Gorlitz

September 10, 2018

A leisurely dawdle along the Neisse

We were not sentenced to chocolate and vodka last night. We had been able to arrange a.meal in our Cycle Hostel and what a meal it was, I think he must have thought we had ridden about 200km not the rather meesely 56km we had. It started with a Polish soup with potatoes and sausage, then chicken, homemade chips and salad followed by a berry cheesecake. I think we will have to cycle a very long way tomorrow and possibly not have dinner again. Our host of last night is extremely personable and is making every effort he can to make his Bike Hostel the very best he can. If you cycle this way please stay there you wont be disappointed

We had such a short distance to go today that we took things very gently. It was a beautifully sunshiny day and again we were riding along through a mixture of bush and agricultural country. All along the way we have been seeing wooden lookouts with steep ladders going up into them, some of them are quite elaborate and sometimes they have camouflage netting around them. We assume that they must be for bird spotters. Although we have seen hundreds of them never have we seen a person up in one. Our assumption is that they are used at a certain time of the year to observe migratory birds or else at dawn or dusk when birds are around but not cyclists.

As you can see some are in open country and some deep in the forest

The villages and towns that we are coming to now are bigger and look more prosperous now as well as agriculture there is industry. As we were riding into Rothenburg there was suddenly load peeping from a car passing us and who should it be but our host from last nights hotel. It was a lovely small town with a central market square where we were able to sit in a cafe and drink coffee and watch the locals negotiating the cobbles. After that we came to a really crazy place which we assumed to be a theme park of some sort. On a Monday morning there was not a sign of a person there but all sorts of models of witches houses, forts and other real weird things - there was even a sad looking camel which at first we thought was stuffed then it moved.

Perhaps we need to put up a warning like this to warn people about Lucy

This tractor is clearly homemade it has a single cylinder Diesel engine very like some Polish tractors although water cooled there is no radiator - it boils

This is an area where the borders have often changed and it was after the Potsdam Conference after World War 2 that the part of the country over the other side of the Neisse (and the Oder) changed from Germany to Poland. One place where we stopped had a memorial commemorating this. Naturally our German was completely inadequate to understand it even though we were attempting to use google translate. It seeemed to be relating to the problems this caused in the local area for the old people, women and children.

These next three photos show large scale wheat sowing

This is a BMW Dixie the first car model BMW made. It is an Austin 7 made under license 1928-1930

Gorlitz when we came to it has a very intact old centre so must have suffered very little as the Russians advanced during the war. The river, which is quite narrow here devides the town between the German part and the Polish part. We are staying at a very comfortable hotel The Park Hotel and enjoying what it has to offer.

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 1,175 km (730 miles)

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