To get from Dresden to Warsaw:

• I took my bike on a regional train from Dresden to Görlitz on the German side of the border
• Biked 3 days from Görlitz to the Polish city of Wrocław
• Took my bike on an intercity train from Wrocław to Warsaw, where I would meet Fergus.

Day 1: Dresden - Görlitz - Brunów (66 km, 420 m up)

I took a regional train from Dresden to the border town of Görlitz, since I wanted to spend most of this leg experiencing cycling in Poland. I just booked a ticket on the Deutschebahn app, and then a separate regional bike day ticket (Fahrradtageskarte Nahverkehr) for 7.50 Euro. You can’t reserve a bike spot like on intercity trains, so you hop onto the carriage with the bike symbol and hope there’s enough space.

I had a booked the ticket from the station from near Chrisi's house, but the night before I thought biking into Dresden CBD with Chrisi would be an absolutely ideal start to my trip (and the end of my time in Dresden). So in my morning we had a refreshing 12 km morning commute along cycleways to Dresden-Neustadt train station, and just got on there (it would be like buying a train ticket from Upper Hutt to Wellington Central, and getting on at Lower Hutt instead).

Görlitz is a town of only 50,000, but has disproportionately grand architecture. Before crossing over to Poland, I wanted to try one last German dish. Dillan (Berlin friend) had recommended the very seasonal dish of spargel, white asparagus, which would be gone by the time I pass through Germany again in a month. I biked all around Görlitz, my last bastion of spargel, asking at a dozen different places but no luck. Disgruntled and hangry, I crossed the stone bridge over the Lusatian Neisse river marking the border.

From Görlitz, it was 54 km to the campground I’d picked out near a small village called Brunów that was on the Euroregional Cycle Route (ER-4), part of a cycle network connecting cities in this region through to Wrocław. The route was mostly rural back roads rather than separated cycleways, but quiet enough. Half were smooth and new, the other half were so patched over with band-aid blobs of asphalt that it might as well have been cobblestone. One section was a horrible logging track, where a swarm of tiny biting flies would crowd my face as I struggled up the muddy path with my mouth firmly closed. The flies gathered in force whenever I was in forest and going slowly (like uphill); it made me much more averse to dirt-track forest routes after that.

About 10 km in, I was waved down by a large man with an incredibly red face on a commuter bike, speaking loudly in Polish with a big grin. He kept gesticulating enthusiastically while I exhausted all my travel phrases (“I’m from New Zealand”, “Sorry I don’t speak Polish”, “I’m biking to Wrocław” - then immediately berated myself for telling a stranger where I was heading). Eventually I was just repeating “I don’t understand/Nie rozumiem” while looking to exit the one-way conversation. Then he got out his phone and asked if I have Facebook (“no”, I lied). I took the opportunity to glance over and saw that his lock screen was just one large tractor (green flag, ish?) but that most of his Facebook photos seem to be low-angle selfies (red flag…? or just… technologically unsavvy and lonely?). He wanted to take a selfie which I didn’t really want to do, but gave in. He seemed excited to put it on his Story, for what reason and with what commentary I’m not sure. My brain whispered that maybe he’ll also text accomplices about a woman cycling alone on the ER-4 who seems easy enough to tackle and kidnap. It’s a fine balance, enjoying interactions with locals and stranger danger 😅 I decided to give him the benefit of doubt and bring to mind a jolly uncle giving hearty encouragement to a lone traveller passing through his rural neighbourhood, but I did keep looking behind me for the next few kms.

In the German villages I’d passed through on my way to Dresden, the signs of life were mostly old woman pottering in their front gardens. The Polish equivalent seemed to be young men in singlets mowing the lawn. In one hamlet of five houses, three had sweaty youths pushing giant diesel mowers at the very moment I was passing - what are the chances? If we decide to keep our lawn, may Fergus inherit this Polish inclination.

I noticed many signs on gates saying “UWAGA! PIES”. I got excited for a second because I would have very much appreciated a pie. Turns out “pies” mean “dogs”, as in “Attention! Dog”. See, this is the thing about Polish. Not only are there few similarities in vocab (in French or German you can almost just guess), but there are also words that look the same as English words but mean totally different things! The following two examples illustrate this:

I’m trying not to build up a story in my mind about Polish being an insurmountably difficult language. Fortunately I’m very immersed at the moment and quite used to barreling through with whatever phrases come to mind, even if they make no sense. Classic one for me is opening with “thank you/dziękuję” instead of “hello/dzień dobry” when entering a store 😅

That first night I camped at a farmstay, which they call “Agroturystyka” here - much more luck searching for that on Google Maps than “campground”. The owner was very nice, and we got by with a jumble of Polish, German, and google translate. I enjoyed basking in her babcza-esque (grandmotherly) exclamations when I explained I was biking from Görlitz to Wrocław, which can’t be that unusual given that her village sits right on the ER-4 joining to the two. I think she was just one of those affectionately effusive types.

It was such a pleasant night that I slept with just the inner tent. There was only one other camper, a young guy on a motorbike, but I had already slipped in my tent. He spoke good English (like most young people in Poland, I’m finding!) and helped translate some payment logistics with the owner in the morning.

