It’s the longest possible
weekend. This year 1 May fell on Tuesday, 3 May on Thursday, both days
are national holidays. So Poland has nearly come to a stand-still, since
two-third of the alive working population have
taken three days off to enjoy nine days away from work. This might have
been a nuisance if you wanted to run errands. I had signed up to stay
in the office as I am taking two-week holidays from 20 May, so I needed
some time to catch up with all assignments
needed to be completed by the end of May, but in practice two weeks
earlier.
Here, first the day of May. My
girlfriend induced me to take an over 80-kilometre bike trip. We
practically set off from Metro Młociny, then further east towards the
other end of Vistula, through Most Północny. Apart from the
dual carriageway and the tram tracks, the bridge carries a sidewalk and
the cycling path. I must say the infrastructure for cyclists is getting
better and better in the capital.
Having cycled through Białołęka,
between blocks of flats and then between detached houses (a marvelous
place to spend weekends; unfortunately far worse in terms of daily
commuting), we find a path which runs parallel
to the railway line running to Gdańsk, the venue I had seen before from
train window. Oddly enough, Pendolino trains are less noisy than modern
Koleje Mazowieckie sets.
The path leads to Legionowo. In
the distance a road viaduct being a part of DK61, customarily solidly
jammed (traffic jams on bank holidays are a rarity) – Varsovians are
heading for Zegrze, stuck in their cars. Quite
probably many of those people are fit enough to go there by bike like
us. We are stopped before the gates on a guarded railway crossing and we
spot the odd (colour-wise) loco hauling nine passenger carriages. A
phenomenon to be noticed – in Poland gates are
closed several minutes before a train passes (resulting in huge queues
of vehicles waiting for gates to open; this is why I always turn the
engine off before railway crossings), abroad quite often less than one
minute – why?
After a short stopover to eat
sandwiches, we cycle west along the bank of Narew river, through the
soil-made embankment. The lands here are barely touched by mankind,
virgin I would say. It is getting hotter and hotter,
my back gets sweaty, as I carry food and a pack of juice in my
rucksack.
Having passed through Nowy Dwór
Mazowiecki, a district town less than 50 kilometres north of Warsaw,
which despite its vicinity to the capital felt like a provincial town,
we cycle back south, this time roughly along
Vistula. To our left, we come across the oldest golf course in Poland
and the most famous one in Rajszew. In terms of area, I suppose it is at
a par with professional courses in Western Europe. Round there, we take
another stop to fill up our stomachs by the
bank of Vistula.
Less than a quarter later, dark
clouds set in and thunders herald a downpour. Raindrops get bigger and
fall more frequently, but we keep moving on. As the downpour gets
intense, I spot a large canopy, under which a few
cyclists have already taken shelter. We stop over there and luckily, we
are under the roof the wait out the hail. The ice balls are probably
the biggest I have ever seen in my life. As I watched them fell, I felt
lucky the hail hit there, not over Ursynów
where my car sat in the open air; such balls could have left marks on
the vehicle. Oddly enough, some three kilometres south not a single
droplet of rain has fallen.
To the right, Wednesday late
afternoon, sitting on Vistula boulevards next to Centrum Nauki Kopernik.
Sipping beer, living it up in the city centre, glad Warsaw’s
authorities have done a lot to make improve this area
and make it relaxer-friendly. All potential voters of Patryk Jaki
should make a list to check out what stride Warsaw has made since 2006
when HGW and Platforma took over. Needless to say, it would not hurt to
make another list of things which still need to
be done, some even badly and compare length of both of them.
On Thursday we went by bikes to a
beach behind Wał Zawadowski, Wilanów district and spent there half a
day, basking in the sun (second day this year with day-time high near
+30C), walking around. The snap shows in the
distance (looking south) cranes and other machinery which are used for
preparatory works before construction of bridge carrying the Southern
Bypass of Warsaw over the Vistula gets in overdrive. To our nice
surprise, not droves of people around, yet the sort
of people who while away on city beaches remains the same (portable
barbecues, screaming children, swear words are the order of the day).
Now only two weeks in the office and then off to Slovenia, through Slovakia and Austria ;-)