Poland

In our early planning of our route through Northern Europe, visiting Poland was added as a possibility.  Its location was somewhat inconvenient to our desire to visit both Prague and Vienna.  We could nip down the eastern border with Germany and then ride further east into Czech Republic and to Prague before turning around and heading southwest to hit Vienna and Bratislava (Slovakia).  We toyed with the idea of skipping Poland entirely and staying in Germany or skipping Prague in favour of more time in Poland.  When traveling by bike, small detours that take a couple hours by car or rail can take days and days.  For our winter riding we generally plan for about 50km per day by bike.  We can do 60 or 70 if we push or even more if conditions are good (as they have been recently).  The goal in trip planning is to balance low traffic and interesting routes with being able to get a reasonable distance each day.  In some cases we suck it up and ride the most direct route (also known as the ‘highway’) to skip through dozens or hundreds of kilometers of farmland and other times we find ourselves pushing our bikes up a steep road-less pass for several hours to connect interesting routes (see our upcoming Slovakia post!).  When it came to Poland, visiting Prague from there would involve a 250km detour southeast then back southwest.  That would take five days, plus a few days in Prague so about 8 days.   In the end, a few pictures of Wroclaw’s alluring central square sealed the deal.  We’d prioritize Poland, and go to Prague if we had time.

As our previous post explained, we bailed on Germany and took the train to Gorlitz where we rode across the border to Zgorzelec in Poland for the night.  In the morning we caught a train to Wroclaw (Vrosslov).  The first thing we noted was our train to Wroclaw was actually much nicer than any of the trains we caught in Germany.  From there, Poland just got better and better.  Wroclaw is probably my favourite city.  Everyone was super friendly and very helpful.  People would wait patiently as we struggled through what little Polish we could remember at the check-out, slowly count our Zloty’s to pay and as we were about to leave say in English, ‘Thank you, have a nice day!’.    Everywhere in Poland we felt really comfortable.   They seem to have hit a balance between being efficient without being sticklers for rules.  There are rules, but people are obviously quite casual about them.  We fit right in with this easy going and hardworking bunch.  Krakow was the same experience, as was our beautiful ride from Krakow to Zwardon.  

A highlight of our time in Wroclaw was definitely the Christmas market.  Every day, no matter where we were headed, we seemed to find ourselves amongst the crowds drinking delicious mulled wine around an open fire.  I think overall, this was our favourite Christmas market.  It was a lot more polished than Bratislava’s market, but not as over-the-top as in Vienna.  The energy in the market was high every day.  The stalls selling mulled wine were consistently packed with smiling and energetic people and the setting around the colourful central square couldn’t be more perfect.

The magic of Wroclaw hit its peak when Elaine went to a physiotherapist.  He checked her knees and said ‘not big problem, small problem’.  He massaged, pressed and squeezed in all the right places and in one session took her knee pain down to a totally manageable level.  We left by train the next day for Krakow, where it was decided that we were ready to pedal again!  

From Krakow we followed bike lanes all the way out into the countryside, not sharing the road with a car for nearly 20km.  Once on the road we were treated with incredibly courteous drivers who nearly always gave us the entire lane while passing.  Generally, if there was oncoming traffic, the driver would either slow down or wait for an opening to give us the lane as they passed or slow right down and carefully pass us.  In 145km I can only remember one vehicle that squeezed between us and oncoming traffic without significantly slowing down.  This definitely isn’t usual.  From Zwyiec we headed up our first major pass since leaving Iceland, topping out in the snow at over 600m.  We’re really happy with how our bikes handle snow and any anxiety we had about riding in winter are gone!

Poland left us wanting more and although we were excited to see Slovakia, we knew there was so much we hadn’t seen in Poland.  Most of our travel was done by train and I feel like one day we’ll have to go back and pedal a larger portion of this wonderful country.  We never did make it to Prague or even the Czech Republic but we’re really glad we spent as much time as we did in Poland and look forward to going back.

 

Poland Round-Up

ODO Start:  1627km

ODO Finish: 1772km

Total Kms Pedaled: 145km

Days Pedaled: 3

Train Kms: 420km

Days in the country:  14

Days of glorious sunshine: 13

Nights camped: 0

Furthest day: 60km

Biggest money suck:  Christmas market mulled wine

Christmas markets visited:  2 (Wroclaw and Krakow)

Most unforgettable place:  Block 11 at Aucshwitz

Snowline in Poland:  500m

Highest pass: 600m

Number of Dwarves hiding in Wroclow: 400+

Number found:  less than 30