You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Poland' tag.
The bicycle route network in Poland and, especially, Czech Republic is amazing. We have yet to be on an unmarked, non bicycle route. We got rid of our cue sheets that we were writing up to indicate at mile number each turn was at and just began paying better attention to the signs and our maps and it has been great!
We rose in a light fog and our first morning on the road found us in good comfort with good coffee in a dewy meadow. We arrived there the night before in the dark with our headlights at full power after unwillingly pumping up another steep grade. The day had been much longer than we had expected and much hillier than expected. Poland was brown with bare fields and the overcast skies gave us a pale light that produce a certain uneasiness passing through the small villages. Much us this had to do with our lack in acceptance, or maybe trust, in our appearance, for the looks we were receiving were very much the same as our own but covered with an uncertain euphoria. It eventually gave way to acceptance and as the region grew more unfamiliar, we grew more comfortable on our strange looking bikes and with the obsurd goal of riding our bicycles to the Croatian coast, let alone, Turkey.
We had clocked 95km once we had rolled into Mikulowice and quickly found a hotel and went to get a room only to find we do not have enough Czech Koronas and they would not take our credit card. We considered giving him some USD or some Euros but thought we could find an ATM and/or another hotel or pension. It had gotten dark when we discovered that would could not do either of those and decided to turn on the lights and start heading towards Jesenik which, we knew, had both of those. The moment we got out of town, it got very hilly, and pumping up that steep grade did us in. Chad’s legs gave out at just about the most perfect moment, for he was in front of a homestead and when he flashed his headlamp to the left, there stood a man, in the distance, wearing a jump suit with reflective striping all over it. Sure enough just as we were deciding to ask the man to camp and for some water, he called out to us to see if we were lost. He offered the dewy field to camp and filled our bottles with water from his own spring.
And so began our second day, in the fog draped, dewy meadow. The day was way hillier than we were expecting. He climbed our first 10%grad hill and soon after our first 12%, according to our maps. But the scenery was spectacular. The browns and greys of harvest in Poland gave way to the greens and blues of meadows, forests, and distant hills of the Jeseniky Mountains. The clouds parted and gave us a good sunshine. It was a shorter day in mileage for anticipation of some climbing but it still stretched to our long fast decent at dusk into Velke Losiny and a little hut where we stayed in town.
The third day was a good blend of the first two. Some of the greens and blue hues of the second day dappled with the umbers and ochres of the first; Clouds broken by sunrays; good pavement; bad gravel; forest and fields; industry and nature. We rolled into Olomouc and circled through its pristine ring of gardens complete with old fortifications built onto protruding rock formations with the town center built above. Music fell over the ancient walls and into our ears. We were in search of a Russian church where we would find our host for the evening, our new friend Tereza. Together, we cooked a meal of lentils and rice with loads of vegetables, a good purging of the meat overload from back home in Poland. We drank raspberry vodka and talked until our eyes grew close towards sleep. We woke to our first rainy day and it is ok.
A couple of shots of our fresh made rasberry vodka to calm the nerves and we are out the door! I can’t believe we are doing this! It may be a few days before we post again so here is another polish cartoon to fill the gap.
Our bags are packed, our tires pumped up, and we are ready to go! After some last minute issues printing out the homemade map to get us through the first 40km to where our nice maps begin, we are ready to go — we think. Tomorrow takes us along the Czech border about 75 km to Mikulowice, CZ for our first night’s stay. We don’t have any accomodations lined up and but know that there is at least one Pension (B&B type) and a hotel, however, it is unlikely that we will end up in the hotel. We always have the tent with us and we’ll try to use it as much as possible. Better to save our money for a few splurges here and there, not the first night.
We are bound to be sore for the first week, and from what we have read, the first week is always the hardest. We have been off our bikes for what seems like a century, but in reality is only a couple weeks. Our second day brings us to the first climb, and our only, for the rest of the week, that will surely test our bodies. Luckily, we have a comfortable place lined up in Olomouc that our new couchsurfing.com friend, Tereza, is setting us up with. For those of you who do not know of couchsurfing.org, it is a social network of travellers all over the globe that offer up there couch and hospitality, in exchange for the same. It has a very good system of checks and verifications, and we hope to use it as one of our biggest tools for meeting interesting people along the way, getting to experience differents cultures, and to save a bit of cash.
