September 22, 2024
Day 83: Elblag to Gdansk
No Ferry for You!
“I’m glad it hasn’t rained recently,” Patrick says as we navigate around small puddles and ridges made by the farm equipment. We expected some unsealed roads today but we experienced every conceivable type of surface: good asphalt, bad asphalt, new asphalt, hard packed dirt, concrete blocks that created “corrugations”, concrete with holes and dirt torn up and chunky.
Today could be the last day of the tour though the very last day would be after the ferry riding 60km to Bjorn’s home. We also expected today to be a sweet ride. After dropping down from the forested ridge into Elblag yesterday, we are now in the Vistula River delta with in vast flat farmlands. Since we cannot check-in to our apartment until after three, we again start out later today.
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The first kilometers are on a nice road. It is Sunday morning and there are very few people out. Then we turn off onto the first of the unsealed road for about 4kms and back on asphalt again. The farm road is paved with narrow concrete slabs that span the width of the road. They are all uneven and crowned in the middle. Then we get a section where the two drive tracks of the road are only paved with large perforated paving blocks. The corner where we turn has granite cobblestones, then we go back to the concrete slabs. We just bounce through it all.
Back on asphalt we ride pass yards with “garden art.”
The second unsealed road is more challenging. No pavement and still mud holes where the road has not dried out. On a rainy day this road would be impassible. We have to walk a short section, but can skirt around most holes. About 5 km further we are back on asphalt.
We arrive at a bridge just as it is starting to lift to let a motorboat through. It is painful to watch as with each tic-tic-tic of the cable slowly the bridge rises up, the boat squeezes through but the bridge has to rise to its full height before it slowly, tic-tic-tic goes back down.
We expect a wait for the ferry, so instead of stopping to eat we decide to keep going and get to the ferry that would takes us across the Vistula River. We are on a busier road. There are so many cars going in both directions, people are on the move this beautiful Sunday.
When we get to the ferry dock, there are many cyclists and day tourists, but no ferry to be seen. There is “no ferry because of the flooding”, Patrick is told when asking other local cyclist. Instead, there are some boats taking passengers on a scenic tour of the river. Local cyclists riding around the area, and we get a sense of where all those people driving were headed, to the beach.
There is a bike path on the east side of the river headed inland. About 10 km inland is a large bridge across the river, our best option now. After crossing the bridge we angle back towards to coast to get back to our original planned route. The detour adds about 17km to our distance today.
Eventually we are back on the eurovelo 10/13 route with bike path that will take us all the way into Gdansk. But then another small delay, we about 10minute wait at a railroad crossing. We are ready to just get there.
Our apartment is on the east side of the city, easily accessible from the bike trail. We have to use a door code to get into the building, take the elevator up to the third floor and use another code to open the keybox for the keys into the unit.
Best of all is that the elevator is big enough to roll a loaded bike into!
We have a nice unit rented for three days: a small kitchen, bedroom, living room, nice bathroom and even a washing machine and large balcony. Across the street is a shop where they sell cold beer so we are set.
At about five, we walk the short distance to the old town, wander around a bit and then find the Thai restaurant we wanted. After some confusion on where the entrance to the restaurant could be located, we get in and find a very fancy, expensive, but good Thai meal. We treat ourselves to ice cream on the way back and head back to our lodgings.
Our legs are tired, we cycled for nine days straight from Vilnius to here. Tomorrow we will explore Gdansk.
Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 4,279 km (2,657 miles)
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