In the end, there was this starry sky. So overwhelming, so incredibly clear, so gigantic. A starry sky over Polish meadows and fields, the likes of which I have seen perhaps once or twice in my life. In the African desert perhaps, on the Atlantic.
But what on earth does this starry sky above the secluded Dwor Dawidy manor house have to do with our cycle tour through north-east Poland? This incredible starry sky was the reason why I have fond memories of this tour through the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Perhaps the magic of this starry sky outshone some of the other things that had seemed so dull and grey to the right and left of the Green Velo long-distance cycle route and beyond the Polish country roads in the days before. Which was annoying and disappointing, or at least often gave rise to an ambivalent feeling. I had never been to Poland before, so I was excited. I imagined Warmia to be similar to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 30 to 40 years ago. That wasn't so wrong, although I was naive enough to believe that we would be travelling through one Polish "Bullerbü" after another, through a peaceful, rural idyll.
The Green Velo cycle route is almost 2,000 kilometres long. Far too long for us, so we opted for the first few kilometres starting in Elblag on the Baltic Sea.
In the city, the sky is grey and overcast, making the monstrous prefabricated housing estates look even bleaker. Fortunately, we quickly head out into the forest. The Green Velo signs are not green, but bright orange and cannot be overlooked. And if Kashubia, south-west of Gdansk, can call itself "Kashubian Switzerland", then the region around Elblag can certainly call itself something like "Elbe Switzerland". We scrambled from zero to around 150 metres in altitude in no time at all. That's not much, but it came as a surprise so close to the Baltic Sea.
A sign leads us to the Green Velo MOR. This stands for Miejsce Obsługi Rowerzystów, which loosely translates as cyclists' rest area. I have never seen a rest area like this on any of my tours. Everything is bright green. The tables and chairs, the frame for the information board, the bike racks - and the toilet! Whether a toilet block is a good idea will only become clear when there is reliable experience of whether and how often this porta-potty is cleaned.
Green Velo: Long-distance cycle route through Poland
The idea is not exactly revolutionary, but it is a good one: a long-distance cycle route through Poland.
The Poles themselves liked the idea and its realisation so much that they awarded the Green Velo, and therefore themselves, a tourist Oscar at the beginning of 2017. The almost 2,000-kilometre cycle route connects the remote south-east of the country with the Baltic Sea.
The start or finish - depending on the direction of travel - is either near Elblag on the Vistula Lagoon in Warmia-Masuria or in Sielpia - from where the Green Velo makes a detour to the south-east before heading north from the World Heritage city of Zamosc and then north-east.
The long-distance cycle route was completed in 2016 and runs through five voivodeships (administrative districts). Through Warmia-Masuria, Podlasie, Lublin, Carpathian Foreland and Holy Cross. The varied route runs through five national parks and numerous nature reserves, along the border with Belarus and Ukraine and finally not far from the border with the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad (Königsberg).
400 of the 1,980 kilometres of cycle path were newly built, some of them on former railway lines. 220 rest areas, most of them with toilets, have been built, but the signs at the stations are still only in Polish. A total of 65 million euros, a good portion of which was subsidised by EU funds, was invested in the expansion of Green Velo. Information and maps at: greenvelo.pl
After all, it is beautifully situated, our first MOR, in the small village of Jagodnik between forests, fields and the Baltic Sea. This consists of the Vistula Lagoon, around 80 kilometres long and up to 18 kilometres wide, separated from the Bay of Gdansk by a narrow strip of land, the Vistula Spit. The only navigable connection lies in the far east on Russian territory. Economically difficult for the harbour town of Elblag, a stroke of luck for all those seeking peace and relaxation in the natural landscape.
We continue along the Vistula Lagoon, with a belt of reeds separating us from the sea on the left. There are rarely any stretches of beach that invite you to swim. And when there are, they are ghost beaches, abandoned stalls, sunshades blown over and rubbish left behind. The dream holiday by the sea is a different story. Okay, it's not bathing weather either, even though it's the middle of August: the thermometer reads 18 degrees Celsius. Dark mountains of clouds tower over the meadows between the forest and the Baltic Sea. Tolkmicko is not far away and we really step on the gas when the first drops start to fall. Not only does this have the advantage that we arrive at the farmers' market in the village reasonably dry, but it also means that we don't get so shaken up on the concrete slab road at high speed.
We order fresh cod with chips and salad at a simple fish fry in the town. Just as it should be, it rained off after we had finished our plates. The fish was delicious, the landlord a really friendly person; he remains the only one for quite a while.
It's not far to Frombork with its mighty 14th century cathedral and 300 years younger bell tower. A certain Nicolaus Copernicus lived and worked here, "in the furthest corner of the world", as he himself said at the time. The man was an all-round genius, and his greatest achievement in the 16th century was, as is well known, that he did away with the so-called geocentric view of the world. In his major work "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium", Copernicus proved that the Earth is a planet that revolves around its own axis - and like the other known planets - around the sun, thus revolutionising science.
In the evening, we meet Raimund from Stuttgart at the restaurant in Pieniezno. He has taken the time to cycle the entire Green Velo. Raimund raves about the south-east of Poland, the Pre-Carpathian region, the Holy Cross Mountains - and he has nothing good to say about the previous day's stage. Unfortunately, exactly the stage that lies ahead of us: "Desolate area, bad-tempered people, disastrous cycle paths." That about sums up what the Swabian had to complain about.
