Bike ride to Święty Krzyż

Time for a weekend dad'n'lad bike expedition. On Saturday morning, Eddie and I set off for Piaseczno station, 7km away, to catch the Olsztyn to Kraków (semi-) express, a train which has bicycle facilities (right). I must say, my first reaction at this novel form of cycle storage was a worry that I'd end up with an egg-shaped front wheel. Note my bike (a Cannondale Caffeine F2) has but one front fork. To save weight. It works! The travel of downhill forks (dual crown) but the weight of cross country forks. And yes, I can ride 'no hands' without it pulling to the left. Two hours and eight minutes later we arrive at Skarzysko-Kamienna, a small town with a big railway junction at the northern end of Świętokrzyskie province. My front wheel is still the same shape. Last week's unemployment statistics show that the Skarzysko-Kamienna district has the highest unemployment in the province (23.2%). Neighbouring Szydłowiec (the previous stop on this line, still in Mazowsze) has Poland's highest, 30.2%.

Above: Eddie crossing the Kamienna river. Note the narrow-gauge rail sections from which this rather ramshackle bridge is built. What would Britain's Health and Safety commissars say! After a while we come across the marked cycle track that would take us down to the Góry Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross Mountains). This is the yellow path, with the logo of a mountain topped with a cross above the bike. We would follow this path for quite a while. As we labour over the soft sandy tracks south-east of Skarzysko-Kamienna headed towards Wąchock, a huge dark cloud passes overhead, depositing a short sharp shower on us. No lightning, thankfully. We press on, arriving in Wąchock as yet another, even more massive clouds blow over. Below: Wąchock's Cistercian Abbey dates back to the 12th Century. The one restaurant in town is closed for a wedding, so we press on and shelter from the storm by some trees overhanding a roadside embankment. Still no thunder (trees being the worst place to shelter under when the lightning starts to flash). More rain: Just south of Rataje, another heavy rainstorm hits us. Again, we sit it out under a tree by the side of the road (below). Progress is slow; we've not gone far and the afternoon's getting on. Left: We sit out yet another heavy shower in a bus shelter in the village of Rataje. As we did so, we observed this old woman walking through the pouring rain; her baggage (patched rucksack, plastic bags) indicating that she's a vagrant. I wondered what personal tragedies beset her life and caused her to wander the village roads of the Świętokrzyskie hills. Once, she must have had a sweetheart... After Rataje, we entered the Sieradowicki Landscape Park. The road through the park - over 8.5km) was mainly straight, cobbled (hard work, even for front suspension mountainbikes) and undulating. We watched a rather ludicrous cavalcade of 4x4 drivers wasting petrol and a Saturday afternoon driving up and down this road. (Like, guys, don't you have enough of driving during the week?) Out of the forest and into a gorgeous late afternoon. The scene above set something off in me emotionally. That old feeling that I've been here before, except not here, but somewhere identical in 1930s USA. The play of the light on the trees, the clarity of the sky, the greenery, the wooden fence - this is not something from my UK childhood memories. With light fading fast, we make it through Bodzentyn, Św. Katarzyna, Krążno and Porądbki. En route for Bielany Kapitulne, we pass this house fire, lit by a fading sun. Round the corner we see the fire engine racing to the scene.

At Św. Katarzyna, my determination to get to our hotel - the Jodłowy Dwór situated at the foot of Święty Krzyż before nightfall - was challenged by the presence of a large number of agroturystiki (rural B&Bs) in the town. All now have mobile phone numbers advertised, so you can check vacancies from outside. But Eddie's no quitter - he insists on going the distance. So we press on. At Huta Nowa we turn uphill and start winching our way towards Huta Szklana, where our hotel is located. We walk the last kilometer, it's just too steep for Eddie's tired legs (he's done well - we covered 67 km today!) and arrive at the hotel at 21:25. Too late for hot food, but some sandwiches get rustled up in the kitchen. Bikes stowed, we clean up and get some well-earned sleep.

After Sunday breakfast, we set off up Święty Krzyż on foot. The mountain (or rather hill, a mere 594m above sea level) was a place of pagan cult. Note the rock rubble (gołoborze) in the foreground. A little further on, we pass a TV transmission tower (which reminds me that we're at the highest point of Poland north of the Tatras). As it is with these things, along came the Benedictine Monks and turned a place of pagan cult into a place of Christian cult. This monastery reputedly houses a fragment of the cross of Jesus (hence the name of the mountain range). Brought to Poland by Emeric, son of the king of Hungary, the fragment soon had an entire 12th Century monastic infrastructure built up around it. Sadly, the crypt (with non-decomposed bodies of 18th Century monks and local aristocrats) does not open until 12:15 on Sundays (rest of the week 9am), so Eddie missed out on this.

Worth looking at this page and this page (both in Polish) for pics of the monastery interior plus the crypt.

I've been here three times - the first two times popping up during breaks from training seminars held at the Jodłowy Dwór hotel at the foot of the hill. Tourism has come along nicely since my first visit, in 1998, helped by EU pre-accession funds with more on tap. As long a places like this don't turn out as crowded as Zakopane and Kazimierz Dolny.

The monastery is a popular pilgrimage destination (we saw two large groups of pilgrims making their way up the hill, each headed by a priest with a megaphone and a man carrying a huge cross. Above: The east gate. The place attracts tourists from all over Poland and from as far away as the United States of America. The road home was less eventful. The road to Kielce has been improved with EU funds; there are proper cycle paths along the edges and smooth tarmac, so we made good time. Eddie proved to be an excellent cyclist with huge stamina, he kept up a cracking pace, to the extent that we arrived at Kielce station over an hour before our train back to Piaseczno! Eddie took a photo of me at Kielce station, triumphant at our combined feat. Total distance cycled this weekend - 119km, plus another 5km walking to the top of Święty Krzyż and back. What makes Eddie's acheivement all the more impressive is a) his bike weighs a whole lot more than mine and b) he doesn't have pedal clips as I do, which make a huge difference to pedalling efficiency. This time last year: Memorable day out in Lublin