Krakow to Bialystock
We're bound for the Baltic states, so the natural place is towards.. Well that way, innit, up and to the right. We accept that it'll be a day of munching some miles, and so settle in to do some boring motoring. We head out of Krakow Northbound, planning to swerve around Warsaw to the right and see how we go.
The Polish roads are OK but don't seem terribly well organised. You would find a two lane stretch that would head over a blind summit, into a curve and road narrowing to a single lane, with predictable worries. Not great. Also, there was startlingly little amount of dual carriageway sections between the first and second cities. A lot of drivers seemed bored and distracted on the road towards Warsaw. I followed a guy in an Audi for quite a while, and I think he was just about doing everything else but paying attention to driving.
We learn new road language such as 'Roboty Drogowe' and 'Uwaga'. Ah, the joys of international road travel.
It didn't seem so long before we saw the inevitable.
We stop for lunch at a place called Warka, home to another Polish beer. Sadly that is off limits. We have dumplings and pancakes.
Back to the road. As we move North East there is a startlingly high volume of HGV traffic and we participate in what feels to be the first national 'Lorry Overtaking Championships'. They're everywhere, but very considerate, moving over to let us pass, indicating to help us get by where we can go. It feels like this is the territory for professional drivers to operate properly.
We spend a lot of time with this kind of view..
To Bialystock and we haul up at a Best Western. A good dinner and a cocktail and we conclude todays' dead day of expected boring motoring hadn't been that boring at all. Not exactly stunning roads, but plenty to keep you on your toes, and the compliant nature of the traffic just egged you on to keep going. We reflect on some comments on the Gser site about the bad standard of motoring in Poland. True, in the towns it seems alarming with cars zipping past kiddies on bicycles at 60mph, but compared to where we've been it is blessed relief.
I catch up with the news. I'm a bit out of date, having deliberately ignored as much as possible. Harry Redknapp has been sacked and now replaced by Andreas Villas-Hatstand. Andy Murray is still a miserable looking git. A Turkish jet has been shot down over Syria. Interesting.. we saw three jets heading east whilst we were back in Bandirma.. but that was a while ago now.