Tuesday morning we woke up and continued rolling through the beautiful Polish countryside
We’ve noticed that the Poles are an incredibly tidy people: all the houses are well-kept (to the point that they almost look brand new), the yards are maintained , and there is almost no trash in the streets anywhere. In fact, we’ve seen several people sweeping up the sand in the streets with brooms
Speaking of sand, a note about the roads on this route. We’re mostly following Eurovelo route 11, a cross-Europe bicycle route that is still in development. For the most part it’s been great: primarily very quiet country roads, and a surprising amount of shared-use cycle paths. There’s only been a few times we’ve had to ride on busy roads with little shoulder, but the drivers have been really respectful. However, several times the quiet country roads have lost their pavement and devolved into little more than ruts in sand, and often the sand gets deep enough to become unrideable even with our relatively fat tires. So we’re also getting a bit of an upper body workout from pushing our bikes – but it’s still a good time!
Several times we’ve encountered old men who have insisted on trying to have a conversation with us in Polish as we just stare back at them with dumb looks on our faces. Most of the other cyclists we’ve seen have also been old men, so maybe there’s a connection?
Public bathrooms seem few and far between. Also, now I know to watch out for stinging nettle
Tuesday night we had dinner at a cute little restaurant, where I had my first Polish pierogi – mushroom and buckwheat, with a side of four different slaws. Absolutely delicious!
We found another great camping spot in a small forest
On Wednesday morning, the bakery we were looking had apparently closed several years ago (at least that’s what we think based on the hand-gesture conversation we had with a local), so we went back to the same restaurant we had dinner at. Some kielbasa and delicious crepe/pancakes later and we were back on the road
We stopped for coffee and lody (ice cream) in Lomza at the cool town square
Mostly just another day of rolling through gorgeous countryside and cute villages – we followed a river for a good part of the day
We slept last night at a bicycle camping spot in someone’s backyard. The owner spoke no English, but we managed to communicate the important bits in french (except me misinterpreting 6 fingers to mean the price was 6 zloty – about $1.50 -instead of 60 zloty)
He didn’t seem too perturbed that we washed clothes and used his clothes line
