Day 6: Lublinskie Part 1

What a city it was-more than one square and known for their alleys. It is an industrial city, but the old part is very quaint. After a good pasta lunch in an outdoor cafˇ on the main square, we walked up the tower above the town gate for quite an amazing view of the city. I shopped for a skirt and top but had no luck. It was quite frustrating trying to figure out the European sizes and the dressing room in this huge department store was only a curtain to close. I decided I needed a skirt since NO women wear shorts, they do wear slacks, jeans and skirts that come up to their crotches. However, men can wear anything, including no shirt! We visited their castle but opted out of visiting their church as it was 5pm and we needed to boogie on down the road.

A front moved in and cooled things down so we thought we "had died and gone to heaven," with the cooler temps and the wind at our backs. W were thinking of going even farther than what we had planned since the riding was such fun. But we were worried that there might not be a hotel at the end of the longer ride so we opted to stay with the original plan. We stopped by to check out another castle on the way but it was closed for the day. We arrived at the town with the hotel only to find out from some nice gentleman that it had closed 2-3 years ago-so much for our great map and guidebook! He said there was a motel about 3K away so we made off for it. If it didn't look too promising, we were going to go with Plan-B. By the time we finally found it, Aaron asked if I wanted to see the room and I said, "No-I'll take it sight unseen!" The young couple who owned it had 3 little ones. The oldest, a boy around 5, eyes lit up when he saw us, and he didn't waste any time to check out our bikes which we stored in their shed. The guy's mother lives in NY-go figure; usually the kids leave Mom in Poland as they go off to live in the good ole USA!

Supper in their restaurant consisted of Polish soup, ham and bean, and tomatoes and fries, with ketchup. Tomatoes are quite plentiful, sold at roadside stands and growing in greenhouses and fields along the way. They eat ketchup on everything, even as pizza sauce!