I was not really satisfied with our blog about Lviv. The city is much more exciting than showed on our pictures. This gives me the opportunity to express it better. We have found comparisons with Paris, Florence or Prag. In the first two cities we had been already and can confirm that this fits.
The reason, why we publish this blog, is another one. When we rode on Saturday from in the direction of the polish boarder, we choose a boarder crossing point more in the North. It is always good to explore a new way. After 30 kilometres we arrived in a little town and took the people’s attention on the central place on us. Foreigner not often pass this place and much more rarely two with travel bikes. We get to talk with them. Nobody of us is able to speak the language of the other. Does not matter. Nevertheless we understand each other.
An hour later we see a sign pointing to a reserve of bears. Nearly all countries with bear populations are already behind us and we have not seen a bear, neither a lynx nor a wolf. So we follow the sign which directs us to a centre of rehabilitation for bears found in travelling circuses or bears which were kept as an attraction in a cage of a restaurant. Ten bears live there in spacious enclosures and we can observe them on a circular trail. All of them have their own story.
We continue in the direction to the boarder. At the boarder crossing we see the queue of cars, busses and lorries which we know already. As used to we pass them self-confident and stop in front of the boarder guards. They look in our passports and clear that we can only pass the boarder in a car or a bus. Because … the vehicle identification is manually noted on a piece of paper which is put in the passport. 50 metres further it will be controlled that the occupants are really sit in the correctly assigned car. The process does not know cyclists without a car. All begging and imploring do not help. Already 90 kilometres in the legs we add 38 further kilometres to the boarder crossing point where we had been two days before, and searched for a place to stay over night. What a long day. At least we got the admiration of the polish boarder officials regarding the cycling performance so far. And at night we had dinner with Thomas, the amuzing cylist of Görlitz who had cycled already through East Europe 30 years ago.