Jelcz to Wroclaw May 27-29

By Eric

The campground at Jelcz was a funny place. It was in a forest next to a large swimming lake with a great beach. There were a lot of people at the beach but as usual, we were the only campers. The campground had lots of bungalows and those too were all empty. The manager let us use the bathroom in one of the bungalows. I don't understand how all of these empty campgrounds earn any money.

The most important thing to know about Wroclaw, is how to pronounce it: "Vroh-Slav." We kept saying "row-claw" and no one knew what we were talking about. Wroclaw is also called Breslau (a German name) and Vratislavia (an old Latin name used by Czechs).

Happily, we arrived in the city painlessly. That is to say, we didn't get lost or entangled in the usual urban ring. And Wroclaw is entirely flat.

But it was bumpy. Cyclists in Wroclaw, and there were lots, used the whole road, and the sidewalk too. Tram tracks wandered through intersections like demented rooster tracks. Much of the paving was accomplished with rounded cobblestones. And to avoid all the pesky one way streets we ended up climbing over curbs all the time.

Just as we crossed a large bridge into the center of the city, a man on the sidewalk yelled, "Hello!!" Joan thought he wastrying to sell her something, so she brushed by him and kept going. But to me, the young man did not at all suspicious. And clearly he was talking to us. So, I did one of the best things I've done on this entire trip, I stopped.

Once we established that we all spoke English, he told us his name was Piotr and he had also done a lot of bike touring. He had ridden all the way to Marseilles and back seven or eight years ago. This summer he was planning another trip. He was anxious to ask us questions. But Peter didn't have much time at that moment. So he gave us his phone number and told us to call that night.

That afternoon we explored Wroclaw. At first we couldn't find the city center. We were wandering around some very narrow streets looking for the plaza. Did Wroclaw not have a plaza like Krakow, Kosice (in Slovakia) and the other wonderful cities we'd seen?

At last we found it, and when we did we were very impressed. Krakow's central square is all original while Wroclaw's had been rebuilt -- in fact very recently. But to the untrained eye, Wroclaw's looked just as great.

Wroclaw had been part of Germany before WWII. And the German defenders there held out longer than the defenders of Berlin. Their hold out caused the destruction of most of the city's buildings. The new buildings look just as good, though and probably have better heating, wiring and plumbing.

(Actually, much later, our friend Lukasz told us that the heating and the plumbing are worse.
Here is what Lukasz has to say about that: The heating, plumbing and electricity system at my home--and all buildings built after World War II--had to be replaced after 20 years while all the old systems, like the one in my uncle's 80-year-old house, still work).

We sat on the square at a cafe, had great steak sandwiches, got hit with a water balloon some kids were playing with (I chased the brats away), and enjoyed the view.

While we sat at a similar cafe on the plaza in Krakow, we had met a taxi driver and his wife. He gave us his card and his wife said, "You will call us when you get to Wroclaw." So after lunch we braved the Polish phone system.

To make a call you either had to buy tokens or buy a phone card. We had bought phone cards in other countries and every single time we regretted it. We had to buy far more time than we ever used or we couldn't find card phones when we needed them and ended up using coins anyway.

It took us a while in Poland to determine that the "coin" phones don't actually take coins but tokens. You buy the tokens at the phone office for a very strange price like 0.56 Zloty (US$0.14) each and that gives you a unit or so of time. I don't know how long a unit is but I think something like 22 seconds.

In Krakow we trouble with the tokens. We had to keep pouring the tokens in and still got cut off sometimes. After visiting about 20 countries we still weren't good with foreign phone systems.

In Wroclaw we ventured to buy a phone card. It turned out fine in Wroclaw because we made all our calls from the same phones at the phone office.

Using the phone card I called our taxi driver friend. It was his mobile number and the line kept breaking up. Plus he didn't speak all that much English. So in about 20 seconds I managed to identify myself and say we were in Wroclaw and that was all. Then the signal broke completely. We tried to call a few more times over the next few hours but every time I got the "customer out of range" message in English and Polish.

We found a campground amazingly close to the center, less than two kilometers away. So we set up the tent, cooked dinner then rode into town to meet Piotr, the guy who had flagged us down on the way into town.

Piotr was young, about 23, about average height, had curly hair, a roundish face, bright eyes, and a very happy, confident demeanor. Immediately likeable.

When communism ended in Poland, Peter and his friends were ecstatic that they could now travel all over Europe. They bought the latest 50 pound Polish mountain bikes, made their own panniers using a refrigerator rack as the frame, and carried a huge, leaky Russian tent. Even with all this they managed large distances everyday and made it 4000 kilometers to Marseilles.

Peter introduced us to his friend Lukasz. Lukasz had about the same age and same happy, confident manner but looked completely different than Peter. Lukasz had a marine haircut and not nearly enough hair for a guy his age and a thinner face.

The two of them were now planning a biking-skiing-snowboarding-anything-crazy Pacific Rim tour. Lukasz was an avid downhill skier who loved speed above all. Peter was an intense snow boarder. Both wrote articles for Polish outdoor magazines. One of Peter's articles was called, "Sex, Money, or Powder?" At the time they were trying to get sponsors.

They had a pretty good thing going. Poland didn't have that many athletes that could also write. They had received free skis and lift tickets just so that they would mention them in their articles. Essentially this made them professional athletes.

We had such a great time with them, we planned to meet them again the next night.

When we got back to our tent, we found a note attached to the zipper: "We were here," and the taxi driver's name.

Next: Poland Chapter 6 - IVAN! VODKA!

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