Poland
November 29 - December 2010
We left France in late November to visit Tadek's parents in Warsaw and to sell our Vauxhall Movano van. On the way, we stopped off in Potsdam, Berlin for an alcohol filled evening with Ania, before setting off again at 8am in the morning. The usual journey of 8 hours turned into a nightmarish 14 hour slog. The snow started as soon as we had left Germany and by the time we had crawled along the motorway (only one lane cleared at best), Warsaw itself was gridlocked with broken down lorries not being able to negotiate overpasses. We slipped off the road trying to avoid one and had to wait for a passing local to help us push the van back onto the tarmac. Witek and Roma had expected us for dinner at around 6pm, but waited up until 01:30 to provide us with some reheated sustenance. When we left at 02:30 we were again stuck and had to rely on Witek to dig us out of the problem.
The van sold the next day (although the battery had refused to cooperate when the temperature reached minus 20!!!). The buyers got it going and drove it away, thus leaving us to brave public for the next three days. The Cuban embassy was very efficient providing us with the visas and accomplishing this made us feel so much closer to the real start of our trip. The rest of our tine was spent travelling to various bike shops (Warsaw is particularly well provided) and stocking up on missing equipment. No luck with finding a suitable, light, bike bag for my 57" framed bike though, so I had to make (bodge) a cardboard box for the purpose (see the photos below)
Public transport to the airport was reliable (shame that our planning wasn't) and we managed to arrive at the airport on time. An easy flight took us into London Heathrow for four more days in the UK to make final preparations (the flight was so much cheaper from London that even buying the flight from Warsaw made it worthwhile).
The van sold the next day (although the battery had refused to cooperate when the temperature reached minus 20!!!). The buyers got it going and drove it away, thus leaving us to brave public for the next three days. The Cuban embassy was very efficient providing us with the visas and accomplishing this made us feel so much closer to the real start of our trip. The rest of our tine was spent travelling to various bike shops (Warsaw is particularly well provided) and stocking up on missing equipment. No luck with finding a suitable, light, bike bag for my 57" framed bike though, so I had to make (bodge) a cardboard box for the purpose (see the photos below)
Public transport to the airport was reliable (shame that our planning wasn't) and we managed to arrive at the airport on time. An easy flight took us into London Heathrow for four more days in the UK to make final preparations (the flight was so much cheaper from London that even buying the flight from Warsaw made it worthwhile).