Kazimierz and the Vistula

The loess gorges above the Vistula: sunken lanes with earth walls higher than a rider, and a renaissance town at the end.

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Why this ride

128 km from Puławy to Janowiec, about 2 h 28 of riding. It goes by way of Kazimierz Dolny and Wilków. The line favours views over speed.

Roadbook

1. Puławy start

   Puławy is where the day begins.

2. Kazimierz Dolny scenic

   Kazimierz Dolny looks like a town that has been preserved in amber, and the reason is quite simple: it grew rich, then it went quiet. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries it was a grain port on the Vistula, where merchants loaded wheat and rye onto barges bound for Gdańsk and the Baltic, and the money they made built the townhouses, with decorated gables and carved stone, that still surround the market square. When the river trade declined, the town stopped growing, and nobody rebuilt it. In the twentieth century painters found it, and artists have kept coming since.

   The square is the centre of everything, with a well in the middle, cafes along the edges and shops selling pottery, paintings and the local speciality, a bread baked in the shape of a rooster. It is crowded on summer weekends, when coach parties and day trippers arrive from Warsaw, and magical on a weekday morning in May or October, when you can hear your own footsteps. Above the town, a ruined castle and a watchtower give a view over the river and the roofs, and the steep lanes that lead up to them are lined with old granaries.

   The riding around it is distinctive. The land here is a loess upland, a soft yellow soil that rivers and rain have carved into deep, narrow gorges, and the roads follow them, sunk between high banks with tree roots hanging overhead. The surface is mostly good, the curves are gentle, and the real hazards are farm traffic, cyclists and the sheer number of tourists in the high season. On the other side of the Vistula, the land is flat and open, and you can cross by a small ferry to the castle ruins at Janowiec, which is a good reason to stay a bit longer.

   Kazimierz is a small town, but it has fuel, cafes and restaurants, though prices rise and tables fill on weekends. Puławy, eleven kilometres away, is the larger town for anything more. Book accommodation ahead in the high season, and do not expect to park near the square. The best months are May and September, when the light is soft and the crowds are thin, and the willows along the river are in leaf.

3. Wilków scenic

   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.

4. Janowiec finish

   Janowiec closes the day.

Where this sits

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