Biking Poland
13 June 2023, Radom, 50km
Hostel Centrum 116.64zł [R534]
We seldom need enough oil for the bikes to warrant buying, and more importantly carrying, a container. Charl has gotten pretty good at liberating used cans from service station bins and squeezing out sufficient oil for our needs. In third world countries, this behaviour is considered perfectly normal. In Europe, apparently less so. When we stopped today on a garage forecourt to investigate the bin, the shop manager came out to see what we were up to. She just laughed and waved her permission once she understood, but perhaps in future we should ask first. There was nothing of use in the bin, but Charl later spied a discarded plastic container on the roadside with three or four capfuls of fresh oil in its depths...
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It was a chilly 50km to Radom (population 214,000), with the first 20km to Głowaczów being also drizzly. In this tiny rural village we were thrilled to find a small restaurant serving pizza made delicious by the use of quality ingredients, in our case salami and fresh mushrooms.
In the last two days, our first cycling days in Poland, we have established a new pattern that seems to be working for us. We eat lunch on the road - kebab wrap yesterday, pizza today - then shop for dinner at our destination - fresh bread, butter, cold meats, tomatoes, ready-made salad - and fruit and yogurt for breakfast. Then just settle in to our pre-booked accommodation for the night. We are very pleased to report that we have come in marginally under budget for two days in a row! Such a relief...
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Our route today was a joy, despite the traffic being a little heavy at times. We cycled easy terrain on secondary roads through woods of oak, pine, fern, moss, flowers in blue and yellow, birdsong and, apparently, deer. And through clusters of rural homes and tiny villages, the houses both old and new, the barns weathered wood boards, the dogs curious.
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We have yet to learn any Polish! It sounds completely foreign, and reads completely foreign. When you ask Google Translate for "hello", you get the impossible "cześć". Can you pronounce it? We have learned to recognise "sklep", which means "store" and is perhaps more useful than "hello".