Pedalling Poland
 

Words & Photos: Don Morrisey

Partly by design and partly by chance, my partner Nicola Harwood and I decided we should cycle from the UK across the Netherlands and Germany to spend a couple of months exploring Poland, a country neither of us had visited before. The original plan was to cycle through Poland and on through Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. However, a stuff-up with train bookings from Amsterdam to Berlin, and the realisation of just how big Poland is led us to 'kerb' our ambitions.

Poland has a very long, and often very sad, history. The Polish-Lithuanian Alliance (later Commonwealth) was a major force in European politics for 400 years from the late 14th century. It is little known among English-speaking nations despite the fact that in 1683, Commonwealth forces, led by King John III Sobieski, ended the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks and rescued the Holy Roman Empire. Although predominantly Catholic, the Commonwealth allowed its citizens freedom of religion, and by the mid-fifteen hundreds 80% of the world’s Jews lived in Poland. Territorial ambition and distrust of Poland’s progressive forms of government led to Austria, Prussia and Russia dismembering the Commonwealth from the late 18th century and dividing its territory among themselves, with eastern Poland being taken by Russia and the west by Prussia. Poland and Lithuania did not become independent nations again until 1918. The subsequent history of Poland is better known, starting with German invasion in 1939 and the repression of the Polish people, particularly its huge Jewish population. After WWII, Poland was abandoned by its western allies to appease Stalin and lived under a communist regime for 45 years, emerging as one of the poorer nations of Europe. Since joining the European Union, however, Poland’s economy has steadily developed and today it is a relatively affluent nation with excellent modern infrastructure but also a rich cultural heritage and many stunning natural features and towns (some of them reconstructed after the war).

Several EuroVelo routes cross Poland from north to south or west to east, but not in the circular route around the country that we wanted. Fortunately, Poland has its own excellent Green Velo Trail, running for 1885km along the north coast, down the eastern border with Belarus and Ukraine, and finally looping around the southeast corner. We entered Poland from just southeast of Berlin and cut across the northern central part of the country via Poznań and Toruń, joining the GV at the Biebrzański National Park near Białystok. From there we followed the GV south to the famously hard-to-pronounce cities of Przemyśl and Rzeszów, then made our own route west to Kraków and Wrocław and back to the German border northeast of Dresden. When not on the GV, we quickly found that Polish roads can be a bit like those in New Zealand – used by cars, trucks and everything in between, and often lacking a hard shoulder to bike on. The drivers were generally patient but knowing that a queue is building behind you and having to stop to let it pass doesn’t make for very relaxed biking, so we learned to identify these sections of the route in advance and take the bikes on local trains. The rail network in Poland is excellent – extensive, punctual and with easy-to-use booking websites. They even give discounts to over-65s like us. Bikes can be wheeled into designated storage areas (sometimes there is a significant step up from platform to carriage) but need to be booked in advance.

At the German-Polish border on the Oder River.

Biking was on a mix of quiet, sealed roads, gravelled backroads and bike paths, farm and forestry tracks, and the occasional section of single track. We were riding steel-framed touring bikes with rear panniers, so avoided mountain bike trails to reduce stress on the bikes. Apart from my bike rolling into a canal after I propped it against a tree in the Netherlands (tip: always leave at least one pannier on the bike when parking near a canal – it keeps the bike afloat long enough to haul it out), the only mechanical problems we encountered in 4000km of riding were a couple of broken spokes and a bent rear derailleur. Bike shops were easy to find, even in small towns.

Riding forest trails in eastern Poland.

The first cities we visited in Poland, Poznań and Toruń, introduced us to the common layout of historic city centres: a large square (‘rynek’) with a central, often very elegant town hall, and surrounded by merchants’ houses from the 17th century onwards. Many of the older houses had elaborate and colourful plasterwork facades. Another universal feature of the centre of any Polish town is the extraordinary number of ice-cream shops – Poles eat a lot of ice cream. Cafes, on the other hand, are harder to find outside the main centres, but bakeries sell excellent cakes and pastries, particularly cheesecakes. Smoking is another surprisingly popular habit, among all age groups, as it is in Germany.

