Day 13: Grudziądz to Starogard Gdański

The river levels, if anything, rose overnight. No chance of taking the waterfront cycle path this morning (pic). Though it would have been a chance for me to use my trunks, about the only thing in my panniers I haven't managed to use since arriving in Albania so long ago.



After a week and a half of pancake-flat central Poland, the 'hill town' of Nowe (pic), all of maybe 40m high, came as quite a shock. I used my bike's granny ring for the first time since Zakopane.



Most of today was again easy, pleasant riding through very gently undulating landscape (pic). And, again, it put me in mind of eastern England. Perhaps that's why there are so many Polish fruit-pickers and vegetable-harvesters in East Anglia, round Boston say. They must feel at home, particularly with so little to do in the evening.

I had a coffee in the small, amiable town of Skórcz, where the cafe-pizzeria proprietor was so impressed by my End to End trip – and the fact I could tell him in Polish, more or less – I scored a free biscuit.



The final run to my destination town for the day was on quite a fast road, but I had a stroke of luck. I tucked behind a JCB digger-tractor-thing (pic) that trundled along a few miles to the next roadworks, providing not only a shield to slow down traffic that might otherwise have close-passed me, but also a handy drafting opportunity. He was going about my ideal speed, ie 8mph or so.



This is what the roadworks was all about (pic): a new segregated bike lane being built for a few miles into the town of Starogard Gdański. It will provide safe, convenient cycle access into the town. Or more likely – to judge by my impression of a friendly but rather dull, prosaic place without much in the way of an entertainment district – out of it.

Miles today: 46
Miles since Polish border: 488

Day 12: Toruń to Grudziądz

The longest mileage of the trip so far – but it felt wonderfully easy, thanks to a good railtrail, quiet flat roads, sunny but not overhot weather, and no wind. And a cream horn.



A good, 21st-century standard, segregated cycleway took me out from the centre of lovely Toruń, eventually turning into a surprisingly good, smoothly-tarmacked railtrail (pic).

I was making excellent, fast progress. In fact, in the time it took me to do 12km, I only moved from No 12 to No 11 in the phone queue to make an appointment with the doctor back home in York, so I gave up. By the time I fix one up, I'll be either cured or dead.

In the small town of Unisław I had breakfast: a cream horn, which wasn't real cream (it was buttermilk), and wasn't a real horn (it was made of pastry, not brass), but was plenty tasty and saw me through the morning.



Lunch, 30 lovely easy miles into the ride, was at Chełmno, whose beautiful old town square boasts perhaps Poland's finest town hall (pic) and several patio bistros, with domestic tourists chatting away happily and German visitors complaining about the beer.

I cycled round Chełmno's famous city walls (pic) which are almost intact.

Though that's hardly surprising, as they were built by Polish builders out of brick (pic).

They probably worked bank holidays to finish it on time.

Hurtling along the cycleway north from Chełmno, I stopped to admire a couple of storks' nests.

The first had a parent feeding its chicks, the second (pic) this pair.

I saw plenty more wildlife on the road today, including a fox, a shrew, a grass snake and several species of snail, but unfortunately they were all, er, dead and, um, squashed.

The WTR (Wiślana Trasa Rowerowa, '[River] Vistula Cycle Route') is a bit makeshift, and rarely gives you any views of the river itself. It struck me as a dutiful but unconvincing attempt to copy Germany's wonderful river routes: unlike there, the Vistula has no towpath (so you have to take roads out of sight of the water) and as Poland is so flat there's no scenic benefit or hill-dodging advantage in following the 'river valley' (so you may as well take any old A to B route).



Still, on the approach to Grudziądz, the route did take us up on to a rough flood-bank-top track, giving rare but sweeping views of the river, swollen big time by recent rains (pic). Several families (some members in swimming costumes) and cyclists had come here to rubberneck the high water. Which is more a comment on how much there is to do round here, rather than the severity of the floods, I think.



As I cycled through the suburbs, I was mildly uplifted by the lively colour schemes of the blocks of flats (pic)...



...and even more uplifted by this riverside bar by the entrance to the old town (pic). There's something very satisfying about sitting in the sun after a decent day's ride a few minutes from your accommodation and watching liquid flow rapidly.

Miles today: 52
Miles since Polish border: 442

Day 11: Włocławek to Toruń

Probably the best 'cycle touring' day of the cycle tour so far. In other words, a day that demonstrated what cycle touring is really for.

