Wroclaw was another temporary stopping off point I decided to spend a night in, in-between Poznan and Czarny Bor. I had heard from my friend that it had a beautiful town square, or Rynek. I basically just drove in to Wroclaw, parked, ate dinner, spent the night, got up, ate breakfast, and continued on to Czarny Gor. But I stayed directly on that main downtown square and it was a beautiful night. Compared to America, of course, Polish towns are very different in their geography, with a tight downtown area which was often walled in, dating from medieval times. So the center of town has these tall beautiful building facades which enclose gigantic center areas, and that’s where I stayed, on Plac Solny. I ate at a restaurant called Konspira which prided itself on being themed to the history of resistance in Poland, especially the branch of Solidarity called Fighting Solidarity. Unsurprisingly given current events, they had turned a portion of the decor over to information about the Ukraine invasion, and their stance on it was not subtle! They had a giant sign out front with Putin portrayed as Hitler and text that read “Nuremberg for Putin”. I ate some golabki with tomato sauce and they were quite good. In the morning I went to a tiny brasserie and had avocado toast with eggs and sausage, a latte and some sparkling water and the whole bill including tip was $13 USD. Which is insane.

I also got a chance to chat with Nataly on the phone for a while; she’s headed home soon.

I also strolled around a souvenir shop and learned that Wroclaw is a city of islands, and that for some reason they are obsessed with gnomes. But I didn’t get much time to learn more about that.

Everything about Poland (except, perhaps, the weather) has been very impressive. It’s a very modern country and the influence of the EU is clear; the roads are in great shape, everything is clean and the people are very nice. I will definitely have to come back and ride my bike.