Gierłoż and Kętrzin

Today was my first rest day which meant I left my tent up and did no actual cycling. I woke up to the clattering call of storks.

In the morning I looked at Wolfsschanze, one of Adolf Hitler's purpose-built underground command centres hidden deep inside the Masurian forest. I was amused by this sign because the Polish language applies declination to proper names which makes Adolf Hitler sound like a girl.

There are about 20 huge fractured concrete bunkers in the area with trees and bushes growing in the cracks.

After Wolfsschanze I returned to the centre of Kętrzin for some less historically charged sight-seeing.

My friend had warned me about the upcoming public holiday, but I had got my dates mixed up and wasn't prepared that most shops were closed today and the city was almost devoid of people.

The streets in the centre were organised in the same one-way system that I had observed in most towns so far: The traffic flows in one general direction around the central block with one or more of the town hall, a church or a market square. Away from the historical centres roundabouts are much more common than in Germany, providing far better traffic flow than lights.

For some reason there seem to be a very large number of aptek shops (chemists) around... The big Tesco on the edge of town provides the same automatic checkouts also found in the UK.

This is the courtyard of Kętrzin castle.

Whenever I passed cemeteries in Poland I was impressed how lovingly kept they were, much more ornate than their German counterparts.

At night, I cooked pasta on my trangia. Like at all Polish campsites so far, tables with roofs for self-catering were provided.