We have posted a new Map of our proposed route from Zabkowice, Poland to Istanbul, Turkey and it can always be found here, and will be posting larger pieces of this map, like the one below, throughout our journey. Wish us luck in our first few days here, and check in the next day or two (or three) for updates. For those of you who may be new to our Blog, Take a minute to read this and this, to get a little backstory. Hope you enjoy our adventure
Best
Chad and Jowita
Not much to report from the day. Our nerves are starting to climb and attempting to hang 1/4″ gyp board (drywall) on a compound curving ceiling exposed beams and a pretty severe communication barrier, does not help. Chad was back at work today building the house with Janusz, and after having a sheet of drywall crack in half above his head, on an empty stomach, he probably lost his sense of humor a bit. This was not ordinary labor, this was pretty complicated stuff. While Chad can hold his own at the deli, his vocabulary is not built around building a house. Maybe someday. Maybe Tomorrow. A Stroll around Zabkowice Slaskie followed by Beer and zapiekanka saved the day.
-
- The Zabkowice Library in the main square. We drank in the open bar below
-
- ZAbkowice’s famous leaning tower
-
- Zabkowice’s famous leaning tower
-
- The main part of town is surrounded by crumbling ancient fortifications
-
- Time for a drink
The day has been long and we are finding ourselves growing a bit anxious again, knowing that we face anther big, departure day in the coming week. We will be leaving on Monday the 14th, and we keep having to remind ourselves of the loose ends that still remain whilst enjoying our time visiting family. The multiple departures comes with a sort of strange feeling. We left our friends and family in the States talking about our plans for the ride, then we departed and we still are talking about our plans for the ride. Its as if it is forever wrapped in words or talk of leaving. The gluttony and minimal exercise has not helped. Perhaps we will be able to get out for a nice ride tomorrow after we tweak our drivetrain to correct the kinks.
Today we woke early to catch the 7:14 train to Wroclaw and then the 13:50 bus to Jowita’s hometown Zabkowice. The layover gave us time for a cup of espresso we suspect was actually instant coffee, and a beer in the main square. The center of Wroclaw is unexpectedly beautiful — on par with Krakow — and the colors are pretty awesome, especially under clear blue skies. We got home after six hours of being in transit and a few of sightseeing, and Chad immediately got busy and built a house with Jowita’s brother Janusz, while Jowita did a little babysitting and rasberry picking.
Dobranoc
Chad and Jowita
-
- Chad and Jowita In the Wroclaw main square
-
- Wroclaw’s colorful square
-
- Super serious about our beer!
-
- Chad and Junusz conquer the communication barrier to build a house
Out the door early this morning brought us back to Ciocia Marysia’s home and this time she brought the bridge club and out to hunt we went. This crisp, dewy morning was spent in the forest foraging for our dinner’s main ingredient, the wild mushroom, and with the bridge club, we were in good hands. These jolly women knew how to hunt! What a delightful set of friends!
Chad and Ciocia Marysia headed out to hunt grzyby ('gje-by')
After Picking many mushrooms only to be told 'ne dobry", Chad finally found a good one
Cake and Compote Break
Our Treasure
Jowita and the Bridge Club heading towards the one o'clock mini bus
Ciocia Marysia and her rose bush backdrop
And in the Grzyby spirit, another Czech cartoon (Thanks Marysia for reminding us of Krecik!)
Wow. Plain and simple. Wow. Full can hardly describe us at this point, rather, ‘On the verge of exploding’ might do it. Our gastro-intestinal debauchery is putting our stomachs and digestive tracts to the test right now. If the two days of festivities surrounding Marcin (mar-cheen) and Gosia’s (go-sha’s) wedding did not leave us fat enough, today definetly did. We are like squirrels storing up for winter, or like two idiots getting ready to ride their bicycles for three months straight.
The wedding was beyond any of our expectations. It was elegant and straight-forward. Simple in its purpose, Extraordinary in its quantity and quality. Everyone was there to celebrate and celebrate we did. It was a night that seemed as though your stomach gave way to half a cow, one entire pig, two heads of cabbage, a barrel of pickles, a jar of lard with bacon, one whole cake, a bowl of fruit, another bowl of fruit but this one covered in chocolate, and two bottles of vodka. The wedding was executed with such precision that you never felt too drunk and never too full. The DJ was always on cue and took break at just the right night for everyone to refill their stomachs. The chronological break down of is impressive, starting at four:
Dinner; Vodka; Dancing; First supper; Vodka; Dancing; Cake; Vodka; Games and Dancing; Second supper; vodka; bouquet toss and dancing; Pig roast; Vodka; dancing; Soup; vodka; dancing; Croqueta (meat filled eggroll like dish) with beet soup; vodka; dancing ……….. and then we passed out who knows when.
The second day of celebrations began with ‘Swedish style’ Breakfast, ie, help yourself at the banquet hall and a stroll around town with the cousins. We then returned to the banquet hall where now the drink of choice was beer from the tap at the entrance of the hall. It didn’t take long for the beer to give way to more vodka once dinner was served. And then, you guessed it, more dancing! Chad was quickly a controlled, two sheets by the time it was ready for the two of us to make our way to the train station in Opole to Catch our train to Kreczowice (good luck with the pronouciation for all of you non-polish speakers) to visit Jowita’s three cousins, and her aunt.
