20th May - A long haul up to NE Poland

Today was about covering some distance to get close to Lithuania.  I had originally intended to go via Gdansk but that would have added another day and a lot of miles.  So I decided to make this day just about getting north as easily as possible (Poland is a big country to traverse).

The area I had decided to stop in (as it looked nice) included a couple of national parks and was located just south of the border between Poland, Lithuania and the Russian enclave of Kalingrad.  It was about 360 miles by the most direct route, ie Highways where available.  I played around with various minor road routes but it turned it into a 2 day journey which I didn't want to do.

So I said goodbye to Krakow and joined the rush hour traffic heading (slowly) out of the city through the myriad of roadworks.

It took about an hour to clear the city environs and traffic and get onto the main highway (dual carriageway) heading for Warsaw.  Although straight an boring this was a relatively new road and carried little traffic for its size.  Warsaw itself presented no problems as the road skirts nicely around it and continues out the other side, in total I was on the highway for about 4 hours but covered some useful distance.  My SatNav then alerted me to a 60 minute delay in major roadworks ahead and so I headed off the highway to continue the rest of the journey on minor roads - much more pleasant if not as direct or ‘ground covering’.

Some of these minor roads were very well surfaced, but increasingly large sections were pretty rough with the occasional major pothole (12 inches deep) to keep an eye out for.

The centre of Poland is largely flat and roads, whether major or minor, follow predominantly straight lines, curves and inclines were to be savoured if they came along.

As I got to within an hour or so of my destination the landscape improved and became quite picturesque, all the villages seemed to be harbouring a population of Storks (baby boom ahead?).

There was also normally a small memorial(?) at the entry or exit of to each village.

My chosen stop for the night proved to be a very good value find.

  The equivalent of £26 per-night including breakfast and then a really nice meal in their restaurant for £4 - £5 including the beer.  Top value!

The owner kindly let me put my bike in a barn for the night.

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.