In my last article I described a beautiful renaissance town – Kazimierz Dolny. Now I want to share my experience in riding a bike in its surrounding. Lublin Voivodeship has plenty of nice roads for bicycle lovers!
The Open Air Village Museum in Lublin
Let’s start with Lublin, where you can see the open air museum. It is one of the biggest open air museums in Poland and it shows the former life in a village, in a manor and in a small town.
Nice place to see however I prefer nature and real old buildings, not made for tourists ;)
From Lublin to Kazimierz by bike
The open air museum is a place where a red trail to Kazimierz Dolny starts. Actually there are two red trails – walking and biking. Both will guide you to Kazimierz Dolny but a bit different way. If you prefer paved roads, probably bicycle trail would be a better choice. If you like gravel and a bit more difficult terrain, try walking trail.
I tried to ride walking trail, however I lost it somewhere between Lublin and Nałęczów, so my track is partly walking and partly biking trail.
It’s a very nice track, leading on silent village roads, through fields, canola and hops cultivation. The most interesting part of trail starts behind Nałęczów, where you will ride by bicycle through amazing loess gullies. On the end, in Bochotnica, you can see the ruins of castle from 14th century.
From Kazimierz to Dęblin by bike
After you visit Kazimierz Dolny, you can go north or south. Like forest and dirt paths, hills, mud, wading through an orchard bypassing a beehive, poor marking of trails? Choose north! Trails between Kazimierz and Puławy have all you like!
However if you don’t like such trails, you can also choose north ;) Below is my route through the forest, mud etc. but if you prefer easier trails you can ride along Vistula river. You will see this trail in next section of this post.
In Puławy you can visit The Czartoryski Palace from 17th century and the small but nice nature reserve “Łęg na Kępie”. And if you choose riding a bicycle along the river you will see the views like below.
Puławy is a good place for starting or finishing your biking trip as there is a railway station. There’s only one thing you have to remember – there are two railway stations: “Puławy” which is the freight station and “Puławy Miasto” which is the passenger station and they are 4 km apart. I forgot about it on my first trip, Google Maps guided me to the freight station and it resulted in being late 3 minutes for my train to Warsaw ;)
There isn’t such problem in Dęblin which is another place good for bikers who travel by train. You can get there riding international greenway “Amber Route” (Szlak Bursztynowy) or another trail, marked on my route. Both are nice but I prefer the second one. It goes along a nice forest and nature reserve “Piskory” where you can meet a beaver or at least his traces. Reportedly there are also rare species of plants, birds and even mooses. I came across a grass snake and an ant which attacked it… What a fight! I’ve never seen something like it ;)
From Kazimierz to Opole Lubelskie by bike
Going south from Kazimierz you can feel like you go back in time. First interesting place is Mięćmierz, an old raftsman settlement, just few kilometres from Kazimierz. It dates back to Middle Ages and you can see there still thatched cottages, wooden well with still working manual pump and a historical windmill. Don’t forget to climb the hill “Albrechtówka” which offers a beautiful view of the river valley and nature reserve “Krowia Wyspa” (Cow Island).
Further, I suggest going blue trail “Grodziska nad Chodelką”. On 15 km trail there are four slavic settlements from 8th – 10th century. Actually only one of them is interesting, in Żmijowiska. It’s reconstructed small settlement, a nice place for a brake in your biking trip. On the other three there are only information boards and probably you have to be an archeologist to find there something interesting. However the whole trail until Opole Lubelskie is worth to ride. It’s a nice trail going along forests, hills, gullies and field paths.
In Opole Lubelskie there isn’t any train station, so you have to ride to Nałęczów, Puławy or – if you want to make a longer trip – I suggest going back on the other side of Vistula river.
In the middle of this trail, opposite to Kazimierz Dolny, there’s a castle in Janowiec. I have only two photos from the outside, because, although I was few times in this area, I never had time to see it. But probably it’s worth to visit and if you don’t like long biking trips, in summer you can also get there by a ferryboat from Kazimierz.
Besides Janowiec Castle on the left side of Vistula river there isn’t many attractions. Except for empty paved road, especially between Solec nad Wisłą and Janowiec. It was 30 km of fast bicycle ride with almost no cars! Between Janowiec and Dęblin it’s a bit more busy but still great if you like a fast pace :)
Thank you :)
Leave a Reply