No, I don't mean making friends and relatives at home jealous with Facebook posts. I mean a varied and unfolding day of weather that got better and better, of lanes and landscapes that got more interesting, and of coming upon hitherto unknown places by chance that turned out to be delightful. And cakes. And all enhanced by experiencing it on two wheels.

I was pleased to depart from my rather drab, cheap, wifi-less, industrial-estate hotel in Włocławek very early, around 7am. It's clearly a working-blokes' sort of place: lots of men in grubby work clothes leaving for another day's hard graft. So I felt I belonged, because so was I.

Just up from the hotel I joined the WTR (Wiślana Trasa Rowerowa, '[River] Vistula Cycle Route'). This is a 230km signed trail alongside the river which I'll be following, on and off, from now to Gdańsk in a few days' time. It's no Danube Path – but then, where is? – and feels a bit half-hearted in its execution, but it's a mildly interesting and useful basis for route-planning.



It started with a splendidly industrial feel, routing me through chemical works, bitumen plants, fertiliser factories and goods-train marshalling yards (pic). Which I love, I really do, so long as it's only one element of a varied mix: part of the joy of cycle touring is seeing a place in all its reality, from humdrum industrial areas to beautiful scenic idylls...



...beautiful scenic idylls not featuring strongly in rural Poland, of course. But, after a week of rather monotonous flat farmland in which the only entertainment was to watch the wind turbines rotating, at least I was now beginning to get some variety in terms of river views (pic).



The WTR took me along several tracks (hooray for my trekking bike etc) which looked almost English at times: this sandy scene (pic) could have been on the East Anglia, East Yorkshire or Lancashire coast.

The headwinds gradually abated, the sun gradually came out, and the sugar rush from the doughnut I bought from a tiny local sklep gradually kicked in.

In the small town of Nieszawa I was amused by this house decoration (pic)...



...and relieved that I hadn't planned a route that involved the town's ferry across the Vistula (pic). Following heavy rain, the river is very high – they're talking floods in Warsaw – and the boat wasn't running today for obvious reasons.



A pleasant surprise awaited me in Ciechocinek, merely a place on the map for me until I arrived in the sun. It's a spa town, popular with domestic coach parties strolling its pleasant gardens, pedestrianised streets and parks. Which means that, unlike most Polish places of this size, there were plenty of cafes and cake shops (pic). Well, what's the point of knowing a bit of refreshment-related Polish if you don't use it...?



I like serendipity, especially when you come upon it by chance. Ciechocinek, it turned out, is famous for these things: yes, you guessed, brine graduation towers. They're special towers which graduate brine. And these ones here are, indeed, the world's biggest. In fact, they graduated more brine than any other towers. Quite impressive indeed; I'd thought they were watchtowers and the remains of some politically divisive wall.

Also admiring the wall I saw the only other cycle tourist I can remember all trip. I didn't get the chance to talk to him because he saw me first.



And so – by some lovely tracks through woods, some fast pleasant wide hard shoulders on main roads, and some impressive new segregated infra taking cyclists over the Vistula – I arrived in beautiful Toruń (pic), home of both Copernicus and gingerbread.

Thanks to having escaped the bombs in World War II, the extensive old town (pic) is an absolute treasure: a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of Poland's Seven Wonders, of which I have now seen six.

I visited the fascinating Copernicus Museum, in the very building where Dr Nick was born in 1473, or perhaps somewhere else. I knew that his 1543 book De Revolutionibus had shaken up mainstream religion by asserting the earth revolved round the sun, not vice-versa.

But I didn't know he had also anticipated 'Gresham's Law' ('bad money drives out good', an effect familiar to all Premier League football fans). The museum is free on Wednesdays, which saved me 15 zlotys, which I therefore spent on a kebab. I don't know if there's a financial law describing that effect.

Earlier on in the day I'd passed a distillery called Copernicus. It made me wonder if the fearless astronomer had got his inspiration for heliocentricity after overdoing the vodka one night. And realising that the room was not, despite appearances, revolving round his head.

Miles today: 41
Miles since Polish border: 390

Day 10: Strzelce Kujawskie to Włocławek

A short day today, with the now-familiar range of riding: quiet back lanes where I was more likely to encounter a deer or hare than a car, farm-track shortcuts to test my front suspension*, bumpy cycle paths through woods ditto*, and fast main roads with wide shoulders that are effectively noisy, but safe, cycle lanes.

