I'm melting on the last day of August

It happened - holidays 2019. Since I can remember in the summer we went to warm countries to relax, sunbathe and not stress with the question of whether I will wear a sweatshirt or a T-shirt alone tomorrow. I think those times are gone. Now you go on vacation in "cold countries". The best proof of this is last month's trip to bikepacking to Norway. Last weekend we didn't have enough time, and the announced temperatures and the fact that I was forced to work from home for two weeks announced only one thing: I would melt.

The most important information in this entry that you should remember is the fact that Suwalki is not Podlasie, much less Masuria.
Such a mistake is more or less how to tell Widze Łódź fans that you are behind Legia Warsaw, because both are playing football.

And here appears a place that I have heard about since childhood, and I have never visited it. A place whose name I heard all my youth every day around 19:57 from a nice lady saying: "the coldest in Suwałki, temperature (put a few less here than at your place)". Why would anyone go to Suwałki? Why?

Suwałki Region - everything is bad

I don't often say that, but we did everything wrong with this trip. This is a plus that we will be better prepared for the next visit. We did not quite get out of bed, the route, food, time spent there and generally ... everything did not come out. I'm not saying it was bad, but it could have been so much better.

We booked accommodation in the town of Smolniki in Telimena Manor. The description convinced us: House "Telimena Manor" in Smolniki, located in the Suwałki Landscape Park, around 8 lakes, beautiful views. Outdoor scenes for the film Pan Tadeusz were shot here. Viewpoint on the Kleszczewskie lakes. The choice seemed to be the ideal starting point for cycling. Unfortunately, the day before arrival the reservation was canceled because the plumber was reportedly broken. So we lived in Agritourism at the lake Sejwy. It can be said that for the weekend:

We have stayed there.

Such a joke. Our house was located exactly in the middle of nowhere and no asphalt road led to it. It was very good and inscribed in the atmosphere of the trip, including attractions such as evening events at the Akcent band carried by the lake and dishes for eggs in the shape of women's breasts.

If you've ever wondered why in Pan Tadeusz (or on the Nemunas) the descriptions of nature are so long - I invite you to the Suwałki region, everything immediately becomes clear. You can't write about anything else here.

And I have a problem with this entry, because I can't write 2,000 words about a field with hills and cows.

I also have a problem, because I was convinced that I had never been to the Suwałki region, but as it turned out during a deep sweeping - I was with Panda and more ... on bicycles. A few years ago, we drove her around during the Thousand Lakes Ring ultramarathon. At the time, I thought I would be a vlogger (before it was popular). If you want to see us at the time when I rode in ninja position on Cipollini, and Panda rode 630km in Chinese clothes for a bar, plastic shoes and a bike with the price of her current wheel, I invite you to the trailer:

And if you like it, here is the longer (20 minutes!) And boring version:

-> https://youtu.be/pvAnHP7rSXs <-

So let's start from the beginning. Our morning view from the window looked like this:

If you don't know where the Sejwy lake is, please let me know. It is located next to such places as: Ogórki, Buraki, Kompocie, Pełele, Tauroszyszki, Dziedziule, Wiłkopeda, Skarkiszki, Rynkojeziory, Bubele ...

Before I explain in detail where we made mistakes, I will present you a short quiz. I regret that no one showed it to me before we went there, our day plan would look a bit different:

Suwałki Region is for connoisseurs

not just cow poo

If you are not sure if Suwalki is for you, look at the pictures below and if you answer yes to the questions, there is a good chance that you will spend time in the far north. This is not a place for everyone and our standard plan: get up in the morning, go, eat, sleep, ride, come back, did not work here. Completely. And so:

When you see a toddler hidden in the corner and a caravan (hidden in the corner) do you remember youth and think to yourself: "oh, I would like to wake up there at 5 am and go with the shovel to the forest for a known purpose"?

In the photo below, did your eyes move towards a sheet of bread and the saliva has just been swallowed? Does the view of the seller and his weight excite you so much that you feel like ordering something by weight? If every 5 minutes Mati enters the store and comes out with a four pack, you smile under the mustache?

Instead of Netflix with friends, do you prefer to sit in a place without internet (and prospects for any occupation when it is dark outside) and pretend that the oven is a flat screen TV?

When you watch "The stars are dancing in the oven", can you sit on the porch and look at the sky?

(yes, the picture is rotated, but some gymnastics always do well)

Do you think about entertainment by the water do you have a boat or pedal boat that looks like it's about to fall apart (but you know that they will survive even the end of the world), more than sailing on an expensive yacht in Masuria?

Suppose you are empty in water bottles and pockets. You start counting dehydration time in minutes. A station appears on the horizon and instead of Orlen with cold Coca-Cola and Nogger ice, you encounter the installation as below. Does it make you laugh?

Suwałki Region with a bicycle - what and how?

Write a little fear. Recently, I wrote an entry about Świętokrzyskie. To sum up, it meant that the loop in Świętokrzych is very cool, but as a one-day trip - if I had to drive for two or more days, I would prefer to add this hour or two rides and go to the "real mountains". This met with indignation from kind locals who decided to send me "photos with faks" and statements like "don't like it, go to Gassy". Now I feel discomfort criticizing anything.

