Kategorie: Poland-Baltics bike ride 2016

The first kilometers to Lodz felt very short today. In Lodz we looked to the Radegast station, were the Museum of the Lodz Ghetto is located. The station was rebuild and showed an original train, which deported Jews to the concentration camps. In the Museum there was a model of the Ghetto and original lists of deported people. To see the originals was very impressive for us.

We also drove through the city center of Lodz seeing one of the longest shopping malls in Europe. After 50 km cycling through small villages we came to the river Warte. At a lake near Mikołajewice we stayed for the night.

Jonas and Lukas

Saying goodbye to the Dream Hostel in Warsaw was not easy, because our rooms and the whole atmosphere was very nice. But around 9 am it was time to check out and leave Warsaw through many Suburbes. We drove along a new „Autobahn“ and new train rails. As we were buying our dinner today in a Lidl discounter it felt very familiar to us. Today we set up camp near some cows and a small river. It is only 40 km away from Lodz, which we will visit tomorrow.

Jonas and Lukas

After 7 days on our bikes riding over 700 km from Riga to Warsaw today is finaly our day off. We started with hanging out in our room and ate breakfast in the hostel. Because both our front wheels were damaged yesterday, we were forced to buy a new tire and a tube. In the afternoon we continued our tour through Warsaw Old Town. I think the best atmosphere was in the evening in the city center, all people relaxed and were eating in restaurants, musicans played some songs and the light on the sights was perfect. So we could see that Warsaw is a very modern elaborate city with a already beautifully restaurated city centre in contrast to Riga basically being a big construction site.

Jonas and Lukas

This night was to short and definitly the coldest. As we woke up shivering, mist was moving across the pastures by the river. Because we had very few battery left on the iPad, so we decided to drive without navigation in direction of Warsaw. Unfortunately we couldnt visit the museum in Treblinka because it opened way after we drove through the village. On the way ahead we sometimes made a wrong turns and needed to drive more kilometers than necessary. The traffic got heavier as we got towards Wasaw. And close to the city we were in our first traffic jam with a lot of cars, moving with us in a seemingly never ending stop and go. But finally we got on a bigger road where we bougth our dinner we looked for our hostel. We stayed two nights in the Dream Hostel at the Krakowskie Przedmieście.

Jonas and Lukas

This day we woke up early, because our daily routine follows to the sun and not to the new Central European Time. We drove a long distance through woods and mires. Sadly we needed to follow the E 67 full of trucks over several kilometers. But next to the road a real Autobahn was in construction and nearly ready to use. Our goal for today was to come as close as posible to Warsaw, so it was a long ride. We tented next to the river Bug close to Malkina Gorna. As we wanted to look up our route for the next day we recognised that the former KZ Treblinka was just three kilometres ahead on our route, so we decided to visit it the next day.

Jonas and Lukas

In the morning we crossed the border to Poland. Instantly the tarmac started and so we could move forward faster. We drove over Suwalki and Augustow to Biebrzanski national park. In this park there is one of the largest swamp areas in Europe and the landscape along the river Biebrza there was dominated by a vast flat plain. At the camping spot Dolina Biebrzy our day ended. Sadly there was no power for our phones here but at least we had fresh water. 

Jonas and Lukas

From our camping spot at the river Memel we rode into the city center of Kaunas. After a short look to the remains of a castle and two churches we left Kaunas straight in southern direction. Over Marijampole and Kalvarija we came near the Lithuanian-Polish border. At a small lake near Rūdninkai we stayed for the night. In this region of Lithuania the plains generally encountered in the Baltics end and hills started to dominate the landscape. Fortunately the sun didn’t shine the whole day, so it wasn’t as hot as the day before and even the wind came down.

Jonas and Lukas

Today was a hot day like the day before and probaly the following ones. We drank a lot of water and by a lot I mean over 14 liters. At one point of our route we lost the way and so we needed to haul our bikes through a forrest which seemed more like a jungle. In the future we’ve learned to turn around instead of loosing so much time and get stressed out. After that we we followed the river Nevezis through a nice valley. This river flows into the river Memel. The night we slept at a site where these two rivers joined near Kaunas. Because of the weather we shortened our tour and are going to look into Kaunas tomorrow.

Jonas and Lukas

On this day we cycled through the countryside from village to village along fields and woods. It was the main time to harvest the grain. So we saw many combine harvesters and tractors. We started near the border and in the evening we were in central Lithuania at another lake. On the way we told our story to other people, one cyclist and one costumer of a shop in which we bought something. This was a welcomed exeption to most other days in the Baltics. We think its because relatively few people here speak English and maybe people are a little more reserved towards foreigners.

Jonas and Lukas

We said goodbye to our beds in the hostel and got back on our bikes. First we went to Alberta iela, the part of Riga with many buildings in Art Nouveau, hopefully the last sight in Riga we hadn’t seen. Then we rode out of the city in southern direction. In Jelgava we had our mid day break and then went further on the main road. Because in Latvia the Autobahn have no separate bike lanes, it was necessary to cycle on the road alongside many trucks. But the other half of the day we used dirt tracks to get forward. So there were only main roads with lots of traffic or small tracks with a lot of potholes. So there are better conditions imaginable but the on small roads you can really see the countryside and get a sense of adventure. In the end we passed the Latvian-Lithuanian border and made camp in a village called Zeimelis.

Jonas and Lukas