An overnight stay in Nysa before heading to Czech Republic
We arrived in Nysa last night exhausted and suffering from the extreme heat. Yesterday's ride required many stops in the shade and lots of breaks to drink water. Everybody we see looks hot and ice cream is being consumed by everyone on the street. From what we can see, there are more ice cream shops in the small town of Nysa than in other towns we have visited.
Even our hotel room was hot, but it cooled down as the evening wore on. A couple of cold showers helped, but it didn't take long to overheat again. We are staying in the centre of the old town of Nysa at Hotel Piast. Once again we are pleased with the quality and value offered in Poland, breakfast included.
It is our preference to have a prepared meal rather than a buffet, and this has been standard in the places where we have stayed in Poland. Even if there is a buffet, there is always the offer of cooked food to order. The breakfast here is outstanding. Our choice on the menu was scrambled eggs, veggies, meat, cheese, salads, yogurt, bread and jam, and of course coffee and juice.
Our cheery and cosy room at Hotel Piast, newly refurbished with a large modern bathroom. Without air-conditioning or fans, our battery operated mini fans and "arctic" cloths got a workout.
There are many notable churches in Nysa, but the sheer immensity of its profile makes it stand out. The outside is impressive, but the true beauty lies inside.
This church is busy with services throughout the day - it is a challenge to find a time to visit when it is not in use. But as it is a hot day, we're heading in as it Is the best place to cool down.
It is very hot, so we must have ice cream. We have read the Nysa is known for many things, but the best thing is that they are reputed to have good ice cream. The Polish are so sensible, ice cream in a bowl that is also edible.
Mary Ellen is wearing a cooling scarf that retains the sensation of being cold for a long time.
We are on our way out of Nysa and will be in Czech Republic in about 20 km, so we stopped to change our Polish zloty into Czech koruna and also to get a sticker of Poland for our bike. It's funny, we now think in Euros, not the Canadian dollar, so when we try to decipher the cost of an item in zloty, we covert to Euros.
When the women from the shop saw Barry struggling to peel off an older sticker to put the new one on,they came to help. They brought a variety of wet cloths and scrapers. Eventually Barry completed his work and we were off.
Well, our plan to be in Czech Republic tonight was sadly dashed by a problem with our new e-motor. We were having a great ride out of Nysa and had only gone about 15 km when the throttle wouldn't work after stopping at an intersection. We tried all the usual tricks - moving the sensor to be sure it was properly aligned with the magnet (it was fine and the display was working fine), powering on the batteries (also fine). Barry tried everything he could and we finally phoned Akkurad near Bonn Germany for help. This is the company that converted our tandem before the trip. Kneeling on the side of the road with buses and cars whizzing past, made it difficult to hear, but Ousamma and Urich stayed with us. We finally were able to figure out that the controller needed replacing. This is a fairly minor job, so the plan was for Akkurad to send a controller to a bike shop in Nysa and talk the mechanic through the process on the phone. We rushed back to Nysa, without motor (it is harder we discovered!) and could not find any shop that would help us. It was finally explained to us that Poland is only beginning to introduce electric bikes. They were clearly intimidated by and unwilling to attempt the job. So we started phoning bigger cities such as Wroclaw. The shop that sounded promising does deal with a type of electric bike, but he said we would be better off to go to the one shop in Poland that deals with Bafang motors....and that one is in Warsaw! This required a fairly major change of our trip plans as Warsaw is in the wrong direction. We also contacted shops in Czech Republic (no luck even though they have more experience with e-bikes), then we thought perhaps we could head back to Germany and find a shop close to Poland that could do the work. We can't figure it out, we'll sleep on it.
Today's ride: 34 km (21 miles) Total: 895 km (556 miles)
