Poland

It is getting hot! The heat really tires us hot, so doing much less km in a day. We ended up staying in a campground on the bordertown and then the next day continued along the greenways route.

We arrived in Bielska Biala, hot and tired, at the end of our map and searching for a tourist information centre. A friendly local bookshop owner, said we were the third lot to ask in the last two weeks but he didn't know the answer. Instead he closed up his shop and took us to a travellers bookshop to buy maps and offered us to return to his shop for coffee. That later turned into an invitation to stay the night. So we did. Fantastic hospitality. He loves travelling himself; and has fond memories of kind hospitality in other countries. Entertaining stories. Interesting history lessons and stories of living under communist regime. He tried to convince us to rest up and stay two nights and invited us to stay with a friend of his in Krakow (without actually asking the friend first...)

We left after one night and cycled to Oswiecim, to visit the Auschwitz concentration camps. These are the largest Nazi concentration camps, where hundreds of thousands of people (mostly Jews) were killed. It was emotionally exhausting to visit them, but a real eye opener.

Today we take a train to Krakow, where hopefully Byrdies passport is waiting for her...