“Sal, we gotta go and never stop going ’till we get there.’
Jack Kerouac
‘Where we going, man?’
‘I don’t know but we gotta go.”
Thursday
A day of driving.
No fancy breakfast.
We strike out northeast for Lublin in search of coffee and lunch.
A four hour trip avoiding freeways and tolls.
We meander through forests that break into vast agricultural landscapes. Wheat and corn mostly, but there are market gardens of vegetables, berry farms and orchards throughout the sweeping crop fields.
You get the impression Poland could feed the world.
“Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds.”
Rachel Carson
We arrive in Lublin and head to Kan Kan for a coffee.
This is a cool place and serves good coffee.
A short walk around the block and we find Pyzata Chata for lunch.
It doesn’t look like much from the road but with almost 5000 reviews and a rating of 4.7, it must be doing something right.
Complimentary bread and pasztet z watroby to start. The pâté is delicious and not too rich.
I order the rosół z kurczaka makaronem to start. A clear chicken broth with egg noodles. This is followed by pasztet z watroby, pork steak with boiled potatores.
Shell has the pstrag pieczony w piekarniku, oven backed trout.
I don’t feel like a beer for lunch, so we wash lunch down with freshly squeezed ruby grapefruit juice.
Back in the car, we are driving northwest. Wyszków takes us north of Warsaw and a few hours driving tomorrow will see us in Lithuania.
I am in no rush to leave Poland, I feel like I have barely seen the best of it, but the push north to escape the hot weather has a sense of urgency. As er drive out of Lublin, it is already 33 degrees.
“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ”
William S. Burroughs
The drive from Lublin to Wyszków is more of the same, but it is easy, scenic driving.
We arrive at the tiny village of Białki moments after a storm has hit. There are branches on the road, fallen trees and general chaos. The roads are covered in water, massive, flooding puddles. Yet there is no sign of rain.
What is noticeable is the sudden temperature change. Moments before, the temperature was 34 degrees, within minutes of entering Białki, it dropped to 19. There is steam coming off the roads and as we leave the village, the forest is shrouded in a midday fog.
At some point in the journey, a doe crosses right in front of us with a fawn. We are not quick enough to get a photo.
We arrive in Wyszków a little after 4.00 pm and check into our place. A beautiful garden entrance, with the most noteworthy aspect of the room being the air conditioner labouring incredible decibels to produce little cold air.
Shell has a sleep while we wait for the weather to cool.
I don’t feel like dinner, which is concerning for the perpetually hungry individual. Something must be wrong.
We decide that a trip to the nearby grocery store for some breadrolls would be a fine dinner.
Shell finds some pickled herring and we make it back to our place as an impressive thunderstorm hits.
Lightning, thunder and torrential rain is the background music for an excellent meal.
Tomorrow, Lithuania.
“In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Sylvia Plath
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars …”