Wednesday 13th September
From mountains, forests and valleys, we're heading once more into the city. This time it's Kraków. We have errands to run on the way, the food shop, an obligatory fly-by to Decathlon to replace a lost item. This time it's my cycling sun-visor. It's been so sunny that I'm struggling without it, my reactolite cycling glasses don't adapt quickly enough to dappled sunlight and the road surfaces in places are patchy and potholed. It's a good few hours of motorway driving, with no more than the now familiar convoy of lorries to note. We realise that in the grand scheme of things that we've been in Lower Silesia this last two weeks, one might say not Poland proper at all after 500 years of being part of Germany. I'm on the lookout for any discernible change in architectural detailing, but there's not much to see enroute. It's the hottest day yet, and we arrive just before dusk to Camping Smok, not far from the Vistula river. Grumpy from the drive, Richard does not hit it off with the campsite manager, and only pays for one night. As the evening unfolds and after supper and a beer, we warm to the campsite. In the morning I try my luck and make a new friend of her, she initiates me into the workings of the washing machine and it's all smiles as we pay for 3 more nights. I particularly like the self catering shelter here - it's a perfect yoga studio, and there's a little terrace to write. The summer season is well and truly over but this little campsite is the most international yet. Of the 10 or so visitors, there are one of each of Germans, French, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, Italians, Belgians, Austrians, Czechs and a very rare sight - another British couple in a little vintage caravan.
Thursday 14th September
We've swotted up on 'unusual things to see in Krakow' and head off to explore. It's overcast as we set out along the river route into the city. This being Poland 'proper, the Jewish history is very prominent in the tourist offering. We choose not to join a guided tour, but ensure that on our self guided route we find specific sites of interest. The perimeter of the Ghetto for example now with scant visible remains, the Schindler factory, the old Jewish Quarter on the other side of the vistula. Our friend Steve recommended the cafe on the top floor of the Cricoteka building, an old power plant on the banks of the river , converted by WIZA architects into a permanent home for the work of avant-garde performance artist, Tadeusz Kantor museum in 2014. It's a stunning building and an excellent Cafe. We also enjoy the permanent exhibition there.
We ride further up strem and come across a 'village' of allotment plots. Unlike allottments back home with vegetables and small tool sheds these are like mini Dachas, small shacks each one unique with a little garden with mostly flowers. to me they are most reminiscent of british seaside bathing huts. This is a Polish thing I think.
Richard gets a haircut while I sit and contemplate in the Ghetto Heroes Square, watching visitors come and go, transported to another time.
We ride further up strem and come across a 'village' of allotment plots. Unlike allottments back home with vegetables and small tool sheds these are like mini Dachas, small shacks each one unique with a little garden with mostly flowers. to me they are most reminiscent of british seaside bathing huts. This is a Polish thing I think.
Richard gets a haircut while I sit and contemplate in the Ghetto Heroes Square, watching visitors come and go, transported to another time.
We've been out all day, and it's dark cycling back. Empty batteries mean I get told off by other urban cyclists as we head back to the campsite, taking an off road route eventually, in the dark. They say you should do at least one thing a day which you find challenging !
Friday 15th September
We set some time aside this morning to do some admin, Richard has an online client meeting, I have journal entries to write up. It's good to have a bit of down time. We explore other routes to ParkRun tomorrow morning, and head back in for an afternoon of cafe and bar hopping. We spend a bit more time in this city, and people watching in the central square. We manage to find an elusive pair of Keen sandals, at a bargain price, for Richard. This has been an ongoing low-key mission this trip. His 20 year old pair finally gave up just before we left and he's still been wearing them despite them falling apart. He is delighted. I have my first bowl of Polish Borscht and dumplings in a pop up food market, why did it take me so long!?
Saturday 16th September
Another warm ParkRun welcome - loads of UK runners at this one. We get chatting with a couple of Scottish women, and get some tips of what else to see in Krakow before we leave. We treat ourselves to breakfast at the Kantor museum cafe for a second time, and afterwards watch the world go by, by the river.
A stripped to the waist, long haired man has stopped his ancient creaking bicycle below us on the footpathHe has a bucket and a bag. He looks like a chubby Jesus. He turns his bike upside down and tries to fix the loose back wheel. He has the tools but as the minute silently tick by, it seems past repair, unfixable. After a long time, he deems it done, puts some air into his tires, as though that will help, packs his things away and cycles off, the bike still creak, the tire flat. We move on too, convinced it was a performance piece.