We had a great, warm and sunny day today visiting with Jowita’s Ciocia (Aunt) and Wujek (Uncle) and their pretty goat. We ate a wild mushroom soup that was the best soup we can recall, cabbage rolls, drank fresh raspberry compote and Ciocia’s homemade raspberry vodka, fresh made goat cheese, and Chad even attempted, and failed to milk the goat, but Ciocia Marysia came to the rescue and we then drank it. We love fresh goat milk and we will surely have a goat of our own one of these days. We then met with the rest of Jowita’s cousins here, drank more coffee, drank some beer, went for the best ice cream and a walk in the park and then back to the house for kielbasa and more beer. Holy Crap!
Well Dobranoc, we need some shut eye as we must be at Ciocia Marysia’s house for breakfast before we head out to go mushroom picking at 7.
Chad and Jowita
Oh yes….a word of caution for those of you who might be sensitive to the sight of excessive carnivorism, the following photos are pretty excessive, and We must stress how important it is to eat meat in moderation and how important it is that you eat you vegetables, but this was a Polish wedding, and is hard to expect much less.
Marcin i Gosia tying the knot
Aurelia keeping the parents on their toes
The Meat Cart....the lard with bacon on the fresh bread was amazing!
This was sort of scary....yes those are giant sparklers
The full moon granted us permission to go pass out
A Hangover free stroll with the Cousins after breakfast
Bottoms up...again
The Wyszomirski Family
Chad with Aunt Marysia, drinking a glass of delicious, straight from the utter, goat milk.
Uncle Lubov and Goat
Really good Ice Cream with cousins, Ela, Basia, i Anya
The comforts of being home bring wealth in sleep, food, and family. Once we got rolling, Jowita went one way and Chad another, to take care of some essential practicalities. Chad inspected and reassembled the bicycles in the garage while Marzena headed into town with her brother and niece to get a phone and to change some money in to Polish Zloty (‘zwot-tay’). The rate is currently 1 usd → 2.80 pln but used her irresistible charm to get 1 → 2.85. Nice. She also got us phone service on our new phone at a pretty good rate throughout our proposed destinations. We had hoped that we could get a good rate on a wireless data plan for the computer but to no avail.
The Damage inspection on the bikes, after being turned over into the hands of the baggage handlers, reveled only minor paint scrapes on Marzena’s seat stays. TSA inspected her box and moved some of the bubble wrap that was protecting it from being rubbed by the rear rack, and that is exactly what happened. Otherwise, apart from some parts being shifted around, there is nothing major to pin on rough handling. However, Chad did discover that his seven dollar kickstand has caused some concerning damage to his chain stays. The excessive weight of the bags from the loaded test ride last week, resting on the kickstand may be the culprit, and without trying to figure out how exactly the little indentations occurred, the kickstand is going to be staying behind in Zabkowice. The risk isn’t worth it.
Our test ride of the reassembled bikes took us out to Rakowice and Her familie’s eighteenth century, German farm. Marzena’s Grandfather was captured by the Germans in WWII and forced to work in a German Work Camp for a dentist. After the war he returned to the Polish Highlands were his family remained. It was his experience working with the dentist, the pair of large pliers he took from the dentist, and his renowned strength that made him a very popular man with those in the poor village with nasty tooth aches. It was on his way back to the highlands of the Tatra Mountains when he passed through what is now Polish Selisia and noticed all of the beautiful farms abandoned by the Germans who were forced to leave this area that had long been a part of Germany. He asked Marzena’s Grandmother to move the family to one of these farms, but her grandmother refused for fear of the return of the Germans who had long called these farms home. It was fourteen years after the war that her Grandmother and Grandfather moved the family to Rakowice. Marzena’s Uncle Staszek now runs the farm with his Wife, two strong sons, daughter with husband and five month old baby. The farm is full of roosters, hens, geese, rabbits, three pigs, one dairy cow, two cows, one calf, thirty bee hives, a bunch of cats and kittens, a dachshund, and one really, really mean guard dog.
We were able to visit Rakowice together last year when the cherries were exploding off the trees, the honey was a deep amber, and Chad attempted, and failed to reap hay in the field. This time the raspberries are plentiful, the limbs of the apple trees are full of delicious apples, the honey is golden, and perhaps Chad and Jowita will get to drive the red tractor. Rakowice holds a very special place in our hearts. We kept our camera in the bag, for the most part, tonight but will share the beauty of this timeless farm with you all next week when we return from travels to cousin, Marcin’s wedding in Opole and then to a town outside of Krakow to visit her cousins.
Marzena, Chad, and cousin Piotrek after an evening of apple picking, wheelies, and chasing the cows home from pasture
