Travel in East Poland
Perhaps time to summarize some impressions from the roads of Eastern Poland (as Poland is quite big I would not dare to extrapolate these experiences to the whole of Poland.
Roads are OK, quite narrow most of the time and really no sides for the cyclists to use. The lorry drivers are very correct when they overtake you and they keep a big distance which is good as there is quite a sucking force from a big lorry swishing past you. Most car drivers are also ok, but the exceptions are in particular young males with fancy cars. These guys tend to overtake anybody in tight situations and they also have the annoying habit to blow their horn when they are ten meters behind you, which is quite dangerous as the cyclist almost inevitably start to wobble.
Dogs are almost as bad as in Lithuania (not to speak about the gods.....).
In the places developed for tourism there are plenty of hotels and restaurants, but outside of those areas it is really something that can be quite limiting. Especiall when the weather is bad it is nice to get a cup of tea now and then, but often I had to cycle for hours with absolutely no place to eat. Shops are there, so you can always by beer, cheese, bread and crackers. Like on the picture (I was cold there I can tell)
There are many signs to places to stay, but unfortunately people don't cover them or take them down when they close for the season. After a while I got tired to driving half an hour on a side road just to find the places closed. Otherwise there are plenty of signs to AgroTourism places. The two I tried, I had no success with. They just looked at me as if I was an idiot and shook their heads. In addition I wonder how you can except to get any visitors when you have loose dogs attacking.......
Laundry has been problematic. Only the place in Vilnius had any laundry service. Not even the very helpful Tourist Information offices have had any idea of how to get any laundry done. In the end I can do most of the laundry by hand, but the problem is that when you move almost every day, and they have no heating in the houses and it is very damp, the stuff just don't get dry. The other problem is the clothes that get oily from bike maintenance. The hand washing doesn't really beat the oil.
Enghlish is a lot more useful in Poland than in Lithuania. German is also quite popular. In general the people in Poland are quicker to speak and take contact than the Lithuanians. Partly a language issue, but I think the Lithuanians are just more reserved (like Swedes or Fins). In Lithuania nobody greeted me when I passed them, and when I greeted them, they looked into the ground. In Poland people have greeted me quite often. Having said that, few people know more than a very basic vocabulary.
Apparently I can go for a local as at least five people have stopped me and asked for the way. Even in shops it happened twice that I was asked for where the dog food was (of course I have no idea what they actually asked for, but I found it safest to point to the dog food as both were old alcoholics).
I wrote about shops. In the country side and the small towns most shops are independents, but in the bigger towns you see more and more of the chain shops in particular for food, Carrefour, Tesco, LIdl. And the massive galleria in Krakow beats most places when it comes to offer of stylish expensive brands.....
To change money in Poland is easy (compared to Lithuania where it was hard except for in big cities). You see the sign "Kantor" and that is where you can change. Often they have some other business in the same place, selling coffee, betting or god knows what.
To go by train and bus: Busses are everywhere and with fairly good schedule. In the end I never went by bus, the only time I tried he refused to take my bicycle. (I can understand him asd he had no good space for it). I did take the bicycle on some local trains and that was quite ok. The longer trip to Krakow and Katowice was nice by train. the standard varied a lot, from very basic train with hard board seats to nice seats with 220 volt sockets for each seat. It is very cheap. Katowice - Chelm costed only 53 Zloty (around 15 Euro) and that for a trip of 450 km (which took almost eight hours). The biggest challenge is to find out where the trains go, and they have the same silly system like they have in some other countries, that there are some guys selling tickets but they don't know when the trains go etc. And sometimes you need to know the route of the train before they can issue the ticket as the price may be different depending on the route. Then there are the other guys who give information - but not about the price. It is of course particularly hard when you don't speak the langauge.
Sometimes you do wonder....
Not only dogs are there, but also gods......
Things like this are everywhere both in Poland and Lithuania.
In addition there are smaller crosses where people have died in traffic accidents, quite a good reminder.....
