A Day of Surprises and More Kindness from Strangers
We woke this morning with every intention of getting on our bike and carrying on with our journey. Instead we had a day of exploring the city and surrounding areas and one wonderful experience after another.
We are only paying 36 euros for our hotel room including breakfast. It is a two star hotel but has a lot of character. We had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese.
We have been having a really hard time loading our maps onto our Garmin GPS. Some of the sections of Poland and the Czech Republic have not loaded onto our Garmin.We decided to stay another night at this hotel as it has a strong WIFI signal in the restaurant and we could work on our journal and try to download the maps we need.
After breakfast we had a real surprise. The man who introduced himself yesterday after he saw our bike when we arrived, came into the restaurant of the hotel hoping to find us. . He doesn't speak any english but with the help of Google Translate on our ipad we were able to communicate. He had brought us some bicycle route maps of Poland and some gifts from his city. He also brought a photo album showing the construction of his three wheeled bike with a couch on the front. He had built the entire bike himself. There were newspaper clippings about his bike. It is truly an amazing bike.
He bought us beer and through Google translate talked about bikes and touring. He invited us to come with him as he would like to show us his area. It was a kind and generous offer which we were happy to accept. What followed was an amazing afternoon exploring and meeting extraordinary local people.
Our new Polish friend, Bogdan looking at pictures of where we live in Canada. What a delightful surprise to see him. Barry had given him our business travel card with our journal address on it. He read it last night and brought his Polish language version of it to show us.
First stop of our tour with Bogdan was a visit to a park overlooking the city - we could see the bridge, our hotel and the church across the road. Having arrived by bike in this hilly city, we lacked the perspective that he showed us.
It is always fun to try to understand and converse with an enthusiastic person who speaks a different language. As the day wore on, we started to understand, I think! We brought our ipad with us and used google translate throughout the tour. By the time we were finished the battery was low!
A lovely man with a positive zest for life - Boguslaw, (Bogdan) a taxi driver, cycling tourism leader and a cycling routes marker. We are completely amazed at the wonderful opportunities that come our
Next stop is the site of a camp in the First World War. A sombre and reflective place. Boguslaw is trying to explain the significance of where we are with Google Translate. The Polish keyboard came in handy. A funny thing though, I have had to go back and edit my comments as I didn't realize that I was using the Polish keyboard and the computer kept substituting spellings that were Polish.
Then we went to a magical place where Zdzislaw, a retired veterinarian showed us this astounding collection of carved figures by Hadzck, a local resident. Each carving is from a single tree. We saw an excellent representation of Polish history - and this carving is of Robert Koch, a Nobel Prize winner. He was the father of modern bacteriology and TB.
The Polish born Pope with the many forms of totalitarianism he protested against - USSR, Nazism etc. Which are Inscribed on him. A significant and moving tribute we could see.
Boguslaw and Zdslaw were wonderful hosts and Zdslaw's ability to speak some English really helped. Zdslaw served us herbal tea made from plants on his farm.
When Bogaslaw brought us back to the hotel, we realized that in the excitement we had neglected to eat. So we went across the road to a cafe and had a fine dinne
