As we prepare to set off on our 3rd 20km+ training walk tomorrow, I will be introducing two new additions to the team. They are two Poles who, like me, have never actually been to Poland, but have all of the characteristics that one associates with that fine country.
They are strong, lean and upright and promise to assist me over the course of the walk, in particular on the steeper sections, where they will hopefully lend additional support on both the ascents and descents, so that I don't repeat the slightly embarrassing episode from the last walk where I lost my footing and nearly slipped to the bottom of one of the hills!
Hiking in Poland is the most popular of outdoor activities, and not without reason. The most popular hiking routes are those in the Tatra Mountains but the Pieniny, the Bieszczady or the Karkonosze are all options.
Poland has about a thousand caves, mostly in the uplands near Kraków and in the Tatra Mountains. For those unwilling to plunge into uncharted blackness, a handful of caves are adapted for the spatially-sane. The most spectacular of these are the Bear's Cave near Klodzko and the Paradise Cave near Kielce.
Marked hiking trails are abundant and marked on most maps. The hiking is fantastic as Poland is full of forests and changing wildlife throughout the year (e.g. storks in the summer on the Baltic coast and deer throughout the year).
For this reason, I am hoping that Jan & Elek, as I (in the style of Miranda's mother) call them, will be 'hiking poles' that I will soon wonder how I ever did without!
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