When I pulled open the curtains this morning I got the sunshine straight into my eyes. Blue sky and winds from the northwest promised us a nice day in our saddles.
Although mostly brown fields, trees without leaves and a broken snow cover, we enjoyed the scenery. The landscape had no real hills and whenever the road was not flat it was only slowly bringing us up or down the hills. The Saturday morning also meant significantly less traffic.
First time we had to stop for a train
When we set out in the morning we didn’t know really where to go. Ania, our host in Gdynia, had recommended to visit the old town of Chelmno which was some 60-70 km away. Since it was so good conditions I had my eyes on Torun which was 120 km away.
At an intersection just after the little town of Skorcz we had to make up our minds and we decided to go for Chelmno. That meant we could avoid the more busy road 214 and go on a smaller road. The road we chose immediately turned out to have a rough surface and it would get worse.
When we studied the map at the next intersection in the middle of a forest, a sausage on four legs from a nearby house ran out to sniff at us. It barked and wagged its tail and let us say hello to it. It then ran after us for more than 2 km – imagine how far that is if you have legs that are only 15 cm long….
The bad road before it got a lot worse. I was so mad I wouldn’t bother to make a photo of it.
All of a sudden the dog stopped and stood still looking at us as we pedaled on. It was then that the road changed from really bad and bumpy to almost completely unridable. From having had bad asphalt it now got a surface of large round stones. Those stones were covered by snow and ice and we couldn’t figure out what was worst. The slippery snow or the bumpy stones where there was little snow. This section lasted for about 10 km and we slipped, fell, yelled and cursed our map that included this road on a national road map. Eventually we got out but we had been seriously delayed.
We wondered why the dog stopped running after us in the matter of a second – we now know why…. 😉
When we got to the first village after the forest road we went straight to the nearest gas station to get some coffee which we had with some slices of bread that Ulrika in Bräkne Hoby had provided us with. It still tastes great Ulrika – thanks a lot for today’s lunch 🙂
Having a sandwich from the bread Ulrika gave us
While we sat on our sleeping mat outside the gas station we decided that Torun was completely out of reach today. It had to be Chelmno and I contacted our friend Ania to ask her to help out to make a reservation for a room. 20 minutes later I got the confirmation and we started to head for Chelmno.
Chelmno is an medival town on a big hill and the last part up to the hotel was really tough. We followed the GPS and it told us to take the shorter way up some pedestrian stairs. It was indeed shorter, but it was steep and tough work.
The old city hall in Chelmno
The accomodation that Aina booked for us was a little cute and nice hotel. In the evening we went out to have some Polish dinner and my dish was very similar to ”Kåldolmar” which we in Sweden claim to be ”our” dish. It reminded us of when we in Lithuania ordered a dish that was promised to be typical lithuanian and got ”kroppkakor” which the people in the southeast of Sweden claim to be theirs….. All this just show that cultural boundaries are felxible.