June 23, 2010 - Czestochowa to Wolbrom

Estimated Mileage: 65 miles
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Since my hotel was a bit out of the town, I passed through the center of Czestochowa to see the cathedral/pilgrimage site.  The first thing I noticed was an enormous street of trinket and bauble merchants selling piles of crap:

But instead of back-scratchers and shot glasses it was various religious icons and pictures of Pope John Paul II.  Heading to the cathedral, swarms of folks streamed into the square.  The back lawn was all set up for some kind of huge ceremony:

Riding out of Czestochowa was surprising easy.  There were labelled bike paths the entire way out, right next to the main highway out of town.  However, the path took me just next to a group of really grim looking Soviet-era slums with graffiti covering the bottom 6 feet of wall.  The scribbles were full of the symbol "HL", a number of swastikas and Jewish stars with some writing underneath.  I like to think that this was a Jewish gang in control of the slums; that "HL" stands for Hebrew League or Hasidic Lovers or something.  Anyway, it sent chills up my spine, and I was thankful that it was such an isolated incident and not something I saw anywhere else.

Things got a little hilly this day.  Nothing terribly difficult, but just constant up and downs.  But the real attraction of the day was the hilltop castle ruins that I saw everywhere during the day:

This area north/northwest of Krakow was the domain of the old Polish kings.  These castles are from the 13-15th century and dot the landscape.  The area is mostly hilly, with these much larger protrusions every few miles.  If you look close enough at them, odds there there's some kind of ruin on top of it:

This area is called the "Jurassic Cuesta" which is some kind of geological rock formation that I don't quite understand.  All I know is that it afforded me a beautiful lunchtime view on top of it:

The day was another one in the "Win" column.  It ended rather hilariously in Wolbrom.  The hotel I was staying at was hosting the 10th anniversary party of the founding of a company named "TRI Poland", which is a offshoot of a Japanese rubber factory.   Now, I've spent a year in Japan, attending various official company parties, so I feel I can say this without sounding like I'm stereotyping:  these parties are the most embarassingly trite and lame parties you can ever go to.  The kowtowing to the heads of the company, the strict entertainment schedules: it's all just awful.

The street was shut down, and I had a hard time getting past the cops to the reception desk, me being sweaty, fluorescent and generally run-down.  I look like a vagrant who just robbed a high-end camping store.  After some waving, pointing and smiling, I got through to be greeted by a lobby full of Poles wearing traditional garb as part of the night's festivities.  I holed up in my room and heard the blaring lounge singer belting out "Fever" and "Blue Moon" until about 10 PM.  Speeches were given, first in English, then in Polish then in Japanese, kind of like some bizarre Rosetta Stone of cheesy toasts.  A very funny night.