Trains and Giants...

Heading west for the first time this tour. On the roads of Wroclaw on a Saturday morning we have few cars to contend with, only trams and tram lines. Soon in the countryside passing wheat and potatoes. Strawberries are sold from road side stalls. As everywhere, lots of railway crossings, many with no barrier, and frequent trains. It's like UK must have been before Beeching - every town and village has a busy station and lots of freight carried at a sedate pace. Gradually we gain height as we see ahead the first mountains of the trip. As with many names here, theirs is unpronounceable to us, but translated means Giant Mountains. Sometimes the road deteriorates to cobbles and sand but mainly just potholes, and the gradients are not too steep. We make very good progress so have time to take a slower forest path, having lunch sitting on logs in a beautiful valley.

That was Sunday, and there has been a delay posting the blog until today, Wednesday, because.....

We are just congratulating ourselves on a good ride and entry into Czech Republic, when I (Mike) find a particularly loose bit of track and take a tumble. Unfortunately it was one of those times when you know straight away it's not trivial! With the brilliant help from a passing Czech cyclist, and the emergency services, I am soon in Trutnov Hospital. A dislocated right ankle and small fracture in the same leg means I will not be riding anywhere for sometime.


Susan is in a nearby hotel with our bikes and gear, and we are looking at arrangements to get ourselves home in the near future.





Miles to date 2080

Location:Wroclaw to Trutnov

Nuns and Gnomes...

Corpus Christi is being celebrated in the city today, so all the shops shut and the city is very quiet as we stroll to the Cathedral. A service is well underway, with a hundred or so outside the big open doors, those who could not fit inside, amongst them lots of nuns. Everyone is silently praying. We wander on around the cobbled streets of this pretty area, returning 1/2 hour later to the Cathedral. There are now thousands filling the streets. The hundreds of nuns are on their knees on the cobbles. Still all silent. The bishop and a chanting white robed male choir emerge, and everyone else sinks to their knees. We join this enormous congregation as we slowly walk the streets to another two churches where a short service is held again.


Always only unaccompanied beautiful chanting - no other noise from the growing crowd. The traffic and trams are stopped by police and army. After three stops, we are too hot under a cloudless sky to carry on, and leave this mass of folks, our clothes smelling of incense.
After a coffee we carry on exploring. There are charming 6 inch high metal statues of gnomes, in various poses, scattered around the city. They are semi-hidden, so a sport of spotting them has developed. Our hotel has one lying asleep on a window cill.


There are grander, fine modern statues all around the city too.


The former Salt market square is now a flower sellers market. There are lots of such pedestrian/ cyclists only zones that make it so pleasant to stroll the city. Parks, like manicured natural woods, and avenues along the river have plenty of places to sit and people watch. We spot a lady tram driver, hop out of the cab of her full tram, and alter the points so she can rattle off down a side route.

Location:Wroclaw

Bridges and dumplings...

My out of date paper map shows a ferry over the Oder as we head East. On the new downloaded map, there is a bridge, which turns out to be brand new with a 20 ft wide cycle path! Looking through the Perspex side panels we can see the cobbled lane down to the old rowing boat size ferry. At the next town, we are saved from joining the cars over the river again, by taking the nearby tram line bridge, along with other locals pedalling with their veggies in front baskets, from the market.
There is a pretty good dedicated cycle way all the way into the old centre of Wrocow (population 600,000). We book into another business type hotel who store the bikes securely in a linen cupboard, then we set out in the stifling hot afternoon to explore. First impressions are it's like Prague, but without the hoards of tourists. Rattling along are cheerfully decorated trams everywhere. Several large cobbled market squares with little stalls sell smart local food and hand made goods. We buy a map of Austria in one of the many university book shops. Tomorrow shops will be shut as it is an important Catholic holiday - from what we have heard there will be street processions like the Easter ones in Spain. The hotel receptionist assists us in finding a small, very Polish, restaurant where we choose to sample 4 different sorts of dumpling, mostly of pork and cheese. They are more like big ravioli and very tasty.


The Poles don't do puddings, (there is not even a word for it) but they find some cinnamon apple cake and added some ice cream, just for us.


Miles to date 2045

Location:Bzreg Dolny to Wrocow

Cabbage patch...

Heading East. Glorious weather and roads for the first 40 miles, through oak forests then farmland on good tarmac quiet roads. Fields of potato plants and folks picking cabbages by hand. A man uses a small strimmer to cut the hay in a field of several acres - it will take him days! Storks walk about in the crops, and many of the abandoned factory chimneys are adorned with a nest.


