My Introduction to bikepacking (part 6) - Easing in with the flats

We were excited to have survived our night on the boat (part 1) and we eagerly waited for the final docking in Gdansk. Before we knew it we were off the boat and pedaling through the city, headed for the central station. The plan was to get to the central station and take a train to Wroclaw, allowing us to skip a large part of the mostly flat terrain in Poland, and then start heading south from there. Since we arrived quite late from the boat, we were not able to get a train until after afternoon which got us into Wroclaw quite late.

Unfortunately, we only saw a small amount of the city as we met a friend of a friend for a fantastic dinner out, before pedaling to sleep in the backyard of his property across town. The property we stayed at was a house that he was renovating. A unique feature of the property was that a tower of the house had been bombed during World War 2 but the building stood strong. We slept in the backyard enjoying a great night's sleep which was much needed after the boat nightmare the previous night.

The next day was a windy but warm morning with the threat of rain in the air. We took off early but stopped for a quick coffee and snack which proved to be great timing as a torrential downpour aligned with our stop. Shortly afterwards, we were back on the road and heading south towards the Czech Republic. The day's riding was mostly flat, but a good way to slowly break in our legs for what was to come later in the trip. We passed through many small Polish villages, all showing the sad remnants of war 75 years later, with most villages having some sort of signs of bombing. Our routes in between the small villages were either paved roads or old army roads, taking us comfortably across beautiful green fields. Before long we were close to the border of the Czech Republic, but with heavy dark clouds on the horizon. Just then, our phones all buzzed at once and a severe weather warning urged us to find shelter, and find shelter fast. We picked up the pace and headed for a local town just on the Czech border. We found an amazing hotel, with rooms inside a castle, only to be turned back after showing rooms available. This would happen to us many more times as the locals were afraid of Covid, and many places did not want the risk of us staying with them. Not having many other options in town, we ducked the storm for a pizza and waited the rain out before heading across the border and into the Czech Republic.

Wild camping is discouraged in most of Southern Europe so we decided not to take any risks on this night and after being turned down by a few local pensions, we finally found one that would accept us for the night. We were happy to have avoided most of the storm and looking forward to getting some altitude in the coming days. The Czech republic awaited and we slept soundly in our comfortable beds.

Videos

Here is the video of day 2 of our trip as well as the Relive summary of the day's ride. Please support us by liking the videos(if you enjoy them) and following the channel on YouTube to stay up to date with our latest videos.