Main square and town hall in Poznań.

On the GV just south of Białystok lies the UNESCO World Heritage Białowieża Forest, the largest remaining part of the ancient forests that once covered most of central Europe. Its hugely diverse flora and fauna include around 800 European bison, elk and wolves but the closest we came to any of these were scratch marks of wolves and a fresh bison poo. Part of the forest can only be entered with an official guide, but biking and hiking paths run through much of the rest.

Half of the Białowieża Forest is in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park in Belarus, and in normal times cyclists and walkers can cross from one area to the other. The southern part of the border between Poland and Belarus, and the northern part of the border with Ukraine, is formed by the River Bug, which in places is less then 100m wide and 1 to 4m deep. Most of the border crossings to Belarus are currently closed and our path crossed several major roads and motorways heading east and completely empty of traffic. The border with Ukraine is open and while waiting for a train in the eastern city of Lublin we watched an intercity train filling up with passengers heading back home to Kyev.

East of Lublin, at the point where Poland, Belarus and Ukraine meet, is the village of Sobibór, site of one of the largest Nazi extermination camps. Up to a quarter of a million people were murdered here until the camp was dismantled in 1943 following an uprising by the prisoners. Today the quiet, atmospheric site is surrounded by birch woods and its history and the people who died there are commemorated by a new, very moving museum.

Much of northern and central Poland is fairly flat, with areas of rolling hills covered in fields of wheat, barley, sunflowers and, occasionally, camomile – Poles are huge consumers of herbal teas and even small supermarkets will have an amazing range. Down in the southeast of the country, towards the Carpathians, the terrain becomes more mountainous. This area is also famed for its dozens of beautiful wooden churches, dating from the 14th century onwards. These often have roofs of wooden shingles extending down to the ground floor and the interiors are covered in wall paintings and icons, combining Catholic and Orthodox influences that reflect the region’s religious history.

Fifteenth century wooden church at Sękowa, southeast Poland.

After seeing very few foreign tourists in eastern Poland, Kraków was a bit of a shock – the old town and the former Jewish area of Kazimierz were packed with cafes, restaurants and bars, and the Wawel Castle and Cathedral were humming with tour groups. Nevertheless, it was possible to find areas of calm and in the fantastic Czartoryski museum we enjoyed stunning paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt almost alone.

By now we had left the GV and from Kraków we followed the Jurassic Bike Trail of the Eagles’ Nests which runs north from the city for 185km along a range of limestone hills. Many of the rocky outcrops along the range are topped with castles, the ‘eagles’ nests’. The trail runs through forests and fields, ending up at the major pilgrimage city of Czestochowa, home to the miracle-working image of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. The image is held in the Jasna Góra Monastery in the city centre, at the culmination of a monumentally broad boulevard built to accommodate the millions of pilgrims from around the world who come to worship (3.2 million in 2011 apparently). Despite being kept awake the night before by music from a nightclub directly opposite our hostel, we managed to get up in time to attend the early morning service at which the image is unveiled each day to the sound of trumpets and crowds of worshippers and tourists.

Our final major destination in Poland was the lively and very enjoyable university city of Wrocław (Breslau in German). Unlike Krakow, whose old centre emerged from the Second World War relatively unscathed, half of Wrocław’s city centre was destroyed and then reconstructed between 1945 and 1948. It’s a lively place with lots of huge churches and cathedral, an exceptional zoo and an outstanding modern concert hall, the National Music Forum. We also managed to sample a ‘New Zealand IPA’ made by the local Złoty Pies (‘Golden Dog’) brewery using Motueka and Nelson centennial hops.

Ostrów Tumski, Cathedral Island Wrocław.

Poland is a worthwhile choice for bike touring, slightly off the beaten tourist track but with excellent infrastructure and heaps to see and do. There is a strong bike culture in terms of bike paths or quiet routes, taking bikes on trains, places to get bikes serviced and repaired, and bike-awareness of other road users. Poland also has good connections to neighbouring countries via EuroVelo and other routes.