July, 07 + 08, 2024
Click pics for larger scale!
The experience of exceptional hospitality I had already had in Germany when I met Jan was soon to continue.
After a varied stage covering a good 70 kilometres through western Poland’s beautiful summery, slightly hilly terminal moraine landscape with its wide grain fields, flowering fallow meadows, shady avenues and cool deciduous forests, but also plenty of energy-sapping deep sandy stretches, I reach what is supposed to be the campsite in Próchnowo. There, however, I find a tent camp with around 200 young scouts, where I am pleased to discover a quiet spot for myself after all.
When I ask the owner about the accommodation fee, I not only receive a firm refusal, but also an invitation to dinner, which is very kindly prepared and served to me by his staff. He must have been impressed by my way of travelling.
In Ujśie, an unattractive industrial town, I pitch my tent on a canoe pitch and am soon joined by a touring cyclist from Lithuania: Nerijus from Klaipeda (Memel), who is on his first long cycle tour to Berlin – or London. Naturally, we exchange a lot of information about our mutual experiences, with shop talk about bikes and equipment dominating. When he learns that my tour is also taking me to Lithuania’s historic capital of Kaunas, he offers me the key to his office flat without further ado and to my great surprise, with pictorial documentation of the location and access details. Unbelievable!