the decision whether or not to keep to the autoroute or take the more scenic route through Provence and the Alps Cote D’azur. Given I had plenty of time the scenic route won! On arriving at the Nikaia Arena in Nice, I was amazed to find the weather very cool and an electric storm that had previously past through was now lighting up the skies in the nearby Alps Maritime.