Then the road surface is more hard work as the potholes increase. After 55 miles we start to look for a stop for the evening. Poland does not appear to have campsites or B&Bs and some quite big towns have either no, or closed down, hotels. By the shore of the River Oder at Brzeg Dolny, the hotel we had been promised on a website is found. A business type hotel with modern ensuite, great power shower, balcony, use of a swimming pool, free wifi and breakfast - all for £23. We spend the evening planning the next stages of your journey.


Miles to date 2020

Location:Glogow to Bzreg Dolny

Colourful...

As it's a working day we stick to minor roads, sometimes cycling down the middle, where the only tarmac remains. Through beautiful oak and pine forests, interspersed with wavy grass meadows sprinkled with corn flowers. We pause in Kozuchow's cobbled town square where the shops are the usual, small, old fashioned, clothes and shoe shops. Dirty windows and lacklustre displays are not enhanced by peeling paintwork. The next village, Byton Odrzanski, is smarter with a square surrounded by historic, Dutch gabled houses and shops. The Poles use a lot of strong colours, with many houses painted green, red or pink.


Bikes are also often colourful, and local ladies favour a strong, unnatural, red as a hair colour. This reminds me that so many Danes have lovely natural red hair. Glogow is a bigger town on the Oder, of mainly reproduction Dutch gable town houses. We assume nearly everything, except part of the church and fine town hall, were flattened in WWII, (by the Forces fighting to and fro across the border that was the River Oder).


Miles to date 1968

Location:Zielona Gora to Glogow

Sand, and a Statue...

Agnieszka and Bartosz point out a hare hopping about in their back garden, and describe how earlier in the year flocks of cranes descend on their lawn. We are so well feed on their families honey, salad from their garden and locally produced cheeses, breads and cured meats, washed down with a beer or two and red wine.
The route on Sunday morning heads virtually south on a very good road that is light with cars, as it is bypassed by a brand new dual carriageway. We pick up wifi at a service station along with buns and good coffee.
Sweiebodzin has a truly enormous statue on a hill, of Christ the King (massive, the little dots around the base are people!), and the church in the square spills out a congregation from a large confirmation with youngsters dressed in their white robes accompanied by families.





In a village the roads becomes terrible, at best large cobbles but mainly potholes and sand, causing me to fall off in one front of most of the village population, sitting at the bustop. I am sure there's no Sunday bus, but expect they are just waiting for such entertainment. No harm done but nerves not helped by this, and the very dilapidated bridges over wide tributaries of the Warta. We reach Zielona after 62 miles by 4:30pm, to find the forest camp site has shut as a posh modern factory has been built over it! Luckily there us a clean hotel with wifi, just next door. For 180 zloty ( £31 ) room en suite, breakfast, good wifi, and the bikes in our room is all included.





Miles to date 1923.

Location:Lipki Wielkie to Zielona Gora

Into Poland...

With our washing dried over the hotel heated towel rail, we set off Friday morning south to Schwedt, with some sandy / broken concrete cycle paths, but mostly good tarmac country lanes. After 60 miles we camp at a big, new canoe club, on the banks of a wide canal. Despite it being a warm sunny evening there are no canoeists, but all the 6 fellow campers are middle aged German touring cyclists. None speak English, but we manage a few pleasantries.


A nearby Lidl's provides our provisions.



Next morning we stow the tent in record time as a shower approaches, then set off in drizzle over the bridge across the river Oder and into Poland!
The first few buildings are all vegetable shops, then a large brothel! The next village on the map is just a very big modern petrol station and cafe, where we buy two very good coffees and Danish pastries the size of plates, for about £2.00.


The many shelves behind the tills are filled exclusively with Vodka bottles. The day is sunny from here on. We don't have to take the unsurfaced side roads as the main road is quiet so a very speedy cycle. At Debno there is a big busy street market of mainly second hand goods.The shops around the square have dusty windows and very old fashioned stock of granny clothes and shoes.
Through glorious oak woods and fruit farms to the city of Gorzow Wielkopolski. An enormous Tescos on the outskirts and a smaller one irreverently, on the central square opposite the church. We spend a tiny sum on two large bags of groceries, including a bottle of wine! Frequent trams rattle by. Our Warm Shower hosts are five miles on in a village, with a beautiful modern house set in an orchard of cherries, apples and nut trees. We hang the tent from two trees in the evening sun to dry out. condensation, then take it down dry 1/2 hr later, just before a five minute thunder storm and downpour-phew!




Miles to date 1861

Location:Pasewalk to Gorzow Wielkopolski