A feature of the fast main road (between Kowal and Włocławek) was the presence of garden chairs left out by the side of the road. Who on earth would want to sit and watch traffic all afternoon?

The zloty dropped a little further along when I saw a couple of the chairs occupied. By heavily made-up women wearing long coats and extravagant footwear, chewing gum and scanning their mobile phones. Ah.



Anyway, I got to my destination of the workaday town of Włocławek (pic) by lunchtime. This was partly with forecast afternoon thunderstorms in mind (though they never really arrived), and partly because I had bits of admin to do, such as buying train tickets out of Poland next week*, or restocking on razors**.



Here, I said hello again to the Wisła (pic), Poland's longest river. I last saw it in Kraków, and from now I'll be following it more or less all the way to Gdańsk. For scenic beauty, it's probably up there in the top ten of world rivers that have a letter 'ł' in their name.

The hotel internet was down, so my plans for an evening of internet admin, booking accomm and so on, were scuppered. I had to spend the evening spotting the franchise programmes on Polish TV. So far I've seen Who wants to be a millionaire, Come dine with me and Big Brother. Even though I can't understand a word, I know exactly what's going on.

*Passed.
**Failed.

Miles today: 38
Miles since Polish border: 349

Day 9: Łódź to Strzelce Kujawskie

Another gloriously sunny day, with easy, flat, tailwind-assisted cycling through quiet rural back lanes, my progress further speeded up thanks to new streamlining from yesterday's haircut.



Here's a typical view. I've seen a handful of road cyclists in all the gear so far, but by far the majority of people on two wheels are like this chap (pic), evidently on his way home from the shop with a bag full of clanking bottles. Well, this far into the countryside, the nearest bar could be miles away, and he clearly isn't taking any chances.

Today's route had several more shortcuts on tracks and unmade roads (pic).

These saved me going two sides of a triangle, three sides of a square, or in general n sides of an n+1agon for n>2.

However, whether or not they saved time was sometimes a moot point.

This farm track turned out to be thick sand, ideal for filling an escape lane on long downhills for lorries whose brakes have failed, but not ideal for cycling.



I stopped for 'lunch' (actually a bottle of Pepsi and a bag of crisps) in Kutno (pic), having a couple of pleasant basic conversations in Polish. One was buying a stamp for England, the other telling a mother with a desperate child where the railway station toilet was.

At least I think they were. My postcard may end up going to Ukraine and the kid may have gone in the goods wagon.

Polish villages and hamlets all have some sort of shrine to the Virgin or Jesus, but don't seem to have anywhere to sit.

No picnic tables, benches outside the grocery store or seats by the green, nothing like that.

So my cake break is often at a bus stop (pic), the only place to sit/ shelter from rain/ get some shade/ avoid the wind etc.

This particular gateau was Special Promotion flavour.



Anyway, after plenty more of this sort of smooth, untrafficked back road (pic), past a few languid wind turbines...



...and this sort of chalky or stony unmade track (pic), shortcutting between villages, I got to my remote rural guesthouse for the night.

I haven't taken my bike into the room, because you know what it's like when tyres are all gritty and dusty with bits of gunge stuck in the tread? That's what they'd be like after being wheeled across the floor. It's clearly not seen a vacuum cleaner for quite a while.

But it's nice to be in the middle of nature, and hear natural sounds such as the chirp of birds and the evening chorus of insects. I just wish so many of them weren't in my room.

Miles today: 45
Miles since Polish border: 311

Day 8: Łódź

A half-way rest day today, exploring Łódź by bike. In the morning, with yesterday's crowds now sleeping things off, Piotrkowska Street was deserted, and I could go Art Nouveau spotting (pic) without getting in the way of some city bike-hire tourist, wobbling chaotically around on an unsuitably heavy bike. Me wobbling, that is, not them.



Łódź is a city of parks – over 40, it's said – and I spent a pleasant morning in, among others, Mickiewicza Park (pic), enjoying an ice-cream and an all-ability family concert. Well, I say enjoying...



This is what a lot of postwar Łódź was like, as the economy collapsed under communist rule: huge, derelict textile factories, like this one (pic) on a large site being gradually redeveloped to the south-east of the centre. I nipped in to the Museum of Film – this is Poland's capital of film-making – which was very good, but everything was in Polish. Luckily there were some moving pictures to help me.



And this is what happens after redevelopment: Manufaktura (pic), a sort of Łódź equivalent of Meadowhall – except a lot more bike-friendly, and with a modern art gallery among all the chain stores and retail outlets.

