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Can you say "Szlak Orlich Gniazd"? What is 'Szlak Orlich Gniazd'? Well it's Polish for "Trail of the Eagles' Nests", of course. What's that? Ah, well now... In May last year, we went cycling in the Girona region of Spain, a part of the world not renowned for its flatness, and that lack of renown is well deserved. We thought we'd like another trip, but maybe slightly less vertical. Perhaps along the Danube? Vienna to Budapest? But looking into it, that really was far too tame. However, the Danube flows into Poland, and so when Amanda was doing her research, she got a few Polish cycling hits. Investigating further, we thought we could have something here. "Eagles' nests", though? Eagles aren't ground-nesting birds, are they? Sort of high mountainy parts are more their thing aren't they? Well it's not quite that bad. The nests are a bit more metaphorical, being castles built on hills in the Polish Jura region, mostly in the 14th century. Geologists would call the area a 'peneplain' with 'monadnocks', but we lay people might understand it better as "flattish except for some big sticky-up-rock bits". Looks like it could fit the bill. A tourist trail that takes in the sights between Kraków and Częstochowa (slightly different routes for walking and cycling) is considered one of the best in the country. A number of companies offer the kind of tour we want (hotels pre-booked and luggage transported for us, so we just have to do the cycling) but we end up with Kraków-based "BikeTrip", who make up for their lack of imagination in naming the company with helpful and responsive service. Some of the tours will do the whole thing in three days - the route is around 200km plus or minus depending on options - but we want to have time to see things and relax. We're going to take a slightly longer version - 240km - and spread it over 9 days, with 5 moving days and a day exploring/walking/whatever in between each one. We'll also add on a couple of days in Kraków before and another one after to keep it all nice and leisurely. Neither of us have ever been to Poland before, so it would be a pity to rush. Day 1 ~ 28 June ~ London to Kraków Day 2 ~ 29 June ~ Kraków Day 3 ~ 30 June ~ Kraków to Olsztyn to Bobolice Day 4 ~ 1 July ~ Bobolice Day 5 ~ 2 July ~ Bobolice to Podzamcze Day 6 ~ 3 July ~ Podzamcze Day 7 ~ 4 July ~ Podzamcze to Olkusz Day 8 ~ 5 July ~ Olkusz Day 9 ~ 6 July ~ Olkusz to Tomaszowice Day 10 ~ 7 July ~ Tomaszowice Day 11 ~ 8 July ~ Tomaszowice to Kraków Day 12 ~ 9 July ~ Kraków to London year index |