Raimund is only partly right. The sun shines from the sky the next morning and makes the area look far less dreary. We cycle along beautiful avenues through fields, on old railway lines through eerie moors, on gravel roads through mixed forests where wolves still roam. And over cobblestones through numerous villages that almost always have one thing in common: No matter how small, no matter how sleepy - a mighty church can be found almost every time. The young people of the village often spin around in pointless circles on their rust buckets. Sometimes the boys try to keep up with us for a few metres, sometimes they are just amazed. But at least they smile. Almost everywhere in the world, cyclists are greeted back on the road. The people here mostly stubbornly and wordlessly look straight ahead.
Jan Kozlowski, owner of the manor house in Dawidy, has an explanation for this: "Many of the current residents were resettled here after 1945, from south-east Poland, from the Ukraine. Warmia is not their real home. Many are simply not doing well economically, they lack prospects." Warmia is a structurally weak region and also has the highest unemployment rate in the whole country.
Before my first trip to Poland, I had no preconceptions, but also hardly any prior knowledge about our neighbouring country: Robert Lewandowski, Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, that was it. When planning the tour, I was amazed at the history of the Teutonic Knights, who were up to mischief in the north-east of what is now Poland, the former East and West Prussia. In addition to the churches, the supposed saviours built mighty castles in the region in the early Middle Ages. We stop off at one of these impressive buildings in Lidzbark Warminski.
From there, our tour continues to Galiny, the apex of our route. Fields and meadows are bathed in a mild evening light as we take a short break at the Stoczek Klasztorny monastery and admire the magnificent church and picturesque cloisters of the complex. And when one of the old monks sets off on his evening walk and a horse-drawn carriage clatters past, the peaceful atmosphere of days gone by was just what I had imagined.
Jan Kozlowski, who is originally from Warsaw and has travelled the world extensively, ultimately chose this area to live in: "It's lonely in a positive sense, it's pristine," he says. There is hardly any industry and therefore little air pollution and no light pollution at all in this sparsely populated area. "I love the many old beeches, oaks and lime trees - and it's not far from the sea," says the new landowner of Dwor Dawidy. And not to forget, it has the most beautiful starry sky imaginable.
Information and tips for a cycle tour on the Green Velo long-distance cycle route in Poland
Tour area
The Warmia-Masuria Voivodeship is located in north-east Poland. From Elblag, the start and finish of the MYBIKE tour, it is 60 kilometres to Gdansk. The self-designed route first leads along the Vistula Lagoon on a green bike and then into the sparsely populated interior. From Galiny back along mainly small roads and avenues.
The area is hilly, the climbs are short but sometimes quite tough. We covered around 2,500 metres in altitude over the 360 kilometres. The surface on the Green Velo route varies between well-maintained tarmac sections, gravel roads that are easy to ride on, concrete slab tracks and small country roads full of potholes.
Arrival
Car: From Berlin it is six to seven hours to Elblag, depending on the route.
Railway: Depending on the route, it takes seven to eight hours by train from Berlin main station with several changes. Information on taking bikes with you: www.bahn.de
Bus: FlixBus travels from Berlin to Gdansk for around 30 euros, bike transport costs 9 euros each way. Information at www.flixbus.de
Flight: Lufthansa and LOT fly to Gdansk from several German airports. From there it is about 75 kilometres to Elblag.
GPS data
You can download the GPX track for the cycle tour on the Green Velo long-distance cycle route through Poland from the DK tour portal
Accommodation
Elblag: Hotel Elblag. First house on the square in the New Old Town. Double room from approx. 85 euros. hotelelblag.eu
Pieniezno: Hotel Hermes. Simple hotel on the outskirts of the city. Breakfast on request, double room approx. 25 euros. hermes-pieniezno.noclegiw.pl
Galiny: Palac Galiny. Historic accommodation with excellent regional cuisine. Double room from approx. 50 euros. palac-galiny.pl
Dawidy: Manor house Dwor DawidyDouble room from approx. 50 euros. dawidy.com
Food and drink
The Poles are Europe's "soup people". Specialities are the sour Zurek, a soup that gets its special taste from the slightly fermented rye meal, and the different variations of the beetroot soup Borschtsch (in Poland Barszcz). Bigos is really filling. The stew is something like the national dish of the Poles. The many small shops (skleps), which can be found in almost every village, are a practical place to eat when travelling.
MYBIKE tip: Restaurant Pod Kogutem in the old town centre of Elblag. Particularly tasty: Zurek sour flour soup with bacon and egg, borscht, Königsberger Klopse and homemade cheesecake.
Worth seeing
... in the entire region are the crusader castles of the Teutonic Order, in particular the well-preserved Bishop's Castle in Lidzbark Warminski (Heilsberg) and St Mary's Castle in the town of the same name (not on the route). Marienburg could be visited during the journey, as could Gdansk. The latter is definitely worth a detour, a truly impressive city. The harbour city on the Baltic Sea with its lively pedestrian zone invites you to take a stroll through the city.
Bicycle service
Elblag M Bike, Grunaldzka 2, tel. 0048/552371324, roweryelblag.pl
Information
Polish Tourist Office Berlin, Tel. 030/2100920, poland.travel/en
Warmia-Masuria Tourism, Tel. 0048/895353565, mazurytravel.com.pl
Literature
DuMont-Reise-Taschenbuch Masuren, Danzig, Marienburg; 18,90 Euro
