Lublin is sometimes called little Krakow, so I’m somewhat intrigued to visit. On the train to Lublin I surveyed the hostel situation, plenty to choose from. Full, Full, Full, there’s a huge Arts & Crafts fair this weekend. The artist are all wearing traditional clothes from Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania. I played tourist and visited a few places, whatever. I think as much as I’ve travelled, It’s hard to find something that really excites me. So I’ve been visiting Vegan restaurants, to support what there doing and eat what turned out to be some great food.
HANDMADE RUG 
THERE WHERE LOTS OF PAINTED BIRDS? 
BIRDHOUSE 
HAND PAINTED CERAMICS
i like bike touring, but the best part is unloading your gear and now you have a bicycle to explore with.
OLD TOWN LUBLIN 
OLD TOWN LUBLIN
I enjoyed the break in town, but nature is calling me back. So I’m on the Green Velo again.
jeff’s google route 
solar heat nearly every house 
PING PONG PARK 
MORE STORKS
I like the quiet of the nature routes, the dirt, sand, and mud trails, my bike? not so much. I stayed at a place where I washed my bike and especially the chain. They didn’t have any chain oil, so I visited a bike rental place, yep. I was shocked by the number of bikes they had for rent. There was a “soda pop” service that picked up your empty bottles and dropped off full ones, seemed every house participated.
DOVE TAIL JOINTED HOUSE 
I had looked at this out-of-the-way lake the day before & thought too far. As I traveled somewhat closer, I decided to go for it. The time was 15 and it was 35km, started riding & hard. The lake was in Zwierzyniec, super nice and quiet (no barking dogs). I had some down time so I grabbed a plastic bag and walked along the lake and picked up garbage. I fished 3 empty beer cans from the lake, what’s wrong with people? I was rewarded by the park employee with a cold beer.
POLAND IS DUMPLINGS & BEER
I was sitting having dinner when a family of bicycle tourers showed up. Everyone spoke great English, including all 3 kids. We had some funny conversations, except the 15 year old daughter. She let the family know “this is my last bike trip” and she showed it.
I 
GREEN VELO LOGO 
It’s my last day of riding 🙁 I kind of took for granted the routes, nature and the great riding weather. I hope to ride to the Rzeszow early enough to catch a train to Krakow.
MOST ALL OF THE HOUSES IN POLAND WERE SUPER NICE
KRAKOW
I got the train to Krakow and spent 4 days exploring. I did 2 of the “free” walking tours. They were so boring, I dropped out early. Auschwitz & the Salt Mines are 2 of the big tourist attractions, nope. Krakow like Prague is super busy during the day. Solution? Get up a 6 in the morning and bike the town. Krakow has bike lanes everywhere, another plus for having your bike.
PAINTED ON THE SIDEWALK 
RUSSIAN LICENSE PLATE 
MORNING BIKE RIDE 
MORNING BIKE RIDE 
FRESH WATER DELIERY IN THE OLD TOWN 
PHONE FEVER 
LOCAL ART 
Poland was quite different from what I’ve seen portrayed in the media. In the big cities? basically like every other big city. I was super surprised by the amount of bike infrastructure, the number of Vegan restaurants, the beer culture, the amount of spoken english and the price of stuff was super value.
When I’ve visited the UK, It was always someone from Poland, Hungary etc who waited on me in a restaurant or coffee shop. To encourage the young people to stay in Poland? In 2019, Poland passed a law that would exempt workers under the age of 26 from the income tax, better than nothing.
KRAKOW 
TRAIN INTERSECTION
Poland receives nearly 4 x’s more EU money than what they pay into the EU. Nearly every train station and big city downtowns were dug up and being worked on. It’s nice to see money invested in infrastructure and people. The Polish government has revealed that it intends to connect all major cities to a future high-speed rail network by 2020. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ , US infrastructure gets a D+ grade. The U.S. spends billions on the military, but nearly nothing maintaining America, What are they defending? a broken America?
I use to have a crafts business and always support artist. If I see something I like and can use it, I buy it. So I got some Polish and Ukrainian souvenirs.
Here’e the last of some misc. videos of the riding conditions in Poland.
I was invited out by a young couple for a beer. They were goo goo eyes about America, when I was done telling them about the real America? They said “We love Poland” and they should there’s problems but there’s a lot to be proud of. Like the HUGE middle class.
That’s the Poland that I saw, hope you enjoyed as much as I did.
Jeff
