Day 4 - Swinoujscie to Kolobrzeg

Today was a mixture of experiences but lets start from the very beginning

Good nights sleep in what was a lovely room. Saw that the hotel had a large area set out for a breakfast buffet so I made no effort to get food the evening before. Got down at 0700 only to find that the breakfast wasn't a buffet but something i had to order. Chose the scrambled eggs which dutifully arrived along with loads of little things like fruit salad, a pastry, a plate of cheese and cold meats and some bread. Made myself a roll and stuck it in my pocket but it wasn't much

Packed and caught the local ferry across to the other side of the city and easily found the bike route. This time i decided to use the route planner on Google maps as my previous attempts of just following the map hadn't been very successful. What a difference it made

The route that Google chose for me at times followed R10 which is a route across the north of Poland. I suspect its part of Eurovelo 10 which is the route around the Baltic. It avoided all the big roads and had me going through endless national parks, woods, country lanes and farm land. A real joy

Only things that spoiled it all was the wind and the roads.

The winds were blowing from the North so every time i had to head that way I almost stopped. At one point I had a 30 minute stretch that seemed to last forever

The roads were something else! I thought the roads in Ireland were bad and don't get me started on some of the forest roads in Northern Sweden. Polish roads are shocking. A mixture of pre-fabricated soviet era military and agricultural were actually some of the best, at least they were consistent with their bumps. Then there were roads that were more potholes and patches than actual road. However I reserve my biggest criticism for the sand covered roads! They were absolutely horrendous!

The countryside was beautiful especially the national parks. They seemed timeless with the trees and the leaves lying on the ground. Occasionally the roads were cobbled and this is in the middle of nowhere. It had me thinking to all the effort it must have taken, even as i cursed them, of all those people who had built them by hand probably a couple of hundred years ago.

Then I would pop out of a park and find myself in a small slightly off season seaside village. Half open, half closed, with a mixture of new construction and derelict buildings. Most strange, looked like ne money flowing in to replace all the old out of style holiday apartments and chalets. It was confusing as you couldn't really understand what is really going on

Then if it wasn't the seaside villages or national parks it was old and new military bases. Large areas were fenced off but you got glimpses of various buildings and vehicles some old, a few new and a lot derelict

Arrived in Kolobrzeg at the end of a long day with a lousy average speed of barely 13kph.

Checked in at the first decent hotel and ate in the restaurant. Was great until 2 coach loads of German geriatrics turned up for the buffet :) Never mind they were all well behaved :)