18th/19th May - Over the Tatras to Poland and into Krakow

There was some very pleasant riding to be had to and through the rolling foothills of the Tatra’s, definately worth a return visit one day.

I still prefer Slovenia but this part of Slovakia had its fair share of picturesque villages nestled amongst the hills.

There was also the odd castle or two.

The one below is Orava Castle, dating back to the 13th century.  One notable difference as I travelled through Slovakia was the number of other bikers around. I didn't see any in Hungary and only a few in Slovenia, but here in Slovakia they were all over the place.  A lot of it may have been because it was a weekend and the sun was out, but this area is clearly a favourite playground for local bikers.

Now I admit to making a route planning blunder for the rest of the way into Poland.  Early on in the trip I had encountered some ‘technical gremlins’ with route planning.  One of the issues this left me with was unable to easily access the finer details of some of the routes I had planned including why I had taken a longer route than was necessary.

So this morning when I was setting up to leave I had inadvertently elected to use a more direct route over the Tatras into Poland than originally planned.  It still looked a good route and was OK, but I was disconcerted by being able to see the snow covered high Tatras (where I had originally intended to cross) over in the distance to the east.

By the time I realised what had happened it was too late to go back, but I opted to turn right at the next opportunity and see if I could at least get a little closer - big mistake!  The road I chose headed for Zacopane which sounded familiar and so I thought would be a good choice.  However, it seems that this is a popular weekend break/day trip town and as it was a sunny Saturday the roads leading to and from it were rammed full of slow moving traffic in both directions.  That coupled with a maximum speed of 50kmh for a good hour made it not a good move that cost me a considerable time for little benefit.

To top it off, when I finally headed into the outskirts of Krakow I hit a major,  several mile long,  stationary traffic jam due to half of the ring road around Krakow being dug up and all traffic being re-routed.  It was now 25 degrees and I still had my thermal gear on!

Krakow is a lovely city, and once I had settled into my AirBnB, I headed out to explore.  I decided to leave the proper sightseeing until I could return with my better half and just chill  out around the town.  I had planned a rest day here anyway and needed to attend to some domestic tasks before heading up through Poland to the Baltics.

I had now been riding every day for a week and covered around 2000 miles, its time for a break...

Below are just a few of the sights around  the old town centre.