Actually the art was a bit rubbish. The bike racks were much more aesthetically pleasing. All they need is one of those waffly art-speak descriptions on a card next to them and you'd think they were daring modern works that blur boundaries and ask questions etc.



Back on Piotrkowska I paused to admire local boy done good Artur Rubinstein about to launch into Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2...

...and found a place to park my bike that would remind me of where I was if I forgot. After a while on these trips there's a risk places all blur into each other.

Then I had an appointment at the hairdresser's for a long overdue trim. Yes, I've been travelling that long...

Miles today: 16

Day 7: Janów to Łódź

On a lovely sunny day, a delightful, easy, flat ride through gentle countryside ending in one of Poland's most vibrantly rebooted, and confusingly pronounced, cities. From woods to, well, Łódź. (Granted, that doesn't really work if you don't know Polish orthography.)



I'm on my trekking bike for this trip. It was a clanky, heavy old Scott MX1 mountain bike, before I heavily modified it for touring. Making it clankier and heavier in the process, in other words. But it meant I could cycle easily through a series of short-cuts through woods on tracks and paths (pic) saving myself around twenty km of road.

These bits were lovely, with the only sounds being birdsong echoing around the trees. This was thanks to my drivetrain no longer squealing, the result of my having begged some lube from the friendly hosts of my fabulous guesthouse last night.



Most of the day was like this (pic): tranquil riding on virtually empty country lanes. Polish villages and hamlets are not picture-postcard pretty, I have to admit. Like I say, it reminds me of East Yorkshire's featureless Holderness plains, so presumably Philip Larkin would have written loads of poems celebrating the gentle, quiet mundanity of these places.

Not sure what he'd get to rhyme with sklep spożywczy ('grocery store'), przystanek autobusowy ('bus stop') or uwaga! ciągniki! ('beware! tractors!') though.



In several villages you see cows grazing in people's gardens (pic). These ones are auditioning for a cover shoot on the remix of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother.

And so to lively Łódź, pronounced 'woodge', hence the joke in the first paragraph. Once a byword for dull grey postwar decline and a place even bears would avoid, Łódź has reinvented itself as a thriving city of street art, commerce and pavement cafe-bars.



Old textile factories are now cultural and shopping centres, and the main drag, Piotrkowska Street, has a mile-long pedestrianised centre buzzing with bars, restos, cafes, artisan shops and street art. And it's bike-friendly, making it easy and pleasant for all to get around (pic).

Taxis are allowed, but thanks to being heavily outnumbered by pedestrians and cyclists, they can only be slightly impatient and annoying, instead of very.

Łódź is a big, sprawling place – it's nicknamed 'the Manchester of Poland', for industrial history rather than footballing reasons – and when I visited last time in 2015 I found it too big to walk around, ambling between bars rather than hiking out to its various architectural attractions, parks and museums.

But if you have a bike there's plenty to see, and so as this is the halfway point in the End to End ride, I'm taking a day off tomorrow to roam the city.

This, for example, is St Alexander Nevsky (pic), a fine Orthodox church that I stumbled on while riding round in the evening.

Mind you, I was looking urgently for a toilet at the time, so wasn't in the best frame of mind to appreciate the design.



As I sat enjoying a £1 pint with my burger at one of Piotrkowska's patio bistros, there was a stark reminder of the rise of right-wing nationalism that's here in Poland as much as in Britain and elsewhere in Europe: a small but vociferous demo (pic) of a local 'traditional values' party (translation: no minorities).



But compare their turnout to the number of people who ran, jogged, glided, scurried, walked or shuffled past my table at the climax of the 10km 'Rossmann Run', which finished along the same stretch of street a couple of hours later (pic). It seems that far more of the city is up for a bit of celebratory, benignly competitive fun running together than being far-right reactionary nutters. So I was happy.

Until I realised my hostel was the other side of the runners, so I'd have to wait twenty minutes before I could cross and head for my shower.

Poland is one of the most homogenous-white countries in the world, and you rarely see a black or brown face. At least we did this evening – they were the ones way out in front, finishing first, being roundly cheered.

Miles today: 41
Miles since Polish border: 266

Day 6: Częstochowa to Janów

I enjoyed my morning shower in the hostel just as much as I enjoyed the one last night. Not at all, in other words, as there was still no hot water. But warmed up by an Aldi pastry on the outskirts of town, I headed north out of Częstochowa along the busy 483 for the first half of the day.