We cycle yet another route back to the campsite past more garden allotments to change and shower. Just as I'm getting some journaling done Richard says 'how do you fancy going back to check out the shoe shop, it's really to good to miss'. We do, and I am now also a Keen sandal convert. As we cycle back we stop for a sundown beer at a hotel terrace on the park boulevard where we started the morning. Irene and Dorothy, the Scots from Parkrun appear and join us for a drink before they head off for a night on the town and we head off to bed. it's quite humiliating as Irene is in her 70s!
Sunday 17th September
We leave early and park in a field near the Ojcow National Park. It's a lovely day and the route is through woodland and a nature trail through limestone rock formations, to a castle and along the most popular cycle route I have ever come across in the countryside It's clearly a very popular day out. We may not have received the memo but there is definitely a bank holiday feel in the air. There are entire families on bikes, even on the roads in between the cyclepaths. Every now and then there are huts serving smoked trout. It's quite a tough ride for us, 30 miles in all, and we're happily tired as we get back to the van and head to Camping Molo, the nearest campsite to Oświęcim, renamed Auschwitz by the Nazis.
Monday 18th September
Our intention has always been to visit Auschwitz & Birkenau when we planned this trip. Over the last couple of days. I've noticed a slight increase in tension as we get closer to the visit. We booked it a week ago online. I've read around the subject a bit previously, so it's not as though any of it is going to be a surprise, but I am aware that physically being there will be different. The campsite is 14k away, and the landscape as flat as a pancake. Equally closeby is a giant theme-park "Energylandia"with rollercoasters and big wheels which all seems a bit surreal.
Camping Molo is more of a resort, it has a hotel a large leisure lake with paddle boards and giant swan boats. The camping area is quiet and removed from the business there. We have one last ride in Poland, into the hills nearby. The root takes us through some reasonable sized towns such as XXX and it's totally over the top church but it's strangely difficult to find somewhere for coffee. So we stop in the middle of nowhere and eat Richard's now legendary ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches and are just grateful to be out in nature. We do eventually find a bar and enjoy a beer before returning to camping Molo for an early night, before our visit to Auschwitz which starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning. We treat ourselves to a surprisingly good meal at the hotel with a Lakeside view.
Tuesday 19th September
The booking process to visit Auschwitz is quite formal. You have to name everyone in your party and bring identification. The security is understandably quite high. We get there so early that we're first into the car park, but there is very little information about how to pay for your parking spot. It's raining which somehow feels fitting and I can't help but think of people arriving there without knowing any anything about what happens next, what the rules are, how things work. We sit in the van and wait. Make a cup of tea. Have something to eat. Use the toilet. For days now I've been thinking about how even those basics were not available to the people deported there. Eventually the car park comes to life, and a young man knocks on the window with the payment machine. By now it's time to go in to the reception building. There's not much signage or information. Our english language guided tour starts at 8.30. We work out that we have to get our passes scanned and be issued a sticker. It's disconcerting to watch groups pass through the large waiting area all seeming to know where they're going, the only reassurance is the clock which is not yet at 8.30. A few more people gather looking as uncertain as us. At exactly 8.30 a small woman in an anorak appears . She is Natalia, our guide.
The tour starts in a cinema. she leaves us there saying the brief introduction will start soon. the seconds tick by just long enough to make me wonder what I would do if it didn't start. It does. I can relax. The tour is excellent. we are issued with headphone and transmitters. Natalia can speak to us without shouting as we go along. This means that other groups can be in close proximity, but we are all guided without distraction. For me the orientation is everything, an understanding of the timeline, of the different phases of the camps, the different groups of captives and the geographical distances. I already knew that the inhabitants of the towns and villages nearby had been expelled from their homes to make way for the expansion of what were originally Polish Army brick barracks. There are some shocking moments. The mood of our group is sombre. We all have coats or umbrellas and sensible shoes which get wet anyway, another modern-day contrast with the past.
The contrast between Auschwitz 1 & 2 and Birkenau is marked. The conservation work that is ongoing ensures that these wooden huts are as primitive and inadequate as the ever were. The efficiency of the Nazi forced labour and extermination project is chilling in its industrialised efficiency. We decide to read (listen) again to Primo Levi's remarkable memoir 'If this is a Man' and to rewatch the documentary 'Shoah" which made such an impact when we first saw it 30-odd years ago. There's also a podcast 'On Auschwitz' which is excellent.
