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
We woke up Thursday morning to the sounds of Corpus Christi mass from the church down the road. This tiny village has a really talented tenor!
We rode on into a Polish national park – beautiful forest and marshlands. Supposedly there are many moose and elk there, but we missed them
We tried to get brunch at a cute looking restaurant, but it had late hours for the holiday. While we were waiting to see if would open, we were approached by some motorcyclists to help push-start one of their bikes. We tried our best, but it wouldn’t get going
The Eurovelo route we have been following joined another bike route, the Green Velo, that seems to be very popular, especially with the long holiday weekend. We started seeing lots of other bicyclists along the way
We ended up riding with a Polish cyclist named Bogdan who didn’t speak a lick of English. Nonetheless, he continued the tradition of constantly talking to us even though it was clear we couldn’t understand him. He was definitely a character. Here’s what we know about him: He’s from Che?m; he’s a cycling madman; he tries to do a long bike ride every 6 months; he constantly made fun of our beer guts. At one point when I used a porta potty he ran up and started shaking it and yelling – he found this hilarious.
Bogdan helped us navigate a particularly rough, washboarded section of the route through a pretty nasty headwind
We eventually made it to the cool resort town of Augustow, where we offered to treat Bogdan to dinner. He found a pizza place called the “Chillout Bar.” We agreed to get a large Greek pizza to share. I went up to order with him, and he started having a much longer and more animated conversation with the cashier than ordering a pizza would normally warrant. He seemed to keep confirming if I really wanted a large pizza… Of course I did! Then there was some confusion about what kind of dressing I wanted, so I assumed he also ordered some salads. Long story short, three pizzas – a small and two larges, and all three the same kind – showed up at our table, along with some sort of pizza aioli/dipping sauce. We managed t polish off two of them, and carried the third back to the campsite for breakfast
The next we continued to follow Bogdan over hill and dell, as he would repeatedly stop and grumble a bunch of Polish at his GPS (and sometimes at us) before continuing. He convinced us to deviate off our original route a bit and continue along with him, but eventually our paths parted and we bid “do widzenia” to our newfound friend.
Shortly after leaving Bogdan, we found a bridge over a lovely stream and decided to have lunch there. Soon, a group of five cyclists showed up and began asking us questions about our trip, where we were from, etc. About 45 seconds into the conversation, one of them asked us if we wanted some liquor, and produced a 2 liter water bottle filled with an unknown brown liquid, as well as a small snifter glass. Far be it from us to refuse roadside shots, we joined in downing what proved to be a delicious and incredibly smooth booze. All they could tell us about it was 1) you can’t buy it in stores 2) it is not made from a grain 3) it is “from the forest”
We later rejoined that same group farther down the road, and they took us to a small food truck with a small Polish grandma dishing out some amazing fruit-filled, deep-fried pirogi – so good I went back for thirds.
We stopped at a small restaurant for one last Polish meal – delicious stuffed potato dumplings for me, before heading off into the woods, where we crossed over into Lithuania on a non-distinct forest road. We made camp in the woods amongst the songbirds and mosquitoes.
On Saturday we rolled into a small village and picked up some breakfast at a corner store. While we were eating it in the square, an old woman with a very cute obedient dog sat near us. Even though we made it pretty clear we didn’t speak any Lithuanian, she proceeded to talk to (at?) us for about 15 minutes. She may have told us her entire life story
We stopped for supplies at a large grocery store. Part of the fun of a trip like this is that even buying groceries is an adventure. I still can’t figure out why they had pine cones for sale next to the limes and peppers. I also had my first taste of kvass, which is essentially sweet bread-soda – it’s pretty good!
We visited a cool historical town – Merkenës – and visited the museum there. A lot of it was the same story we’ve been reading over and over again: there used to be a lot of cool stuff here, but it was all destroyed in one of the many times this region has been invaded. Also, all of these cities and villages used to have large Jewish populations… One thing we learned was that in the 11/1200s there were christian crusaders invading this region trying to forcibly convert the locals
Met a German father/son cycle tourist duo who were appalled by how much stuff we were carrying. Also when I tried to tell the dad what their route ahead looked like (they were heading where we came from), he replied “yes I know. I can see it on the map”
We ended the day at a gorgeous campground next to a lake. Only trick was they didn’t take credit cards, and we hadn’t seen an ATM to withdraw euros yet, so I had to spend a bunch of time on a poor cell connection setting up a bank transfer app just to give the guy 10 bucks
On Sunday we decided to try and do a longer day of riding (around 70 miles) to make it to Vilnius that night
At a corner store I discovered the amazing Baltic treat that is basically a block of sweetened cottage cheese. Delicious!
We had lunch at a cool hotel restaurant that had an upside-down glider built into the ceiling. We shared the room with a party of about 20 people, but we couldn’t figure out what the gathering was for
We made it to Trakai, a cool old town with a castle on a lake. We decided to take the easy way out and hop on a train for the last 20 miles into Vilnius. The train was super easy to navigate, even with our bikes.
In Vilnius, we met up with my good friend Dress who happened to be traveling there the same time as us – he had already been there a few days and showed us around
We had dinner at a nice cafe on the river in Uzupis, an artsy neighborhood that declared itself an independent state in the 90s. We got a fight of tasty aromatic bitters
We got a room at the same hostel as Dress – pretty nice, and great location in the old town
Vilnius is a really cool town with lots of public art – there was a giant Tony Soprano statue at the train station – and also a million churches. The old town has that perfect old European feel of lots of narrow cobblestone alleys (though the cobbles don’t make a very smooth bike ride)
Oof we’re having too much fun to keep this blog updated!
We had a good time wandering through Vilnius with Dress last Sunday
We decided to change our route: instead of riding directly from Vilnius to Riga, on Monday morning we hopped on a train out to Klaipeda on the Baltic coast
Klaipeda was a pretty chill city.. We ended up in a bar talking to two Americans who worked in a very specific unit of the US military. It was a pretty interesting conversation…. They had a lot to say
We spent the next several days riding up the coast, crossing into Latvia along the way
Liepaja was a really nice town with a mix of old buildings that had been restored, and old buildings that were falling apart. It also had a nice beach, though my pockets ended up full of seaweed
Mostly it was just really nice riding through the countryside, popping into little stores for supplies, and occasionally rolling through a larger town with classic old European alleys and squares
We got an amazing campsite on a bluff overlooking the ocean one night
We also camped in a national park next to the second-widest waterfall in Latvia – we had passed by the widest (in all of Europe) earlier that day in Kuldiga.
Once again we took the easy way out and hopped on a train the last 20 miles into Riga
When we went to our hostel, right nearby there was a gathering of people with red hats…. Sure enough they said “Make Riga Great Again”. I made a joke about Zach and I forming the Latvian contingent of the Brass Liberation Orchestra, and then sure enough a brass band showed up! They did not interact with the MRGA crowd however
We spent the rest of the day roaming the streets, probably spending equal time marveling at the architecture and the tourists. Riga is definitely a destination for roving bands of super-drunk, loud Brits.
