8 Days Bike Tour of the Masurian Lakes, Poland

by Michelle Nelson

Tree lined alleys and a very rare east european car

The Masurian Lake area is a lake district in northeastern Poland within the geographical region of Masuria. It contains more than 2,000 lakes and is a great place to bike. Lots of small, tree lined alleys and lakes to cool off in when you get too hot.

So many lakes I cannot even remember the name of this one

Many farmhouses decorate their entries with these lovely crosses. The ribbons are clean so I suppose they are regulary washed and ironed.

Masury is also very popular with boaters. They rent house boats or sail boats and travel around the lakes which are connected with canals. Quite often the wind was strong and it looked like good sailing could be had. Bikers do not care for wind as it makes it hard to bike.

Our bike trip started in Gizycko where we stayed in a small wooden house directly on the beautiful Lake Niegocin. Unfortunately, our navigation system did not know the address of the place where we were staying and we ended up at the end of a dirt road asking directions from people who neither spoke English nor German.

This was not where our cabin was... we were just trying to find someone to ask

A lot of gesturing and pointing did the trick and we arrived at our cozy little wooden house on the lake.

"Stranda Gizycko" with view of the lake and a kitchen

Preparations for our bike trip included doing our laundry in the sink with shampoo and hanging it on the fence. This is Uli's favorite pastime and he always has wet clothes hanging somewhere.

Look at all those clean tshirts

As we packed up the car for the road trip through the east block we decided against taking our own bikes as the thought of driving through Moscow and parking with the bike rack mounted gave us hives. This explains why we biked through Poland on heavy polish bikes with only 7 gears and pedal brakes.

A very lovely gentleman named Adrian rented us bikes in Gizycko, and provided us with maps and a description of the route. This proved to be very important as there were no signs saying “Masurian Bike Trail”…

After the first day of riding we were very appreciative of our heavy polish bicycles as we had all kinds of streets: cobblestones, sand, gravel and more! This made me think of my daughter who had a course in the university covering road engineering. I vote for Asphalt!

Slippery cobblestones rattle your brains

Deep sand is also hard to ride in. Time to push

According to our map this is the old highway - cement blocks

East Prussia

Traveling by bike is interesting and you pass through towns, farm villages and historic that you might not even notice if you were traveling by car.

One afternoon, we were having our lunch under a shady tree far away from any houses or towns and we got up to wander around and stumbled over some old rocks. Well, the rocks turned out to be graves from the period around WWII and they had German inscriptions. Of course, this part of Poland used to be German before WWII and was called East Prussia. This was very exciting for me as I am reading Ken Follet’s historical trilogy “Fall of Giants” – which take place during WWI, WWII and the fall of communism. In my book, the Russian army was just marching into East Prussia. Living History!

Deserted german graves

Imagine our surprise as we realized that we had a picnic in the middle of an old graveyard without even knowing it.

Wolfs Lair – Wolfschanze

Another place that we biked past and spontaneously decided to visit was the Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair. This was Hitler’s eastern headquarters during WWII where he built sturdy bunkers and coordinated the war on the eastern front. It is also where Staufenberg tried to assassinate Hitler as portrayed in the movie Valkyrie with Tom Cruise.

Bunker at Wolfschanze

WWII relics on display

Lake Csoz was probably the most beautiful lake we stayed at and we had a hotel with balcony directly overlooking the lake. It was very hard to pack up the bikes and leave the next day.

They even had a bar where you could have a sundowner and watch the sailboats.

We passed through many small villages which seemed to have more storks than people. Did you know that storks do not sing but rather clap with their beaks?

We watched an impressive show by this male stork as he was trying to win over a female -he clapped his beak, spread his wings and stomped around his huge nest.

Sklep

After a few days we finally discovered that “Sklep” means shop and were able to buy our lunch and water to have a picnic while biking.

Unfortunately, Ania did not speak English or German and pointing and nodding did not work because nodding “yes” and “no” is opposite in Poland. If you shake your head up and down meaning “yes” for me meant “no” for Ania… finally someone else entered the sklep and helped out!

Uli with his daily Kielbosa sausage

We took a ferry with our bikes at Werzba to Mikolaji. Michelle wanted to park the bycicle next to motor bike and race him getting of the ferry.

There are canals and locks connecting the lakes and rivers in Mazury.

This is the lock near the town of Ruciane-Nida.

Uli was all set with the telephoto lens to capture beavers, wolves and elk. Unfortunately, we did not see any so he took pictures of lots of other exotic and endangered animals.

Rushes and water lilies are abundant on the lakes and rivers.

Russian Orthodox Church

To give our legs and butts a rest we rented a kayak in Krutyn in the Masury Nature Park and spent a day on the Krutynia river.

The river was so full that at times it seemed like we were on bumper boats knocking into other boats.

The polish are very pratical and provide drive through restaurants for the boaters.

Uli sat in the back and I was in the front. We had some discussions about him not paddling… I think if we ever go on a longer trip I will get one of those helmet cams and point it backwards to watch him.