What?! It's raining tacos? Of course it's not :) at least not outside our heads. It's much more the title of a song we heard more than once this week in a happy summer mood.
This and more songs from our summer playlist can be found in the article below!
By the way, Madita has finished the two articles about her trip with us through Croatia :-) so feel free to check back a few entries!
Saturday 01.07.
Now it's already July. Crazy how fast time flies! And although on most days the weather is already very summery, there are days, like this Saturday, where pure rain is announced. Jurek offered us to sit out the rain at his place for another day - an offer we couldn't refuse! There is not much more to say, except that we chilled and did a few things. For the evening Tilman made pancakes with batter from buttermilk, which can be attributed to my bad Polish .... It looked very milky in the supermarket...
We chatted a lot with Jurek and his kids that evening. His daughter was preparing for a scouting trip and I was asking her questions about scouting.
End of the day :)
Sunday 02.07.
On this Sunday Tilman traditionally prepared his pancakes for breakfast. This time with real milk instead of buttermilk. After breakfast we said goodbye to Jurek and his family and drove up hill, down hill out of Krakow. During a break we were approached by a cyclist who was on his way back home from Krakow with his son. He invited us to stop by his place. At first we weren't sure, as it would mean a 40km detour. In the course of the day we decided to go there, but only the next day and before that to visit the town of Częstochowa. In a valley we were then surprised by heavy rain and hid under the tent tarp, which we stretched between the bikes.
Except for this wet intermezzo, we just cycled relaxed, passed towns with ornate fountains, once again met the Way of St. James - Buen Camino, until we found something next to a rail track - a nice clearing that suited us both and pitched our tent there.
Monday 03.07.
Our alarm clock rang at 6:30 a.m. However, we weren't really motivated and finally moved around 7:00.
A few earwigs later, we were already back on the road. On the way we wanted to look at the registered wild campground. Definitely too crowded for us - good that we had found something else before. We had to have breakfast anyway and so we just used the available bench. Only some minutes later a man addressed us, who collected garbage and wanted to give us a garbage bag. The communication turned out to be a bit difficult due to the language barrier. We explained to him that we did not need one, because we always have something with us to dispose of the garbage in the city.
That's exactly what we did when we arrived in Częstochowa. On the way there we passed one or the other small castle.
In Częstochowa we first went to the main attraction of the city - the Pilgrim Church. It is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Poland. It is like the Santiago de Compostella of the country. It is dedicated to St. Mary and houses the holy item of the Black Madonna. It was very impressive to see all the believers and pilgrims there, kneeling and praying in front of the altar.
We continued to Arthur, who lives about 20 km outside the city. He and his wife own a very large and beautiful property there. With chickens, cats, dogs and a goose. Arthur seemed very happy that we had stopped by, because he and his family also make frequent little bike trips. Together we prepared a typical dish from the region - over an open fire :-)
It was just a perfect summer evening, with very pleasant company and a small campfire.
Sometimes you have to take opportunities as they come - and the detour was definitely worth it for us and we are glad to have met Arthur and his family like this!
Tuesday 04.07.
You notice a restful night immediately when you wake up. Like today. The peace and quiet on Arthur's property were simply relaxing. For breakfast we had the leftovers and a coffee. And although we never seem to run out of topics to talk about with Arthur, at some point he had to go to work and we had to leave.
And instead of riding bikes, we just flew! That seems to be the "Hungary phenomenon." When you've been riding mountains/hills for days and then it's suddenly flat, you just jet off without making much of an effort. After about 60km we paused in a smaller town and after some ice next to a canoe station, where one of us watched the canoeists get in and out and the other took a siesta. Poland is really relaxed to drive. Especially the forests that offer some protection from the sun. The only exciting thing that happened that day was when I was digging a hole in the forest to do my business and suddenly saw an animal visitor: a snake. I shouted out and quickly ran away from the snake.... Then I just have to look for a suitable place somewhere else...
