Bike travel journal: Day 8. May 4. Bialystok

Distance: 120 km, Bialystok - Ostroleka
Total distance: 680 km
Expenses: 6,04 PLN (86 rub./1,5 EUR)

Continuing with my early rising: 6 a.m. We tried to figure out if the route will have a lot of dirt road using Google street view, and it seemed like the route off the highway would be mostly asphalt. My awesome host rode with me to show me out of the city. Left Bialystok at 11:15.

Most of the way the road was great: there was a bike route parallel to the highway (you just have to get on it in the right place, as it is mostly separated from the main road by a fence).

About 17 km away from Bialystok there's a rest stop with a nice toilet and showers: there's a note saying that you should get a key from someone and then put in a coin to get water running, but the door was open and water seemed to be working just fine without any coins.

I stopped for a quick snack nearby and decided to switch to a different workout for a while: did my crunches and pushups.

After passing Basze Suche I was suddenly in a forest with a sandy road, so sandy I couldn't bike and had to walk for a while. Fortunately it was a pretty short patch and I only had to walk for about 10 minutes so it was quite nice.

Arriving to Ostroleka around 8 p.m. I went to Biedronka (local supermarket) to get some bananas and sweets (needed some after such a long ride) and headed to my host's place. Katarzyna works as a quality manager at a factory which produces jam for yoghurts and she offered some jam to me too (not from the factory, but some nice homemade one Смайлик «smile»

She told me that the crosses I've been seeing these past few days by the road were put there for people to come and pray.

She's planning to go for pilgrimage bike tour this summer and we talked a lot about biking and Balkans and Greece (where she lived for a while). I got some recommendations for places to visit: Meteora in Greece and Kavice waterfall.