Day 5 - Discovering Lower Silesia

Alex woke up almost worse than the day before, so he took a transfer from hotel to hotel and I rode the stage on my own. Looking at the profile, it could go either way: with almost no climbing, the wind would decide for me.

I knew from the first few pedal strokes that it was going to be a good day. Tailwind, a strong one, heading for Legnica. The first part ran along roads through fields and small villages, and through Złotoryja. Around that town there are some spectacular bike paths and greenways: I was riding on my own and a long way from any traffic. The cycling infrastructure in this region is something to envy.

I got to Legnica and the city still was not awake. Most cafés were shut. I found one open in the centre, looking out at the cathedral. The old town is lovely, like the other cities we had ridden through: cobbled streets, buildings in beautiful condition painted in pastel colours, and brick churches. That last thing has a name: brick Gothic, the way they built across central and northern Europe wherever there was no stone to hand. Legnica cathedral has a Gothic heart from the 14th century and the skin of an 1892 rebuild in the Gothic revival style, done with brick made in the city itself.

I carried on towards Lubiąż along quiet back lanes, through very small villages with very big houses. I rode sections into the wind, across it and with it. It always blew from the same side, and looking at the track you already knew whether the next straight was going to be kind or not. On the good stretches you could sit at forty with barely any effort, and on the bad ones it was a struggle to get past twenty. Looking at the data afterwards I saw how big the gap was: heading northeast I averaged thirty one an hour, and heading southeast, same flat ground and same legs, twenty six.

I got to Lubiąż and the size of the Cistercian abbey floored me. You could tell it was enormous from the road, and it is: two hundred and twenty three metres of façade, two and a half hectares of roof, around six hundred windows. It covers more ground than the Royal Castle in Warsaw and Wawel put together, and it is reckoned to be the largest Cistercian abbey in the world. It was founded in 1163. The Nazis put an arms factory inside it with forced labourers and the Soviets a military hospital, and then it was left to rot for forty years. Michael Willmann worked there, the painter they call the Silesian Rembrandt, the same one whose paintings we had seen at Henryków abbey on the first day.

I stopped to eat next door, at the Lubiąż Cistercian Inn, and had the best meat pierogi I have ever tasted. Highly recommended.

After lunch I picked up a track running alongside the river, in perfect condition, with straights that went on forever, but with the wind behind me I took it easy and enjoyed it. Later on I could tell I was entering the Wrocław metropolitan area: the fields ran out. I stopped in Marszowice to buy something for the last few kilometres. Just like day 1, arriving into the city was a pleasure, following bike lanes that are properly built.

One thing I did not know until afterwards: it was the day with the highest average heart rate of the whole week, above both mountain stages. The easy day, flat and with a tailwind, turned out to be my biggest effort of the trip.

I got to the hotel and found Alex wrecked. He had taken a painkiller but it was not enough, so I went to the pharmacy to find him something. We spent the afternoon resting and packing to leave the next day.

It was a week full of emotion: 669 kilometres, 8,489 metres of climbing and almost thirty two hours on the bike discovering Lower Silesia, a part of Poland that surprised us enormously and for the better. Surrounded by green, by vegetation, by history, cities in perfect condition and spotlessly clean, spectacular food, everything very safe and perfect temperatures for riding a bike. What more could you ask for?