There aren't a lot of photos from Day 2. It was a wet and sodden
morning, nevermind that I woke up at 4.30am. Went back to bed and
woke up a couple of hours later to catch the intercity bus at
Warsaw West Terminal (Dworzec Zachodnia - I have problems with this
word, it's DVO-zzhets). Traffic in the morning was slow but at
least it was moving.
This leg of the holiday was done on my own, so I left my friend
and my suitcase behind in Warsaw. I got on the bus to Mikołajki
(Mik-o-WHY-kee) - you can buy tickets in advance or from the
driver. Before long, the rectangular apartment blocks of Warsaw's
suburbs are far behind and you are greeted by miles of rolling
countryside and farmland.
The intercity roads can be very scary. They're only 2 lanes wide
and the trees are waiting to catch you should slide off. Very often
cars and motorbikes overtake by driving against the flow of
traffic, and when there are *proper* roadworks (like ripping up a
whole lane of tarmac for replacement), you have to wait for your
turn to use the other lane. At other times, potholes are just
patched over and it can be a bouncy ride.
The bus stopped for an inordinate length of time in the town of
Ostrołęka, so the journey took 5 hours and 30 minutes. A snap of
the typical small town before we left:
Along the way I chatted with a guy named Bart, and he translated
the news that yesterday's rain caused flooding in the Silesia
region to the south. We also talked about the people selling
mushrooms and berries along the roadside, the Kurpie folks who hold
open marriages, the shitty summer and winter weather this year and
the village called Zgon, which means 'deceased' in Polish.
We're in the Mazuria region now which has plenty of lakes and
interconnecting canals. The skies were still grey when we got to
Mikołajki, a popular sailing town in the summer. The bus terminal
is actually just a roundabout in front of a former Protestant
church. Here's a look at the buildings on the shore of Lake Talty
from one of the bridges:
Since I was here for the WRC Rally of Poland, I decided to walk
1.5km to the service park to have a recce myself, and it was as
muddy as heck:
No drivers were around since they had all gone to the
countryside to recce the routes, aka stages, in unmarked vehicles.
We have only 2 manufacturers that are actively involved this
season, so on the right are the two Citroen teams (plus 2003 world
champion Petter Solberg, who runs an old Citroen in private
capacity) and on the left are the two Ford teams and Adapta, which
runs last year's Subaru.
You can get a lot closer to the junior and privateer teams
because their service areas don't have massive areas of fencing.
The contrast in their fortunes is massive - Citroen had 7 giant
containers and a media centre, the bigger junior teams a
medium-sized container each, and the privateers made do with one or
two camper vans for the tools, spare parts and the kitchen!
I stayed at Hotel Zamek Ryn, a 4-star hotel that's some 20km to
the north. It was the only place which had any rooms left - and
this was when I made reservations 3 months beforehand! It's a
former Teutonic knights' castle that is also a museum. 10zl gets
you there via bus, or 75zl by taxi. Here's the view of the town,
another sailing spot but less popular than Gizycko or Mikolajki,
from my room.
I had some wild boar with potato dumplings and a dessert
creation called Princess Anne's Dream (3 layers of nut cream
separated by biscuits, on top of coffee liqueur). It added up to
70zl sans tips. That works out to about $32 - not bad for a very
posh place.
I'll close the day with one of their displays of swords, helmets
and other mediæval implements.