Towards evening we found a nice place to camp between trees and field and had suddenly 140km on the speedometer.
Wednesday 05.07.
We woke up with sunshine and no mosquitoes in the tent. Since we did not have so much planned today, we took our time with the dismantling of the tent. In between we received a weather warning for the evening by SMS. Why does this work in Poland, but in Germany not even the sirens go off? The morning air was really pleasantly cool and so we rolled and rolled. At a shady place it was time for a small breakfast break, where a nice woman offered us strawberries. The conversation that followed was very one-sided, since I unfortunately don't speak Polish. In the end we exchanged strawberries for chocolate :)
A few attempts with the drone later we enjoyed the silence of the Polish forest. While we drove along between the fields and increasingly also orchards and far and wide no people were to be seen, we made ourselves summer mood with a very selected and chaotic playlist.
In the evening we arrived at Maria's place, a bit south of Warsaw. How Tilman met Maria is also a funny story: It all started with the "welcometomygarden" dilemma and the general tendency that websites want to make more and more profit, against the wishes of the community. So Tilman started to look more into the code for these sites and became aware of a programmer who wanted to convince many to make a federated "hospitality network". This means that the data is no longer only on one server, but that you can jump variably between the platforms. This has the clear advantage that if one site decides to charge money now, you can take all your data with you.
Thursday 06.07.
After we had slept in and had breakfast in peace, Maria took us to Warsaw, because she had an appointment there anyway. From the point where she dropped us off we took the metro towards the center. Surprisingly, the metro was very clean and didn't have that disgusting smell I'm used to in Berlin.... Pretty much right next to the metro is the Museum of Technology and according to the planetarium database there should be a ZKP2 here. It is, but the staff told us that the planetarium section is unfortunately closed for renovation. Then it should not be. We strolled further through Warsaw and marveled at the one or other impressive buildings. Our next destination was the planetarium in the Copernicus Center, right next to the river. We were lucky there - it was open and very well attended!
We asked at the reception if it would be possible to just talk to someone, because they had a pretty interesting system, which we had never seen before. OHIRA_Tech MEGASTAR-IIA-Kaisei from Japan. They quickly found someone who in turn directed us to Mateusz. We were allowed to attend a live show. Unfortunately it was in Polish, but it was so well done and the graphics were so ingenious that the language didn't really matter. It started with the current starry sky, and I guess the starry sky at different seasons. Then the planets and their orbits in the sky were shown with the transition to Copernicus and the "revolution" from the Geocentric to the Heliocentric world view. The graphics were not over-animated, as you sometimes have it, but more like a drawing, where different things are highlighted. And that paired with an ingenious narrator's voice - a unique experience!
Afterwards we chatted for a long time and Mateusz told us that he is actually a radio astronomer, but loves working in the planetarium. It gives him the opportunity to bring the science and enthusiasm to the people. And his favorite star image is: Orion - by far one of the most impressive star images!
After we said goodbye, we dawdled a bit through the old town of Warsaw and came to the conclusion that it is nice, but that we liked Krakow better.
At the train station, we then had to realize that not only the Deutsche Bahn is sometimes incompetent. It was a huge act to buy a train ticket, but in the end we triumphed over the system and sat with a valid ticket on the train to Maria's village. The area south of Warsaw is very interesting. You have a lot of forests with roads, houses and towns built into them. Somehow a mixture of forest and residential area.
Friday 07.07.
Somehow we've been chilling a lot lately....
On the other hand, we also do a lot of kilometers when we drive. Well today was first again relax announced. Or rather work. Tilman was working on a website project and the blog has to be written, translated and the pictures added.
For dinner we tried something from Maria's "tourer kitchen" - pasta with strawberries!
As promised, a selection of songs from our summer playlist:
It's raining tacos - Parry Grip
Caramelldansen
Take a chance on me - ABBA
When I kissed the teacher - ABBA
Las piedras rodantes - El Tri