Day 2: Brunów to Środa Śląska (100 km, 490 m up)

Having still not learnt the lesson from Vietnam about keeping cash handy, I forgot that Poland uses złoty instead of Euro and had no cash with which to pay the campground lady. I had to run into the nearest town for an ATM, which meant I got on the road around 9:30am. This wasn't great because there was a heat and thunderstorm warning for later in the day.

I got to my original Day 2 end point in the early afternoon after ~50 km, at a family friendly lake water park. It was busy with families and groups of rowdy teens. Boys were cussing boisterously while throwing around a ball (I do know Polish swear words). Girls with eyelash extensions and acrylic nails were sunbathing, scrolling, and rapping along loudly to bluetooth speakers nearby. I remembered partaking in similar adolescent courting rituals as a straight high schooler in Christchurch (which had about 3 days per year when it was actually warm enough for swimming) and obsessing slightly over the idea of being in a bikini in front of boys. “Age appropriate”, Fergus would probably say.

The long cold soak in the lake felt very necessary, but the campground seemed rowdy and overpriced (they charged for every extra thing, including electricity to charge my phone!). It also felt like there was way too much time left in the day. So to knock off some of the next day’s kms, I decided to try for town of Środa Śląska 50 km away. I preferred spending more time in Wrocław rather than at this random family funpark, and also wanted to see if my previous century had been a fluke since getting to Środa Śląska would mean today would be a 100 km day.

After lunch, two swims, and a dozy siesta on the “beach”, I left around 4pm. I had snuck a shower in the campground facilities and soaked my linen shirt in the water to cool me during the ride. To my dismay, it was dry within 10 minutes.

I don't remember much of the next few hours as I was in a bit of trance state. I had switched from my Komoot navigation app - I was distrustful after it had taken me up that muddy logging track - to Mapy.cz which seemed to favour paved cycleways more. I did still go through a few dirt tracks on top of flood levees, some stretches of single-track, and one bad bit that was both cobblestone and forest (i.e. biting flies).

Track conditions aside, the weather soon moderated itself in the evening. I could see (and hear) a thunderstorm brewing behind me as per the weather warning, but all I got was a cooling breeze. The golden hour through fields was very steady and calming, if not entirely relaxing.

I rolled into Środa Śląska (SHROH-da SHLOWNG-ska) around 8:30pm, my legs feeling like dead weights. Unfortunately most of the places I'd bookmarked were unavailable for the night and/or reception was closed, so I had to stay at the one place with 24h reception, an expensive hotel on the main market square (around $80 NZD). I figured what better time to have a huge room to myself than after a century day. I ate a questionable dinner of everything I had left in my bag, which was one banana, half a bottle of straight UHT cream, 2 slices of cheese, and 2 slices of german bread.

An interesting thing about this tiny town is that in the 80s, a renovation effort uncovered a bunch of jewels from the 14th century. It’s an interesting Wikipedia read. I wanted to see them at the museum but it wasn’t open until 12pm the next day, and no way in hell was I going to wait around for that inferno.

The treasure is considered immensely valuable, described by some as "one of most valuable archeological finds in the 20th century". […] One estimate from 2001 put the lowest value of the treasure at 50 million dollars; a book published in 2005 put it at 100 million dollars.

Day 3: Środa Śląska to Wrocław (45 km, 140 m up)

I left the hotel at 8:30am (still later than I wanted, despite waking up at 6am - why am I incapable of an early start??) and was very glad to be away as it was another heat warning sort of day. The quiet rural roads (again a mix of smooth and bumpy) soon turned into a mega-cycleway as we got closer to the city. The rest of the way into Wrocław was world class cycleways, although unfortunately no tree cover and it was baking.

FYI, Wrocław is pronounced VROT-swav. “W” makes a “v” sound, “c” = “ts”, and ł is like “w”.

I pushed myself a bit hard trying to get to Wrocław before it got really hot. By 10am it was somewhat reminiscent of Vietnam (i.e. oven-like). I got to the hostel around 11:30am, having overshot it by 5 km and having to backtrack, adding 10 km to my short but somehow utterly exhausting journey. I was very glad I had done most of today’s planned kms during the previous day’s cool evening.

After storing my stuff and changing out of sweaty clothes, I found a pierogi place for lunch, and a cafe serving iced matcha. The pierogi was amazing, but in general I was noticing that Poland is much more expensive than I remember! The pierogi was admittedly a hipster place near old town, but everything I saw was comparable to NZ prices. The iced matcha was $10 NZD and it wasn’t even good! I distinctly remember getting a plate of pierogi right in the old town of Kraków in 2012 for around $4 NZD. Poland has developed a lot in the past 20 years, so maybe that’s part of the reason. It was a bit sad though, to have been pleasantly surprised by the affordable food in Germany, and unpleasantly surprised by cost of food in Poland, even if it is actually similar to Germany prices (and cheaper than NZ). Obviously the solution is to adjust my expectations and budget, and accept Poland’s advancement as a modern European nation. Good for them!

