After two nights and a day in Krakow we are now at the gate for our first flight of three. We should be home in Victoria in roughly 24 hours.
Travel days are always interesting. I handle them much better than I used to however. I know there will be great moments, boring moments, and yes, a few problems along the way. Imagining problems that might happen is one of my superpowers. What I’m getting better at is reassuring myself that we are good at this, and we can solve almost anything that comes our way. For example, what if the pre arranged van that we ordered to carry us and our bikes to the airport doesn’t arrive? The hotel owner assured me over and over again that it would be there at 6:00. Well, sometimes I’m not paranoid, just clairvoyant. 15 minutes after it was expected I flagged down a woman on the street and asked her, through Google translate, if she could call the hotel manager and tell him what has happened. She kindly did, and whoever answered told her to call us a cab. She did call and was told that the company only had cars. I could feel the adrenaline surging inside me as I figured out my next step. After another useless call to the hotel, I spied a slightly larger cab pulling around the street. I flagged him down and asked him if he could carry our bikes. He thought not, but was willing to try. Thankfully we were able to just jam our boxed bikes into the back and squeeze ourselves in. We made it to the airport only 15 minutes later than expected!!! See we are good at this.
Our flight from Krakow to Munich is a cross listed Air Canada flight, but the carrier is Lufthansa. We were charged $300 dollars per bike instead of the $50 Air Canada charges. I was trying to ship my bike not buy one! Anyway we threw money at it and we are now waiting for our next adventure, this should be fun.
Great superpower to have!
Sometimes Hu.
Thanks for another great travelogue. Fly safe on your travel back to Town as we say on SGI.
Thanks Bob! We have made it to Toronto and it looks like the bikes have too!
See you soon!!
Loved following your blog. Welcome home!
Thanks Donna!
Absolutely!
Congratulations on completing another great cycling ride!
Your stories reminded me of a pleasant cycling journey that I made to many of the same places in Poland in 1996. I had entered from eastern Slovakia and made my way via Rzeszow, Zamosc, Torun, and Malbork, to Gdynia, where I got a Polish freighter to the UK. This was part of an Eastern Europe ride that began from Istanbul and Greece.
So many changes in Poland since you were there, but the old buildings are still the same.
It has occurred to me a couple of times that it wouldn’t cost much more to buy a new bike for every trip upon arrival! I’ll do a spreadsheet. 😉
Yes indeed! I did buy a bike for 300 euros in France at one point. Air Canada agrees that we were over charged so we will take it up with Lufthansa.
I look forward to the spreadsheet.
We appreciates your blogs.