One man, a tent and a bike: part 4
Through Poland and into the Czech Republic. From a grim historical site to a cyclist friendly folk, my journey continues. Read on for more.
I stayed five days in Warsaw, celebrated my girlfriend’s 30th birthday, relaxed and worked on my blog. After 2000 km, it was also time to clean and give my bike the maintenance that it deserved. I had already visited Warsaw a few times and, due to the cold / wet weather, I decided to not head into the city centre, except to make a small change to my gear. On Thursday, my journey continued with sunny weather. First I met up with Ania, my girlfriend, at the train station to wish her well, and then I was off again.
Winter is coming
Winter was getting closer and it was time for me to get a move on, so I took a 350 km express train down to Krakow where I cycled through the city and then continued 85 km to Auschwitz. There, I wanted to take some time to tour one of, if not the most, well known concentration camps from WWII. Due to the fact that my only experience with Auschwitz was old black and white photos from school and the movie Schindler’s List, I naively expected to find a grey landscape where the horrors of the Nazi regime were plainly in sight. Of course, when I arrived, I found a very normal city with beautiful fall colours and compared to other polish cites, the only thing that made it different was the Auschwitz Museum.
A dark past
The concentration camp is made up of three parts. Auschwitz I is the main camp with the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” or “work sets you free” sign. Auschwitz II Birkenau is a much larger camp roughly 3 kilometres away. It was built after the Wannsee Conference held in 1942, and it was at this point that Auschwitz became an organized extermination camp. The third part of Auschwitz is made up of the little remnants that remain of the IG Farben poisonous gas factory where Zyklon B was produced.
After the tour, I found myself in a row of houses which abruptly put an end to the darkest chapter of Germany’s history. I rode into the early evening and, approx. 40 km from the Czech border, I set up my tent for the night.
Moving on to the Czech Republic
The next morning showed says of a good day as two deer hopped away as I crawled out of my tent. It’s the small things that make wild camping so great. The streets were in good condition and the route kept me interested. With temperatures rising, I reached the boarder of the third country on my route. I immediately noticed more cyclists and people were used to seeing a fully packed touring rig. While most of the people in Poland stared at me with looks of disbelief and then gave a friendly wave, the Czech were immediately excited to see me and some cheered me on as I slogged my way up the hills that lead to Ostrava. When I reached the highest point on the map, I took a moment to stretch before I, thankful for the warm weather, cycling the last 20 km barefoot into the former industrial city where I would visit a friend that I met in China.
It was nice to see a familiar face in a foreign country and I had the feeling I had been transported back in time to when I was in Wuhan, China. Julian showed me the small city and its historical centre as well as Ostrava’s abandoned factories and rusty memories of a past time now turned into a cultural symbol of new found pride. It was looking into the past in a different way, and though I personally put Mother Nature first, seeing Father Steel was also very interesting. It was Sunday again, which meant pizza day, and we ordered a family sized margherita pie. On Monday, I spent time planning my route with my next stop in Vienna. I wanted to ride the next 360 km from the Czech northeast though Bratislava into the Slovakian southwest and head up into Vienna from eastern Austria. After, I would take a train headed to Florence.
