Myślenice is a small, sturdy town in the foothills south of Kraków, on the Raba river, and for generations it has been the first place on the road to the mountains where travellers draw breath. The old market square has a pleasant, unhurried look, with a town hall in the middle and a handful of cafés and ice-cream shops around the edge. It sits in the Beskid Wyspowy, the Island Beskids, a landscape of separate, rounded, forested hills that stand like islands among the valleys, and the shapes in every direction give the place a soft, rolling character.
The road running through town is the Zakopianka, the old highway that carries Poles to Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains, and anyone who has driven it on a summer Friday or a winter Sunday will have a feeling about it. Traffic has long been heavy, and a new expressway has relieved much of it, though the old road still jams on busy weekends. Timing matters, and an early start or a weekday ride makes a big difference. On the old roads, the lanes are narrow, with trucks, tourists and the occasional horse cart, and overtaking needs care.
From here the landscape grows steadily more mountainous. The Gorce range lies to the south-west, with beech and spruce forest and high meadows, and beyond it the Tatras rise as a jagged, grey wall, snow-capped into early summer. Along the way, villages of wooden houses with steep roofs give a hint of highland culture, with carved gables and roadside chapels. In the foothills the surface is generally good, the bends are gentle and the scenery changes with every kilometre.
Myślenice has more than seventeen thousand people, with plenty of fuel stations on the main road, and the best strategy is to fill the tank here before the climb. Bakeries sell fresh bread and poppy-seed pastries, and a bowl of żurek, a sour rye soup, is a good way to start. Kraków is about thirty kilometres north, so it makes a handy start or end point.