19. On the way to Warsaw… 5 days 490km

By Dennis

Take me home, country roads… Vilnius to Alytus – 107km Avg 20.4 km/hr

It was nice to visit the big city, but after 3 days it was nice to get out and continue our journey. Busy getting out of Vilnius in the morning rush hour, especially with heavy traffic and a motorway with essentially no shoulders, but we were soon onto the country roads with minimal traffic. A nice ride through verdant grasslands supporting a thriving dairy industry and many small towns every 10k or so. What amazes me is the cleanliness of the towns and countryside in Lithuania with nary a piece of garbage to be seen, it seems the people have a pride in their country.

Our stop for the night was Alytus. With a population 60,000 and situated on the banks of the Nemunas River. The town has a good feel to it and has lots of young people (but don’t they all look young these days?). Dinner was ribs and a delicious carmelized beet dish.

White knuckling it from Alytus to Augustow, Poland – 107km Avg 20.4 km/hr

A ride on a highway with no shoulder all day, but most drivers will go around you or slow down until oncoming traffic has passed. None the less, when the big transport trucks go by it is unerving and by the end of the day I had a sore neck and shoulders from being tense all day.

Augustow is situated on a lake and is a summer vacation town for the people from Warsaw. As such it is expensive and busy – we paid $100CDN for a room, the most we have spent so far.

The headwinds were back today, time for another eleemosynary to the wind gods!

So much for that theory… Augustow to Lomza – 113km Avg 20.7 km/hr

Up early and on the road by 6am, the theory being that it is a Sunday and there would be no truck traffic. Wrong! The trucks started early and the holiday traffic built continuously all morning, forcing us to find and alternate route through the countryside for the last hour. At our hotel we inquired about the heavy traffic and were told Sunday is the busiest day of the week in the summer with people heading out to the plethora of lakes in the area. Thankfully tomorrow’s route looks less busy.

After our first days in Poland, some observations have been apparent when comparing it to the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania): There is garbage thrown on the side of the road and lying around the town squares. The forests are not manicured with neat rows of trees and the understory cleared out. There are a lot more aggressive drivers who can’t slow down for 5 seconds to safely pass us. The roads have no, or very narrow rough shoulders. There was no Polish flag at the border crossing nor a sign saying “Welcome to Poland”, not even a Polish flag. They use funny money call zlotys (about 3 to a CDN dollar) with a zloty broken down into 100 groszys (1 groszys = .3 CDN cents) In the Baltic States, most young people speak English, in Poland most do not.

But! On the plus side they acknowledge a wave or nod of the head or a “good morning” (Dzien Dobry!). And today we even had a man approach us and strike up a conversation in English after seeing my Canadian flag. These acknowledgments make up for a lot!

The population of Lomza is about 65,000 but it is a nondescript fairly modern town with no real “atttractions” and nothing worth taking a picture of.

A sigh of relief… Lomza to Pultusk – 103km Avg 21.6 km/hr

After and hour of busy highway with no shoulder we finally turned off onto a series of country roads which took us all the way to Pultusk. What a relief to have a break from the trucks and traffic, and believe it or not, tailwinds giving us a boost in speed of about 5km/hr. It seems the wind gods heard my promise of another eleemosynary made a couple of days ago and gave us a credit!

The landscape for the past two days has been covered with cornfields, a crop they grow for the dairy industry. I was tempted to grab a couple for dinner, but upon close inspection the cobs were bright orange and hard and did not look at all appetizing not at all like the Silver Rill or Peaches and Cream we get at home. Apparently the Polish do not eat corn, deeming it suitable only for pigs or cows.

It was 31 degrees today, we must be getting south!

Wandering into Warsaw… Pultusk to Warsaw – 69km 16.1 km/hr

After 4 consecutive 100km days it was supposed to be an easy ride into Warsaw, a mere 61km on country roads.

Don: Komoot is suggesting a ride down the west side of the Narew River but look at the route I just found on the east side of the river, probably even less traffic.

Dennis: Maybe, but I wonder why Komoot did not suggest it as a possible route?

Don: I don’t know, I had to trick Komoot in order to get this route, but let’s try it. Should be a breeze.

Dennis: Ok. We have all day.

After 3 hours we found a bridge taking us back to the west side of the river and re-joining the original Komoot route about 30km north of Warsaw.

Warsaw is a big city and it starts getting populated about 30k out. Fortunately it has and excellent bike path infrastructure and we were able to ride the final 25k off the road. The drivers in Warsaw are amazing with their respect of cyclists – as soon as you approach a crosswalk they stop, we even had a trolley on the tracks stop for us.

We settled into our airbnb not far from the Old Town. Seems all these cities have an “Old Town” but Warsaw’s original was rebuilt after WWII bombing destroyed most of the city. After a long, hot day we went out for a beer and pizza and were given a shot of vodka with our bill!

We have 3 nights in Warsaw before moving on. Warsaw will be the last big city we visit until Istanbul, so our last chance to by a few needed things (like an electrical adapter that I left behind in a hotel and some bike spares).