Polish Eagles Nests Route

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Krakow

   Kraków has the kind of old town that makes you slow down on foot, and it deserves it. At the centre is the Rynek Główny, the main market square, one of the largest medieval squares in Europe, with the Cloth Hall in the middle and the two uneven towers of St Mary's Basilica at the corner. Each hour a trumpeter plays a bugle call from the taller tower, and the tune stops abruptly in mid-phrase, in memory of a watchman said to have been shot in the throat by a Tatar arrow while sounding the alarm.

   Read the complete Krakow write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Krakow is where the day begins. Next is Ojcow.

2. 2. Ojców

   Ojców is a village tucked into a limestone valley so narrow that the road barely has room beside the stream. This is the Prądnik valley, a green slot cut into the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, and it lies inside Poland's smallest national park, which packs in an astonishing amount of scenery: pale rock towers, caves, beech woods, mossy springs and a ruined castle perched on a crag. After the open farmland north of Kraków, dropping into it feels like entering a different country.

   Read the complete Ojcow write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ojców comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pieskowa Skala.

3. 3. Pieskowa Skała

   There is a rock here shaped like a club, and everyone calls it Hercules. It stands about twenty-five metres high beside the castle at Pieskowa Skała, a pale limestone pillar that looks hand-carved and is entirely the work of rain and frost. Behind it the valley of the Prądnik winds off between wooded cliffs, and on top of the next ledge sits one of the best-looking castles in southern Poland, its arcaded courtyard and towers floating above the trees.

   Read the complete Pieskowa Skala write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Pieskowa Skala. Next is Ogrodzieniec.

4. 4. Ogrodzieniec

   Ogrodzieniec Castle is the biggest ruin on the Eagles' Nests Trail, and the first sight of it is a proper surprise: a long, ragged line of walls and towers sitting along a limestone ridge above the village of Podzamcze, with strange pale rocks poking out of the woods all around it. It looks like a film set, and in fact it has been used as one. The Jura upland here is full of such outcrops, which makes the whole hilltop seem to grow out of the stone.

   Read the complete Near Ogrodzieniec write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ogrodzieniec, late in the day. Next is Czestochowa.

5. 5. Czestochowa

   For Poles, Częstochowa means one thing, the Jasna Góra monastery, and about a quarter of a million people live around it in a city that exists largely to serve that fact. The monastery stands on a limestone ridge, a fortified complex of walls, bastions and a tall baroque tower, and within it hangs the icon of the Black Madonna, a dark painted image of the Virgin and Child, with two scars across her cheek. Several million pilgrims arrive every year, many on foot, in groups that walk for days from every corner of the country.

   Read the complete Częstochowa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Czestochowa. That is the ride.