Day Fourteen - Gdañsk to Pieniężno (82mi)
Today was kind of like starting a third chapter of the trip. There was Sweden with Allison and the coastal area of Northern Poland. Now I’m setting off for the prairies of eastern Poland, skirting my way around Kaliningrad and into Lithuania before heading back to the Baltic coast there. Having to ride around the border of Kaliningrad added at least three days to the trip.
Gdañsk was fun. It was honestly hard to leave, but I had to keep pushing east to stay on schedule. The area east of the city was full of awesome bike paths.
The cycling infrastructure here just amazes me. Poland has the U.S. beat when it comes to extensive and modern cycling infrastructure. Everywhere cars go there is a safe bike lane. Even where cars don’t go, there are nice paved paths. And it seems the Poles are so eager to encourage riding that they publish bike routes in areas that are still not developed and actually difficult to ride, like the sandy stretches in the north. The picture below is of the huge bike lane adjacent to a four lane highway over a river. Loads of dedicated space for cyclists.
A lot of today was cruising the countryside, and looked like this. Nice paved roads through farm areas until just past Elbląg.
Passing through Elbląg, there were a few landmarks that caught my eye. This one was honoring several historic Polish leaders over the centuries.
This next one was in someone’s front yard as I was waiting at a stoplight. The expressions of history and plight here are very striking. I was clearly entering a different area of Poland from the more vacation oriented spaces I had been in.
Things really changed in the last 20 miles today. Paved roads became sparse. People wore a different look in their faces. Many of these dirt trails go through the farms of these people. The villages seem to consist of only one or two families, and probably were named after one of the families. I began standing out like a sore thumb as someone not from here. Speaking in their tongue really makes a difference. I felt it today. The connection of common language is powerful.
When drawing the route, I remember a section where it was going to be questionable. The satellite made it look passable. The sign pictured below is most definitely a dead end sign, and that’s exactly what happened. A farmer was driving his tractor up this dirt path when I passed the sign. My presence didn’t seem to phase him. Two minutes later I had turned around and rode past him again, him knowing that I was going to get dead ended. I wonder if he laughed, at least inside. So, I had to detour from my route. There was no passing through that massive field of wheat. No way.
My reroute put me back on the pavement temporarily, and I found this sign warning of trees in the standard height restriction area of tall trucks.
There aren’t many paved roads out here, so I was back on rough trails soon enough.
This is the middle of nowhere. Roads turn into paths, paths turn into sand, and end up right in people’s backyards. The locals were very nice as I rode through their spaces while they were making dinner and holding their dogs back from turning my skin into ground meat.
There were shrines everywhere out in this countryside. These are not shrines built and then left unattended for years. They are mowed, cleaned, and maintained, right on the edge of farm fields, on jeep trails.
Look closer. There is an actual candle burning in this shrine at 6:30pm on a Friday in June.
As I mentioned, the last bit of today’s ride was pretty hard. The sand and dirt paths made for slow going. I was relieved to arrive in Pieniężno and get my camp all set up. I need to take more photos of camp. I went to the only restaurant in town and it was closed for a wedding, so I found a kebab shop and had a great conversation with a man from Bangladesh. He moved to this very small town three years ago, leaving his wife and two children so he could make more money here. He’s definitely the only person of color in this town. It was wonderful to meet him and contribute to his business, and do what I could to help his family by paying him extra for the food he made. When I rode back to the camp site the sky was putting on an amazing show. Dobranoc (good night).