Unfortunately being outside in the early afternoon felt truly intolerable; I felt physically averse to the feeling of sun on my skin, and I already getting blotchy red heat rashes on my face and neck like I had in Vietnam from the morning ride. I ended up hiding in a dark internet cafe, once again surrounded by shouting teenage boys, writing this blog post. I actually enjoy it - the clicky keyboard, the flow state of writing and reflecting, not overheating… I also played a very short indie game/interactive story called A Raven Monologue that had been on my list. When I left the internet cafe at 7pm, it was thunderstorming which was far preferable to sun. I walked around in the rain past many dinner options and eventually settled on Georgian, as I had so loved trying it in Berlin.

Day 4: Wrocław to Warszawa by train

I woke up in my hostel dorm at 4am with the sun and the birds, and knew there was no going back to sleep. I got up and went for a walk, talking to Ferg on the phone who was in Singapore waiting for his flight to Frankfurt!

Fergus dissed Wrocław, saying it is like the Sheffield* of Poland. I don’t think that’s particularly accurate since Wrocław is the third largest city in the country with a population of 675,000. Also Sheffield doesn’t have a 13th century old town or a Heated Rivalry club party next weekend (sad to be missing). But then again, I guess Sheffield has pies.

*Fergus later clarified that he had meant Sheffield UK, not Sheffield NZ.

Whatever Fergus was saying about Wrocław being a hole, I thought it was very beautiful that morning. The weather was delicious and the Sunday morning streets quiet, apart from the odd Saturday night reveller still wandering wonkily around the old town square. The Old Town is ringed by the City Moat, a branch of the Oder river. There are green spaces all along the moat, called the Old Town Promenade. Despite extensive destruction during WW2, the rebuilt Market Square (“rynek”) and surrounding Gothic churches were very majestic. I walked for about four hours, waiting for the city (and its breakfast options) to wake up.

At 7am, one of the many churches starting tolling a bell tune across the old town. Church bells are a whole thing, it was the case in Dresden too - one on the hour, a short one every quarter hour, and a longer special one at 7am, 12pm, and 6pm. Though a simple thing, to me it reminded of yet another common experience that is in decline. Our world now has personalised news (newspapers, public TV, and news websites 👉 algorithmically recommended content), entertainment (theatre, live music, buskers, radio, 3-channel TV 👉 algorithmically recommended playlists), and transport (public transport and walking/biking along shared spaces 👉 algorithmically advertised private vehicles). What does that do to social cohesion, when we have fewer shared experiences with our neighbours? Some call these evolutions “market disruption”; disruptive indeed, it has been.

Further along, I heard organs and singing of morning mass from inside (another) church, and the short-lived roman catholic in me propelled my body in. The church was called the Parish of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, with an astounding gilded interior. I didn’t take photos but you can see here. I remembered how to cross myself with the water and to kneel when crossing the altar. I sat for a bit, practicing pronunciation with the pre-mass chant on the screen, then felt too hungry to full commit, so I left before mass actually started.

I later stumbled upon a gigantic Sunday market. It looked like the place to be for locals to get their produce, and seemingly everything else too. The stalls stretched on for kilometres. I bought some summer fruits for the train.

Finally it was time, so I walked back to the hostel, checked out, and biked the 10 minutes to the station. Absurdly, despite being awake since 4am, I ended up almost missing my 11am train to Warsaw and having to leap on board, fumbling my heavy bike and apologising to all the commuters around me.

It was important to have booked a bike seat because there were only two narrow bike storage spaces available in this carriage with no room for redundancy. I had my bike on one hook and a woman claimed the other. It turned out that she had not booked the bike slot because one stop later, a man got on who had booked it. He was nice and let her have it because she was only going one more stop, but it meant he had to stand with his bike, and when she got off it involved a tricky exercise under time pressure manoeuvring the bikes in a cramped corridor. Eventually she got her bike off, and his bike on next to mine. I watched all this from my seat, feeling too nervous that I’d done something wrong to feel smug.

The Polish intercity train was modern, affordable, and meticulously on time (limited bike storage aside). It was a relaxing, quiet 5 hour journey. I started my friend Kelsey’s memoir that came out last year, Surviving White Island, and cried a bit reading it (she also narrates the audiobook version!). Normalise crying in public I reckon! 😂 At 4pm, I arrived in Warsaw/Warszawa (var-sha-va), my first time in the Polish capital!

Overall, biking through Lower Silesia felt very safe and easy even without separated cycleways. Like the Berlin to Dresden route, the sights were mostly fields or pine forest. I’m coming to think that the bit I’m enjoying about cycle touring when magnificent sights (like in Vietnam) aren’t involved is the sense of experiencing the distance between places. Rather than zapping from A to B, actually feeling how much distance needs to be covered to get between my destinations is gratifying and I feel more connected to the land and the energy cost of travel. I am also enjoying the sense of gradually arriving at a place - I don’t think I have good words to describe that yet but maybe I will in future.

Total distance: 211 km on bike with 1050 m up elevation, around 450 km by train.