From the mountains to the sea

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the mobile phone of Paul Kaye (left), a Brussels-based Brit currently cycling along the Vistula from its source in the mountains to the sea. He'd picked up on my post about the newly-opened Vistula cycle path that makes its way through Warsaw along the right bank. I replied to Paul's question that the city's flood defence wall along the left bank of the river makes for a good approach to Warsaw from Góra Kalwaria and Konstancin in the south (my blog posts here and here).

Paul has previously cycled the entire length of the Iron Curtain "from Trieste in the Adriatic to Stettin in the Baltic" and has published a book, Fragments, about that journey.

Paul's current trip will total over 1,300km, a similar distance to the one I covered 25 years ago this summer, from the top of Spain to the bottom of Portugal. Today's cycle traveller has the vast advantage of the internet and mobile telephony; to find information and get recommendations of where to stay, to contact people along the way.

Paul's next stops are Płock, Toruń and finally Gdańsk. A Vistula path should really be laid out all the way from the mountains to the sea via all points in between so that cyclists can make the journey without having to make wide detours or competing with heavy goods traffic. The cost of creating a proper Vistula cycle path would be relatively small; the benefits to Poland's tourist industry would be massive.