Wilków is a village on the Vistula rather than a famous stop, and it earns its place on the ride through the country around it. The river here is wide, shallow and braided, running over sandbanks that appear and disappear with the season, and Poland has left it largely unregulated along this stretch, so it behaves much as it did centuries ago. White sandbars attract nesting terns and lapwings, willows and poplars crowd the banks, and in the evenings the whole valley is soft with mist and the sound of frogs.
Behind the river rises the edge of the Lublin Upland, with the loess gorges that are the district's signature. The roads here dip into them and climb out again, with surfaces that are generally good and bends that are gentle but constant. It is farming country, and in summer you pass orchards and fields of strawberries, cherries and apples, with stalls by the road selling the fruit in baskets. Fruit lorries and tractors are the main hazards in season, and the lanes are narrow enough that you cannot assume the other side is empty.
On the opposite bank, reached by the ferry that runs in the warmer months from nearby, stands the ruin of Janowiec Castle, a Renaissance residence that belonged to a succession of noble families and was left to decay after the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is now a museum and a very atmospheric place to walk around, with views across the water. The ferry itself is half the fun: a short crossing, a few vehicles at a time, and a sense that the river is in charge. It does not run in the cold months, so check before you plan a loop.
Wilków has little in the way of services, so plan your stops. Kazimierz Dolny, eight kilometres away, is the obvious place for lunch, and Opole Lubelskie, fourteen kilometres off, is the nearest town of any size for fuel and shops, though Puławy is bigger still. Fill up before you head into the villages, and carry a bit of cash for farm stands, which do not always take cards. The late afternoon, with low sunlight on the river and the dust of the lanes glowing, is the time to be here.