Travelling in 2023: Poland

2024-2-18: In progress, I am finally writing down the rest of my experiences in 2023 in Poland and Ukraine.

I took the bus, Sindbad.pl, from Amsterdam to Wroclaw to go meet my friend who lives there. I had taken what I needed for travelling such as a 1 litre thermos bottle, 1 litre electric kettle, clothes, and so on, but also a bag full of stuff for a bicycle as my plan was to buy a bicycle once I got to Ukraine, and I wanted to then immediately set it up to my preferences.

My trip in Poland this year was not very interesting, perhaps I will add more details about the bike rides I made but these were also not that eventfull.

Bicycle stuff that I took with me

I took a lot of stuff for a bicycle to set up to my preferences, as I intended to buy one in Ukraine. The type of bicycle I wanted to buy was one with a Pinion gear box, 12 or 18 speed. I had seen several bicycle with C1.12 offered on olx.ua while I was still in NL and again while I was in PL, so I hoped to find something like that when I got to Ukraine. It was a bit of a burden to take all this stuff (grips, bicycle lock, lights, leather saddle, pedals, phone mounts and more), some of it was quite heavy, but in the end it all worked out, I used it all in UKraine. I could have bought some of this stuff when in Ukraine but bicycle shops are not well equipped there (and ordering may take a while) so I took what I thought I would want to use to upgrade a bicycle:

I also took cycling clothes and I was thinking of taking panniers with me but that would become too much to take.

In Wroclaw

I went to Wroclaw to meet my friend and talk about business ideas. I could stay at an apartment that he was finishing in the centre of Wroclaw. This may seem a good place, but I found it rather noisy and annoying because of hearing jingles from stores. Also on Fridays amd Saturdays in particular there was a lot of noise from tourists deep into the night... I wouldn't want to live in the centre of the city.

My friend loaned me a city bicycle and of the bicycle stuff that I took with me I used a few things for this bicycle: The Lumintop B01 headlamp, Spanninga O taillamp, the Point retro water bottle cage, the Selle Anatomica leather saddle, and an aluminium and rubber phone mount.

I had bicycled a lot already in Wroclaw the previous trips but did so quite a bit more this time. For example I went to some bicycle shops to look for a mount for a bottle cage to be able to mount the cage that I took with me (that I took with me for use with a bicycle in Ukraine, as I planned to buy a bicycle there and to rent storage for it for when I would not be in Ukraine or for travelling to another city in Ukraine where I didn't need it.

Within Wroclaw I made long walks to get groceries and often walked around the main (market) square (Rynek) that you will see in documentaries. One night I was approached twice by people, a woman first then on the way back by a man, to get me to go to what is some sort of strip club. Not interested. Even for those who might be interested in such things, there are other reasons to avoid such places: It can be dangerous, as my friend had told me about a friend who went to such a place who got drugged there and money taken...

There is a shop called 'Fresh market' close to the apartment where I stayed, where they had Ukrainian food, Ukrainian cookies, books in Ukrainian for esp. children, Halva (which is made from sesame seeds and some other ingredients, I like this), and Ukrainian tea such as one of my favourites, Lovare 1001 nights. I was curious about the fact that customers were talking in Russian. I got talking to a guy at the cashier's desk, and he told me that he is from Ukraine (city, hmm, not sure any more, Dnipro?). It seems everyone working there was from Ukraine...

Aid for hiking and bicycling in the sun

I used a hiking cap with flap on the rear and a flap at the front that should keep the sun out of your eyes and off of your neck:

just as I did the previous year on my cycling trips. The problem then was that the flap at the front gets blown up by the air, from simply riding at a certain speed, so this time I tried a metal wire half circle which I had taken with me from NL to try out the following idea: I taped the centre of that metal wire to the front of the flap, then at the ends which have a hook, attach small ropes that I then fixed to the neck strap of the hat. This didn't work well at all either, the flap will still fly up. I think for cycling the best would be something that sits around my (sun)glasses, i.e. covers the sides and possibly also the top.

Bicycle trips

I made several trips to places not too far from Wroclaw to see more of the area nearer the city (up to 20 km or so away).

I went for example to:

- 2023-7-16: To the east, slightly north, via Dlugoleka to a village called Bielawa, where there this is a nice (artificial) lake where you can relax. I was doing that + writing texts while there. Then back to Wroclaw via a more sourthern route via Kielczow. Here I encountered some very bad roads before and after the lake and some sand paths but it was nothing compared to the previous year. [ 43 km ride. ]

- 2023-7-17: To the north west: a bit beyond Marszowice (which is about 14 km, 32 km total ride), first stop was after ca. 8 km, at Maslice Male, here I went to the river, where there were nice places to relax, some guys were going there with a speedboat. On the way back I was riding fast on the cycle paths, trying to keep up or ahead of buses, good exercise and it was possible as I knew the paths from the outward journey to Marszowice and they were fairly good. [ 32 km ride. ]

- 2023-7-19: To the south-west: Smolec and Zybizow, small villages, farm country, I rode a lot of this ride in the evening. [ 31 km ride. ]

- 2023-7-22: To the east, to Brzezia laka and returning via Dobrzykowice. This is mostly urban, and it was interesting to ride to experience more of the urban road infrastructure. [ 45 km ride. ]

- 2023-7-26: To Ikea in an area with a bunch of big shops (it looks like an industrial area) outside of Bielany Wroclawskie. [ 25 km ride. ]

Going to Ukraine

I decided after about 2 weeks to go to Ukraine to again look for houses and business locations there. My business idea was to do it partially in PL, partially in UA, but I probably want to start the UA part first also because the guy who could be part of one of my ideas, didn't have time to meet.

I went by train to Przemysl, where I would have an hour or so to meet someone I knew from years ago from Ukraine, who now lives/works in Przemysl and who showed me around the centre. After that I took a train to Kiev.

Last modified: 2024-2-29