Our typical initial few days of a trip serve us well to establish some first impressions regarding our new environment.

Food: We noticed that deli offering at grocery stores do not appear to be a thing here – unlike in Japan. There are wide range of restaurants including plenty of fast food, kebab, etc.

Communication: A bit of a surprise to us is that English is not widely understood and/or spoken. Also in terms of friendliness, we don’t expect to be greeted with any smiles along our way but folks are quite ready to help when asked.

Infrastructure: Roads are in very good condition. The bicycle path network we encountered on our first cycling day was surprisingly good. The city and countryside environments are also very clean.

Accommodation: Apartment rentals as opposed to hotels are more popular on Booking.com.

2025.05.14/15 – Ottawa ==> Warsaw [PL] (0 kms | Total: 0 kms)

We promptly did our airline check-in 24h ahead of our flight. Although we were able to select our seats for the Ottawa – London segment with Air Canada, we were not able to do the same for the London – Warsaw segment with LOT Polish Airlines. We had a very relaxing day as we awaited for our 5:00pm pick up for the airport. Zora, our winter skiing companion’s wife, kindly agreed to drive us to the airport during rush hour.

At the airline counter, our two duffel bags and tandem box were promptly checked-in. Even the Air Canada counter agent could not issue us our boarding passes to Warsaw. Thankfully all our luggage tags were issued to our final destination. After completing our security formalities (no longer need to take out laptop or liquids from carry-on), we waited patiently for our 9pm flight. We felt relieved to see our bicycle box and duffel bags being loaded on our aircraft. Upon boarding the plane, the agents were announcing that the flight was fully booked. Hence, we were overjoyed, when the airplane doors were closed, and we realized that no one was sitting in the middle seat between Jenny and I. The 6+ hour flight to London appeared relatively short to us compared to some previous flights to Asia being twice as long.

Upon arriving at London’s Heathrow airport, we were somewhat nervous navigating our transfer connection without any boarding passes for our Warsaw segment. We stopped counting the number of times we went up and down different escalators within the same terminal but we finally made it to our flight’s boarding gate. The airline agent struggled for 15 minutes before finally issuing us our boarding passes. We just had enough time for a washroom break before the boarding process began. We were assigned seats in the next to last row of the Boeing MAX 8 airplane for our 2.5 hour flight to Warsaw. Upon arriving at our final destination airport, we managed to see, from our airplane window, our bicycle box and duffel bags being unloaded from the airplane. After retrieving all our luggage, we bought a SIM starter package before taking a Uber Airport Van to our hotel – some 5 kms away. As we were tired, we had our dinner at our hotel’s restaurant. In the early evening, we took a long walk, under menacing clouds and windy and cold temperatures, in hope of finding ATM machines that were not part of the EuroNet network to avoid excessively high transaction fees. Although we encountered over a dozen ATM machines, they were all Euronet-based. We visited our first grocery (Lidl) before making our way back to our hotel for a well-needed night sleep.

2025.05.16 – [PL] Warsaw ==> Warsaw (0 kms | Total: 0 kms)

We had good night rest. The hotel’s breakfast buffet was quite good and plentiful. As the morning forecast called for some rain, we opted to pursue some trip planning activity, namely booking our first week of accommodations after leaving Warsaw. In the afternoon, we got introduced to the city’s tram services and made our way to the Old town center. Before engaging on some recommended self-guided walks from our LP travel guide, we tried once again to find a non-Euronet ATM to no avail. Just when we thought we had found a proper ATM, we realized after our withdrawal that the poor exchange amounted to absurd service fee charge (~$20+). The ATM was owned by one of Euronet’s competitor. We gathered that locals were not subject to these types of fees as we saw ATMs almost at every street corners. The cool and windy temperature made our sightseeing a bit less enjoyable. Along the way we stopped at a coffee shop for a rest and to warm up. The highlight of today’s visit was certainly the free access rooftop garden visit atop the University of Warsaw’s Library. As we were wrapping our sightseeing and my phone showed signs of low battery, Jenny had to, exceptionally, take out her phone to help us navigate our way. Surprisingly, she enthusiastically showed a determined interest in learning to read map directions. We had a nice Polish cuisine dinner in the city center before taking the tram back to our hotel. By the end of the day, we had covered 11kms.

2025.05.17 – [PL] Warsaw ==> Warsaw (0 kms | Total: 0 kms)

We both fell asleep quickly but we later struggled to stay asleep. The morning weather was similar to yesterday’s with rain, heavy winds and a temperature below 10C. After our breakfast, I spent roughly 3 hours to re-assemble the tandem in the hotel’s underground garage. Thankfully, no parts were damaged in the transport and the re-assembly went smoothly. Jenny caught up on some sleep while I was working on the tandem. In the afternoon, we relaxed in our room until dinner time. We had some Polish Breaded Pork Chop at a small local restaurant near our hotel. We still managed to walk 10k steps throughout the day.

2025.05.18 – [PL] Warsaw ==> Warsaw (20 kms | Total: 20 kms)

Today we wanted to pursue some sightseeing while trying out the tandem. Hence after breakfast, we saddled the tandem and cycled to the Royal Baths Park (aka Łazienki Park). The large park was particularly well attended by families this Sunday. As cycling was prohibited in the park, we walked with the tandem. We were surprised and pleased to see the extent of the cycling paths in the city. We cycled 20kms by the time we returned to our hotel. We rested a few hours before stepping out again for another tram ride towards the city center for one last tourist walk and dinner. At the ticket vending machine, we opted to buy our return tickets at the same time. Once we boarded the tram, we noticed that we could not get the machine to timestamp our tickets. To our regret, we learned that all public transportation was free today as it was an election day in Poland. During our one hour long walk, we kept an eye for local cuisine restaurants. We ended returning for dinner at the same restaurant we stopped at during our first sightseeing visit – a few days ago.

2025.05.19 – [PL] Warsaw ==> Serock (48 kms | Total: 68 kms)

Following our last hotel breakfast, we checked out of our accommodation at 10am with our loaded tandem. We were quite pleased by the quality and extent of the bicycle paths. We stopped at our first McDonald’s for a rest. The cleanliness of the restaurant (and washrooms) were almost comparable to those in Japan. We noticed that drivers were quite courteous to both pedestrians and cyclists alike. We checked into our first apartment accommodation by 3:00pm. Thankfully we got help from locals to navigate the building access code and locate our room. Although we had originally expected our room to have a kitchenette, it was not the case. We opted to cycle (6mins) to a nearby fresh fish restaurant for dinner. After dinner we stopped at the grocery store for staples for our next morning’s breakfast. As we stepped out of the store, we noticed that they had charged us for 92 pretzels instead of 2. Luckily we resolved the issue and got refunded before returning to our accommodation.