Wisła – the town and the river

A traveller’s post without photos is a shame. Yet for some reason I have not taken my camera with me this time and took only 2 or 3 snaps with my phone. I cherished the moments, yet failed to save them for posterity.

A fresh relationship with a new girlfriend (we seriously hit it off in the last decade of July 2022) has moved on quickly enough that she invited me over to her second flat in Wisła. The old border guards headquarters building is where her paternal grandparents lived. Having repaid her aunt and uncle, she fully inherited the flat and turned into a holiday hangout or a place to work from in times of home office.

Getting to the site is (sadly) the most convenient by car – over 80% of the route is covered on motorway and as I set tempomat at 110 kmph (average fuel consumption of mere 6.2 litres per 100 kilometres) I managed to reach my destination within 4 hours and 20 minutes (door to door). An alternative is a PKP Intercity train to Bielsko-Biała, with journey duration of under four hours, but then you need to get to Wisła somehow, which is nearly 40 kilometres from the train station in Bielsko-Biała.

Funnily enough, I revisited Bielsko-Biała, a city I got to know reasonably well a few years ago, while with my ex-girlfriend. I felt slightly uncomfortable roaming around the town on my own to see how it has changed, while at that time my girlfriend was running 25 kilometres in the mountains. Memories have not been brought back, I had no flashbacks, but the place will always remain symbolic to me.

A pity I have not documented strolls and bike rides around Wisła, a town with 10,000 inhabitants whose area is as large as of Katowice and which consists of 7 districts, lying on countless hills and valleys. But since it seems it was just my first visit there, in a few weeks or so I will be likely to venture there with a camera and take shots when fiery colours of autumn take over in town.

During the weekend I also took up the biggest challenge in terms of uphill cycling in my life. I pedalled up the gross elevation of 567 metres, with some sections of ascent having a slope of 8%. Not easy pickings, yet I am profoundly proud of myself.

The short (4 nights, 3 days) foray helped me recharge batteries, yet now I am looking forward to another holidaying. Next Sunday I fly to Sardinia for a week. Expect a (proper photo) coverage on 11 September.

Pandemic diary – July 2022

Saturday, 2 July 2022
There are three EU countries in which on average every second citizen has been tested positive once since the beginning of the pandemic. Now comes the ranking of countries with the biggest percent of population having gone through an infection (which is a bit of a distortion, since it does not take into account reinfections, quite frequent in 2022):
1. Denmark: 51.71%,
2. Portugal: 51.01%,
3. Slovenia: 50.02%.

Tuesday, 5 July 2022
The 7-day average number of new infections rises above 500 for the first time since 11 May 2022 (with meagre testing).

Friday, 8 July 2022
The health minister Niedzielski (known also as the master of disaster / minister zagłady) proclaims mass testing (I would call it “any access to publicly funded testing) will be resumed once hospitalisations on account of COVID-19 reach 5,000 at one time. Belarus is the only other country geographically situated in Europe where the virus is swept under the carpet.

Wednesday, 13 July 2022
The 7-day average number of new infections rises above 1,000 for the first time since 26 April 2022. In 2021 the figure was crossed on 2 October, in 2020 on 26 September. On top, average testing volume is some 9 times lower than in two previous years, around the days when 1 one thousands of new infections were hit. “Autumn” has come early this year…

Saturday, 16 July 2022
In a sanatory where my mother has resided since 30 June for a 4-week recovery stay COVID-19 is rampant. Fortunately, mum remains healthy, but fewer and fewer people are around. In the absence of testing, each symptomatic patient is deported home, but sadly some of the elderly patients are taken to hospitals.

Sunday, 17 July 2022
The 7-day average number of cases worldwide inclines above 1,000,000 for the first time since early April 2022. The virus cares little about the summertime in the northern hemisphere.

Friday, 22 July 2022
The 7-day average number of new infections rises above 2,000 for the first time since 6 April 2022. In 2021 the figure was crossed on 14 October, in 2020 on 6 October. And those figures come out in the absence of mass testing, hence the estimated daily number of infections in Poland probably reaches 50,000.

Thursday, 28 July 2022
My mother returns from the sanatory which has been a hotbed of the virus for three weeks and has not been ill. Time to sign my parents up for the second booster.

Edit: off for the August long weekend into the mountains, hence next posting comes up on 21 August.