VELO BALTICA: 600 km along the Southern Baltic coastline (Eurovelo 10, section Poland)
Velo Baltica... More than 500 kilometers of cycling, featuring two national parks, amazing coastal views, beautiful nature, and the Baltic winds in your hair... The long-distance cycling route that crosses the entire Polish Baltic coastline is part of the much longer EuroVelo 10 cycling route around the Baltic Sea and is the most popular cycling trail in Poland. With good reason. It is a picturesque bicycle route that runs along the Baltic Sea coast from German to Russian border. While cycling, you can admire beautiful landscapes, thousands of kilometers of sandy beaches, breathtaking views, and many interesting places along the way.
The official length is around 588 kilometers, but with two notable detours to the magnificent Hel Peninsula and the untouched Vistula Spit, I extended this trail during my adventure to include the entire Polish Baltic coastline in one journey. My journey began at Usedom Island, where Poland shares a coastal border with Germany. From there, I continued through Świnoujście towards Wolin Island and its amazing National park.
Right now I'm in wolinski National Park. It is a beautiful forested area on the biggest island in Poland, Wolin. There also beautiful cliffs, nice tourist town Międzyzdroje and many interesting things. Trail is here quite sandy so it's not so easy to ride but it's lot of shade from amazing forest and nature and it's pleasure to be around. The trail led me further, just a few steps from the sea, through charming villages for the next one hundred kilometers. It often combined the shadows of pine trees, coastal promenades, and sandy beaches.
Right now I'm in Kołobrzeg. It's one of the main tourist cities in Poland. It seems like I'm in middle of the forest but it's actually it was also to me very nice surprise that Kołobrzeg has quite a long green area which is separating beach from the rest of the city. Except on the place where is port of course and on place where is long "Molo". It's very nice tourist city but typical for more or less massive tourism. During the summer it's overcrowded.
Even now in June there is quite a lot of people enjoying such a beautiful weather including me. It's like 150 km from Winoujscie from the start, it's already my second day of riding. In the meantime I passed some smaller cities but was very nice, it was changing from forest trail to well-maintained the asphalt bicycle trail. Almost no driving on the road or even if it was it was really minor rural road.
There were a few sections which are too much in sand so it was hard to pass but you make it over back on the parts which are on beautiful cycling road. The area around Kołobrzeg was my favorite part of the trail. Amazingly maintained paths just a stone's throw from the sea offered a pleasant cycling experience. Right now I'm on third day of the trail.
It become cloudy and very windy although it was not promised to be like this. Yesterday I made 140 km because I couldn't find camping because they all starts only in summer season and it's still June, so I managed to find some place to stop in Weherowo but already at night. Today I'm riding through Ustka and it's very nice little town close to Slowinski National Park, which you can see in my another video, and now I'm continuing towards Łeba. This part of the trail is the hardest because there is lot of sand, there are lot of obstacles on the way so it's not so easy to drive and it's the least marked way but it's still beautiful Right now I'm riding towards Łeba and I am trying to.. not I'm trying, Velo Baltica is projected in that way to avoid the Slowinski national park because they would need to make at least concrete or in some another way path in this totally sandy area. We are now going through some forests, there will be some lakes and in the evening I will get to Łeba and I hope tomorrow for better weather.
Today should be windy but it should be sunny, not like this right now. I'm on entrance on Slowinski National Park. After Łeba, the trail became fantastic again, following forest and coastal paths through unspoiled, beautiful, and partly off-the-beaten-path sections of the Polish Baltic coastline. There, I made my first detour:instead of heading straight towards Gdynia and Gdańsk, I went to the magnificent Hel Peninsula.
The Hel Peninsula is a narrow, 35-kilometer-long strip of land that extends into the Baltic Sea from the Polish mainland. Known for its beautiful sandy beaches, it offers picturesque views and a variety of outdoor activities, including windsurfing and cycling. The peninsula is also home to charming fishing villages, historical lighthouses, and a unique seal sanctuary.
Welcome to Hel! City with very unfortunate name but very beautiful beaches and actually place on the very end of beautiful peninsula in Poland, which is popular summer destination. Especially popular for wind surfing and in general place where many people finish their cycling around Baltic. For me it was just a detour, but really worth one.
After very nice 36 km ride you come to the city on the very end of peninsula where you can find great places to eat something, to enjoy the beach the views and to feel the best from the Baltic The Tri-City area, consisting of Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Sopot, is a highlight of the Polish Baltic coast and a final stop for many cyclists. After exploring the charming Sopot and fantastic Hanseatic city of Gdańsk, I continued further. Strong cold winds from the sea reminded me how Baltic weather can be unpredictable.
It followed me until the mouth of the largest Polish river, Vistula, which you have to cross on a small ferryboat. The forested trail further on shielded me from the winds and restored an extraordinary wilderness aura. After Gdansk Velo Baltica continue towards Elblag, but I made once again detour and I will try to reach Krynica Morska, very interesting place on a small, don't know how to call it peninsula? (spit!) It's like stretch of land between Zalew Wislansky and open Baltic sea. It is R10 cycleway and it's beautiful but most of the time through the forest far from the road. Also baltica was like this after you cross the river Vistula with the small ferry. Before was not so nice exiting from Gdansk close to some factories, constructions, little villages with traffic, but if you want to cross all Polish Baltic Coastline, you need to cross also more industrial parts.
So we started on German-Polish border and we finished on Polish-Russian border. It is the end of Velo Baltica or the trail through the Polish part of Baltic Sea route. I'm not sure how much exactly kilometers it took me officially it's like 588 kilometers, but to me took a bit more because I made detours, which I highly recommend and going here to the Krynica Morska is the best what you can do because it's probably the best trail on the while way. A bit more down is a sign that it's border but there is also a border police car so I didn't wanted to record myself in front of it.
So here you can see the fence, there is a part of No Man's Land and then it's Russian Federation. Here more up it will be probably windy so that's why I went down. It's beautiful view on the coast on the Baltic Sea and if you have a binoculars probably you could see in the distance also interesting tourist point point for Russian domestic tourists. It's a place where it's the Western most point of Russian Federation. Well you can't go farther fence it's going all the way to the sea.
There is no way to go there right now. To summarize the trail, it was beautiful 6 days of cycling. It was mostly nicely made and paved trail through the forested area very very close to sea with amazing views.
Parts were full of sand, especially from Ustka to Łeba, which, if you can choose the part which you can skip just do it. Unfortunately it's exactly in the middle of the trail so there is no use to finish before or start there. Best part was definitely Krynica Morska and this Vistulan spit, then Hel of course which is also detour, part around Kołobrzeg and beginning from Swinoujscie to Międzyzdroje and Wolin island. It is amazing cycling experience, there are not much uphills or downhills, therefore Polish cyclist usually use it as a test for starting the bike-touring because it's quite easy to finish it and very scenic and motivating because of it. You can do wild camping, you can do official camping, you can find quite cheap accommodation. I mixed something from all of this.
Don't hurry much because it's pity just to run through this beautiful stretch of land on the Baltic Sea. See you.
2024-06-22 22:25