Websites on cycling in Poland reckon the standard of driving isn't very good, but I found it very skilful indeed. Vehicle after vehicle could pass within six inches of me and yet not quite make contact.



More mystery animal sculptures, after the elephants and dinosaurs of Day 2: this bison (pic), outside a supermarket in Nowa Brzeźnica, guarding the bike racks. There was another bison outside the rival supermarket opposite guarding their bike racks. A subliminal advertising ploy by the brewery Żubr ('bison'), perhaps? In which case it didn't work. I got cherry Coke.



The second half of the day was on tranquil, almost untrafficked back lanes threading through woods (pic), farmland and backwater villages. Each would have a handful of houses, a church, a roadside shrine or two, a little grocery store, and a few old locals making stately progress on bikes, toting shopping bags, heading who knows where. They no doubt thought I was one of them.



At times the gentle, flat scenery (pic) reminded me very much of my regular ride between York and Hull to see my mum. Though while I've seen many a red kite in East Yorkshire, I've never seen an eagle, which I did rather thrillingly today, flying about 50m in front of me and very low to the ground.



Indeed, a feature of the view west from anywhere between York and Hull is the power station at Drax. Well, this part of Poland can beat that. The power station outside Bełchatów, visible for miles around (pic), is quite a record breaker.

The largest coal-fired power station in the world, it produces 20% of the country's entire electricity supply, produces more CO2 than any other European entity, and is the most climate-damaging power plant in the EU, according to the European Commission. Nationalist far-right Poles, on the rise here, must be very proud of it.

I checked into my rural accomm in a lovely villa house in the village of Janów in mid-afternoon, and enjoyed a soak in the feature bathtub. Unlike my morning shower, there was plenty of hot water. I can see the power station that helped produce it from my window, and I'm feeling a little guilty.

Miles today: 48
Miles since Polish border: 225

Day 5: Ogrodzieniec to Częstochowa

This was what most of today's riding was like (pic), with the shared-use cycleways that ran officially or unofficially for most of the route. It was a day of railway station coffee, petrol station hot dogs, drippy woods, puddled roads and wet feet.

At least heavy morning rain had meant I didn't have to feel guilty about a lie-in. Even when I set off, after nine, it was still lightly drizzling, and continued so all the way to Częstochowa. Added to the cold, rather dreary busy roads, and steady traffic mostly passing a bit close for comfort when I had to share the road with them, and it was just like being at home.

In fact, it felt very similar to my first UK End to End, in 1997, during the wettest June for 136 years. It all made me just so happy, re-experiencing that excitement. Really. Start with low expectations and you'll only be pleasantly surprised. The Poles – unfussy, unselfish, hard-working, like Britain's northerners – would recognise that.



I arrived at Częstochowa around two, giving me plenty of time to explore Poland's most sacred city, and a magnet for millions of pilgrims a year. (Nearly 90% of Poles identify as Roman Catholic, and almost a third of the entire country attend church regularly.)The central square has a statue of John Paul II (pic), as in every other Polish city in the world, though he does look a bit old and tired in this one. Perhaps no wonder, having modelled for so many other statues.

The statue is the start of a remarkable mile-long walkway for pilgrims to approach the destination monastery of Jasna Góra, home of the renowned 'Black Madonna' icon.

From Jasna Góra itself there's a commanding view back down the walkway (pic) to the church of St Sigmund and, er, a massive factory chimney.

During religious festivals and summer this is jam-packed with the faithful. On rainy Thursdays out of season it's only home to a few visitors and cycle tourists looking for somewhere cheap to eat.

Jasna Góra itself is the full-on Catholic experience of ornate gold-leaf baroque church decor, with technicolour ceilings and Cinemascope statuary choreographed by Cecil B de Mille.

And of course there's the Black Madonna herself, said to have been painted by St Luke himself on a table-top, perhaps waiting for his chicken and rice to arrive.

There she is (pic), now decorated with priceless gold and jewels, in the Chapel of Our Lady, being venerated by the kneeling congregation in a patella-busting Mass that looked like it was going on for hours.

(The 'Black' indeed refers to her skin colour, but it's down to ancient fire damage, and nothing to do with any African heritage, so it may only be a matter of time before she's accused of cultural appropriation.)

A pizza and an early night tonight, and the weather is looking better for tomorrow... I hope.

Miles today: 41
Miles since Polish border: 177