Re-Routing Onto Quieter Roads

Several months prior to leaving on our bike trip, we planned our itinerary in detail. This included not only reserving all of our hotels, but also choosing all roads that we intended to bike along. We did the routing on a computer, using a mapping program (Mapsource) and a computerized map of every road in Europe, and then transferred the route to GPS units that attach to our handlebars. Since we had never cycled in Eastern Europe, we had to make educated guesses about how bikable various roads would be.

On our ride yesterday (Friday), our first full day in Poland, we found that the type of highway that we had chosen for most of our routing in this country is not well suited to biking, as we had a tense day on heavily trafficked roads with no shoulders and cars and trucks passing us at high speeds. Because of that, last night we revamped our route for today, choosing smaller roads (though this increased the length of the route from 57 to 67 miles). As a result, we had a very enjoyable ride today, on fairly small roads with relatively few cars and trucks. We are now in our hotel room, revising the routes for the next several days, a process that will involve at least one hotel change.

Remapping our route on computer & transferring to GPS

Quiet road in the countryside, as a result of re-routing

Gate to a walled town on route

Cycling through a small village

Mid-morning break at a store selling candy and soda

The back patio of our destination hotel, decorated for a wedding that will begin tonight and go on for two days (the Polish wedding tradition, we're told)