Wednesday 20th September
After Auschwitz we hit the road. This is our last week but we decide it will be a slow journey home rather than one long slog. That gravitational pull strengthens. We hit a rhythm of one hour on, one off driving and spend the night just across the Czech border in a large empty campsite. We realize that neither of us knows much about Czech History, and didn't even know that like the Polish they have kept their own currency.
We're heading to Prague and get there early enough to spend the day exploring. We don't do it justice! I find it overwhelming, rammed with splendour and extraordinary buildings, opulent and glorious and also rammed with visitors on this sunny September day. I'm not sorry to have a quiet supper in the rather lovely campsite bar on the side of the Vltava river, making a mental note to come again and do it properly.
Thursday 21st September
We're not quite done with the Nazis. We're enroute to Heidelberg and stop in Nuremberg. The Germans don't shy away from the past either, as evidenced by the treatment of the remains of the monumental testament to Hitler's ego. The home of Nazi party conference from 1933, and the scene of the famous rallies, it's here as another reminder, set in parkland that's been reclaimed. There's an exhibition that tells the story with no holds barred.
Heidelberg has a culturally richer past in recompense. It's another riverside Campsite, this time the river Neckar. This ones big and busy, with swans and ducks.
Friday 22nd September
One last scheduled ride, along the river and into the hills. Pretty German towns, and more pasture livestock than we've seen so far anywhere. No coffee stop though until just before we start climbing. There's a small fishing hut, you can buy fish there, fish in their ponds, or have a coffee. It's a family affair , like walking into someone's front room, a baby gate up. There's a young woman with perfect english and her parents. We have coffee in Christmas mugs. She's heading into the village for an ice-cream with her children and recommends we get one on the way, we do and have a nice chat with her, brought up in Afghanistan where she learnt English, then returning to Germany, following in her father's footsteps as a medical equipment technologist. Our weather app fails us for the first time and we get our only thorough soaking of the whole trip. Instead of ending the ride in Heidelberg we head back to camp to dry off. I put a load of washing on (I like to come home with minimal washing to do) and then when the skies clear and the sun comes out we ride the 4k into town.
Heidelberg is long and strung out along the river, an ancient University town and the birthplace of printing. It's full of visitors, cafes, bars, restaurants. I like it, and can imagine spending more time here too. We sit and drink beer , people watch and browse for somewhere interesting to eat. we've found that if you search for vegetarian places (we're not), we often strike gold, well something different at any rate. We do - a new restaurant serving small dishes with interesting reflective windows, and chefs out in view. They've only been open four weeks, and are trying hard. They let us stay until another downpour stops and we escape another drenching by cycling the fastest I have for a while with full lights blazing all the way back on the cycle lane back to camp.
We've made a special arrangement to get out early before the barriers are officially open on the campsite - they've left the barrier unlocked ( I'm often concerned about how people could leave in an emergency on campsites with barriers!) We're due in Speyer ParkRun for a 9am start, and make it in plenty of time. It's a varied course along the Rhine and through the Cathedral park. They warn us in the briefing about 'the Bridge of Doom It's a play on words apparently - it's Dome,. In reality it's steep little bridge you cross back and fore 4 times - the first time is the worst!
They have coffee bread and cake at the finishing line (very small numbers). We wave goodbye and thank you. The car park has filled up with hundreds of Cosplay enthusiast young and old heading to the science museum - a surreal lasting visual memory.
Several hours later, having crossed Belgium we arrive in Gravelines, historic place. Put on the western borders of Spanish territory in Flanders once, and as a consequence was heavily fortified. We've parked our van right by the starshaped fort. The holy Emperor, Charles the fifth, and Henry VIII of England met here famously and in 1588, the Royal Navy launched the fire ships attack against the Spanish Armada at anchor.
And we're just here, parked up at the side of the road for the night, ready to drive the 30 minutes to get to the channel tunnel by 6.30 am.
Sunday 24th September
We've both been dreading the drive back from Dover home. It's Sunday though so the traffic is not that bad and neither of us tired that we are forgets to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Whilst we've been gone. The Welsh government have implemented a 20 mile an hour speed restriction in built-up areas, and we're curious to know what that's going to be like. As cyclists, and living in a small village that cars speed through, we rather be looking forward to it. Emotions in the media are quite high however.
We get home at lunchtime. The house is clean and tidy, the cat turns up at 5 o'clock and is remarkably pleased to see us.
I've loved the journey, the adventure, but I do love being home.
credit - all the really good pictures : Richard Webb ;)
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