For two days we drove about 300km - the blue route was very good, the green route was dramatically boring and with bad asphalt.

Areas marked in pink, which are definitely worth it sraczkowato those that were particularly marked us they were not captivating (from a bicycle perspective, if I had my boat I would say otherwise):

If you are wondering why there are no photos from the drone in the entry, I answer: pay attention to the distance of our routes from the eastern-northern borders. Due to the location, before each flight (and after) I would have to call the Border Guard - average entertainment.

If, in turn, you wonder why the photos are so washed - I answer: there was so much greenery in the Suwalki region and it was so intense that the photos looked like Photoshop products before I touched them.

Let's start with this green loop. It consists of fragments reminiscent of Masuria and the loop in Kampinos near Warsaw, all of which is dramatically sprinkled with bad asphalt, although maybe we were just unlucky. Asphalt so bad that when bouncing on the gravel, we prayed that it would never end. Wigry National Park is probably nice, but from a boat or kayak perspective. Only under the eastern border it gets more interesting, but it is really the same curiosity as in the north, only without the characteristic hills. The shape of the loop is random, but something suggests ...

Before someone sends me a fecal hedgehog by mail, I will quickly jump to the blue loop. I have to admit sadly that ... it's surprisingly good. sometimes we are reminded of the Azores. It is unbelievably green, somewhat surreal hills are scattered everywhere, and all this is covered with fudges. Here, for example, a standard cow drinking from a tub in a field:

And in general Suwalki is a place for fans of animals. I would like to mention all that we have seen, but I am a bit of a city lame and I don't know myself. In addition, I have the problem that with every animal we meet we stop and Panda checks if we could fit into the apartment. Since she discovered that cows can drink from the tub, it has become quite dangerous.

I will say this about the loop itself: glaring green, absolutely zero traffic - both car and cycling, quite a lot of elevation, because at 150km we do more than 1500 meters vertically and generally - what more could you want? There are no stores, if we miss this one, the only one will probably starve. Crossing the border with Lithuania does not change much - a visit to the border town (with Russia) of Wisztyniec takes us a little further into the past, and in addition we stop at a crystal clear lake.

There is a problem here with food. Even on Saturday evening in any of the recommended places, we were unable to eat.

Tatarka's kitchen at Alika's? Until 18.30
Lithuanian Inn? Weddings on Saturdays
Fish or Kartacze in Stary Folwark? Too far
The situation was saved slightly by the center of Suwałki, where the selection of sensible places was quite large.

The rest of the way, in this completely unknown country is the so-called "long straight for time training", on which we try not to fall asleep.

To have as-such a view of what awaits us in the Suwalki region, just look at the pictures.

The more you look at them, the more one sad thought comes to mind. Riding here along the road is like going to the Tatra Mountains and passing only the loop around the Tatra Mountains. It's pretty - of course, but just like in the case of the Karkonosze - bypassing everything, we skip everything. It is the same here - asphalt roads bypass the essence of this place. Of course, we can make very nice rounds, but that's not it.

The quality of the roads is very different - from almost perfect asphalt to asphalt, where you want to go down, start the phone and look for a MTB bike. Sometimes they change among themselves in completely random and unexpected places. One thing is certain - no matter where our eye goes - there will also be gravel. And it's a gravel one you like best! Even, but wavy and with bends. I think I can say that: Suwalki is the queen of gravela and nowhere else did I feel the need to own him as much as here. That's our local Tuscany. Of course, this did not bother us in overcoming many gravel kilometers on the roads - of course it is possible, only slightly smaller pleasure, because it is easier to lose teeth.

Suwałki Region is not used to drive kilometers.

It took us a moment to discover what the charm of the Suwalki region is. It's a bit like in Masuria, only better because there are no people (unless you have a boat, it's worse because the lakes do not connect) and somehow calmer and less civilizing. For one rabbi it is a minus, for another a plus. We are definitely the latter. Our mistake was that we approached the ride as usual. You go out in the morning, crush those 150-200km, come back to eat and sleep. It doesn't work like that here ...

The region discovers its true charm when the plan changes slightly. The optimal loop is probably 60-80km, covering some asphalt, and some roads with unknown surface that Google Street View car may never reach. The time saved in this way can be easily spent on looking at cows or lying flat on the lake. Because think about it - how often, in the summer peak, can you have a very pleasant lake with a beach just for you? It can be done here.

In my opinion, Suwałki Region is the best place to rest from people in the country. Why better than Podkarpackie? Because despite the fact that both surface and hill-shaped, smaller, the lack of asphalt means that it is even further away from what we see every day. Well, damn - how often are you in agritourism, where your phone does not catch range?

This post is missing many things. There is nothing about interesting places, there are no bridges in Stańczyki described everywhere, there is no subjective ranking of lakes. It will all be when we come back with gravels. For now, if you plan to quit everything and go to the Bieszczady Mountains, I definitely recommend the Suwałki region for you.

As I mentioned at the beginning: Suwałki Region is not an area for everyone. You come here to relax, not get there.

It's more about it:

Than here: