Somehow I wasn't entirely satisfied with our post about Lviv. The city is much more beautiful than our photos express it. This gives me the opportunity to highlight it a little better. We have found comparisons with Paris, Florence and Prague. We have already been to the first two cities and can confirm that this comparison is appropriate.
The reason why this block exists now is different. As we drive from Lviv towards the Polish border on Saturday, we chose a more northern border crossing. It's also always nice to take a new path. After 30 kilometers we come to a small place and attract the attention of the people in the central square. Here, strangers do not often come by and even less often with travel bikes. We talk to them. No one can speak the other.. Never mind. We still understand each other.
An hour later we see a sign for a reserve for bears. Now all countries with bear populations are soon behind us and we have not seen the bear, nor the lynx nor the wolf. So we follow the sign that led us to a rehabilitation facility for bears from travelling circuses or bears, which were kept as an attraction in a cage of a restaurant. Ten bears live here in large enclosures and we can observe them on a circular walk. They all have their own story.
Continue towards the border. At the border the queues of cars, buses and trucks known to us. As usual, we drove by confidently and then stood in front of the border guards, who took a look at our passports and then realized that we can only enter by car or bus. Because… the car registration number is recorded by hand, a note with the same is inserted into the passport and 50 meters further is checked that actually man with correctly assigned car number plate is actually leaving. The process does not provide for cyclists without a car. All the pleading and begging didn't help. Already 90 kilometers in our legs we drove to the border crossing, which we had come across, 38 kilometers further and no place to sleep yet. At least here we get the admiration of the Polish border guards, what cycling performance we have already had. And in the evening we had dinner with the lusty cyclist Thomas from Görlitz, who cycled through Eastern Europe 30 years ago.