Today was a short, pretty straight, and mostly flat, ride on a major highway. It wasn't a big deal because the road had a good shoulder almost all the way. There was one 'interesting' climb near Debica and some bad shoulders in a few of the towns before Tarnow and two stork nests along the way, but that was about it for excitement ;-). I was riding this route to get to Debica to meet and stay with Robert and Marta. Robert is a long term member of the touring list and he had invited me to stay with them if I was routing through south eastern Poland. 

Since I long day yesterday, I had only half a day to ride today, so I worked late this morning on web pages and spent some time in Tarnow - the big city on this segment of my ride. 

I had lunch in Tarmow, used the bathroom at the centrum McDs ;-), and spend some time at a bike shop checking on their stock of inexpensive bikes suitable for touring. You could actually get a usable bike for 125 Euro and a pretty good bike for about twice that. I'd judge the effective prices to be less than half of what you would pay for a similar bike in the US.

Riding from Tarnow to Debica was easy until the last 11 km. The road, E 40, which has been following a valley, turns and climbs over a ridge before descending to Debica. The climb was big enough, and it was hot enough, to get sweat in my eyes. This was not as long a climb as the ones yesterday, but it was steep enough that I was in 17" gear part of the way. That means around  a 10% grade.

I got Debica about 3:30 and, because i sometimes confuse right and left ;-(, it took me a little while to find their house, but I was at their door in less than half an hour. They didn't seem to be home - they were - so I spend two hours riding around Debica and then reading my current novel - Graham Green's "The Comedians" while sitting in the central park in Debica. We finally made contact about 7 PM.

Debica isn't too exciting , but it does have some neat new churches, and the time I spent poking around was pleasant. After I got together with my hosts, it was a very nice evening. Robert and I stayed up too late talking ;-), but that was good too. They are on the warm showers list and, if you ride in south eastern Poland - which is neat place to ride - you should really try to visit them. Personally, I've added another 'must come back to visit these neat folks' entry to my list of routing points in  in Europe.