Roads are OK, quite narrow most of the time and really no sides for the cyclists to use. The lorry drivers are very correct when they overtake you and they keep a big distance which is good as there is quite a sucking force from a big lorry swishing past you. Most car drivers are also ok, but the exceptions are in particular young males with fancy cars. These guys tend to overtake anybody in tight situations and they also have the annoying habit to blow their horn when they are ten meters behind you, which is quite dangerous as the cyclist almost inevitably start to wobble.
Dogs are almost as bad as in Lithuania (not to speak about the gods.....).
In the places developed for tourism there are plenty of hotels and restaurants, but outside of those areas it is really something that can be quite limiting. Especiall when the weather is bad it is nice to get a cup of tea now and then, but often I had to cycle for hours with absolutely no place to eat. Shops are there, so you can always by beer, cheese, bread and crackers. Like on the picture (I was cold there I can tell)
There are many signs to places to stay, but unfortunately people don't cover them or take them down when they close for the season. After a while I got tired to driving half an hour on a side road just to find the places closed. Otherwise there are plenty of signs to AgroTourism places. The two I tried, I had no success with. They just looked at me as if I was an idiot and shook their heads. In addition I wonder how you can except to get any visitors when you have loose dogs attacking.......
Laundry has been problematic. Only the place in Vilnius had any laundry service. Not even the very helpful Tourist Information offices have had any idea of how to get any laundry done. In the end I can do most of the laundry by hand, but the problem is that when you move almost every day, and they have no heating in the houses and it is very damp, the stuff just don't get dry. The other problem is the clothes that get oily from bike maintenance. The hand washing doesn't really beat the oil.
Enghlish is a lot more useful in Poland than in Lithuania. German is also quite popular. In general the people in Poland are quicker to speak and take contact than the Lithuanians. Partly a language issue, but I think the Lithuanians are just more reserved (like Swedes or Fins). In Lithuania nobody greeted me when I passed them, and when I greeted them, they looked into the ground. In Poland people have greeted me quite often. Having said that, few people know more than a very basic vocabulary.
Apparently I can go for a local as at least five people have stopped me and asked for the way. Even in shops it happened twice that I was asked for where the dog food was (of course I have no idea what they actually asked for, but I found it safest to point to the dog food as both were old alcoholics).
I wrote about shops. In the country side and the small towns most shops are independents, but in the bigger towns you see more and more of the chain shops in particular for food, Carrefour, Tesco, LIdl. And the massive galleria in Krakow beats most places when it comes to offer of stylish expensive brands.....
To change money in Poland is easy (compared to Lithuania where it was hard except for in big cities). You see the sign "Kantor" and that is where you can change. Often they have some other business in the same place, selling coffee, betting or god knows what.
To go by train and bus: Busses are everywhere and with fairly good schedule. In the end I never went by bus, the only time I tried he refused to take my bicycle. (I can understand him asd he had no good space for it). I did take the bicycle on some local trains and that was quite ok. The longer trip to Krakow and Katowice was nice by train. the standard varied a lot, from very basic train with hard board seats to nice seats with 220 volt sockets for each seat. It is very cheap. Katowice - Chelm costed only 53 Zloty (around 15 Euro) and that for a trip of 450 km (which took almost eight hours). The biggest challenge is to find out where the trains go, and they have the same silly system like they have in some other countries, that there are some guys selling tickets but they don't know when the trains go etc. And sometimes you need to know the route of the train before they can issue the ticket as the price may be different depending on the route. Then there are the other guys who give information - but not about the price. It is of course particularly hard when you don't speak the langauge.
Sometimes you do wonder....
Not only dogs are there, but also gods......
Things like this are everywhere both in Poland and Lithuania.
In addition there are smaller crosses where people have died in traffic accidents, quite a good reminder.....
Kommentarer
Postat av: KB
hi hi - do you always point to the dog food :) that's very funny - did the old alcoholics also find it funny??
hugs from a snowy Sweden!
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