We spent the final two days of our time on the Masurian Lakes, cruising from Mikolajki to the south-westerly navigable extremity of the area, the twin villages of Ruciane-Nida, before returning to base at Mikolajki.
We were blessed with a wonderful sunny day on Thursday 15th October as we set out, initially south-eastwards along Lake Mikolajskie.
The wind was relatively light, but coming from a south-easterly direction, so we were cruising directly into it. Hence the small amount of spray on our windscreen! However, after about half an hour, we were able to turn right into the much narrower Lake Beldany where conditions were quite calm.
At the southern end of Lake Beldany, is one of only two locks on the whole navigable system. You can see that the lock keeper had given us the green light to enter.
Before leaving the lock, we had to pay a toll. We didn’t catch the Polish first time, so the lock keeper repeated himself, this time saying, ‘Sieben zloty, dreißig groschen‘ – 7.30 zl 🙂
After leaving the lock, we cruised on for another hour to the Pod Debem Marina, at the far western end of Ruciane-Nida, where we moored. Beyond this point, there are a further series of lakes but these are only available to non-powered craft.
Overnight, we experienced the first rain of our Polish trip. By the time we got up next morning, it had stopped raining, but it was cloudy for the whole of our return journey on Friday 16th October, with the occasional few spots of rain from time to time.
Then we had to pass back down through Sluza Guzianka. The photograph shows how the toll is collected 🙂 Upon payment, you receive a receipt which is also handed over in this same manner. I did get the impression that the lock keeper had posed for similar photographs to this, previously 😉
The lock is of a somewhat unusual construction with sloping sides at a 45° angle. There are a series of ropes which hang down the slope which you have to hold onto whilst the lock is in operation. After that, it was plain sailing, all the way back to Marina Miko at Mikolajki.
After a peaceful but chilly night – there was frost on the mooring pontoon first thing the next morning 🙁 , we set off from Gizycko, to cruise to the northern navigable extremity of the Masurian Lakes, the town of Wegorzewo.
There are two possible ways to cruise northwards to Wegorzego. We chose to take the shorter route which involves passing along a canal through the town of Gizycko. On this route, there is a nineteenth century swing bridge which is only open at certain set times. We set out from Ekomarina, in order to be at the swing bridge when it opened at 10.35 that morning.
We arrived a few minutes early. But when it was10.35, the light initially remained red as no less than four boats were first allowed through, travelling in the opposite direction! The only boat traffic jam we ever experienced during our time on the Masurian Lakes 🙂
After passing through the canal, first we cruised northwards on Lake Kisajno, before reaching the wide expanse of Lake Dargin. Here we had the whole lake to ourselves, with the exception of one small fishing boat.
We then passed under this bridge and a narrower channel that followed, to take ‘Mamry’ onto Lake Mamry, or the Mauersee as it is known auf Deutsch. An aerial photograph of this bridge is widely used to promote tourism on the Masurian Lakes. I saw it featured on an advertising poster displayed in the Prague Metro a couple of years ago, which first stimulated my interest to explore this area.
We reached Wegorzego early in the afternoon, and having found and paid for a suitable mooring in the port, we set off to explore the town. After a most enjoyable late lunch, we visited this Church, dedicated to St Peter & St Paul.
The whole Masurian Lakes area lie in what was formerly East Prussia, part of the German Reich until 1945 and predominantly Protestant. Under the Potsdam agreement, the borders of Poland moved westwards and this part of East Prussia was absorbed into the Polish state, with the German population being expelled.
As a plaque in the porch explained, (in Polish 🙂 ), this Church building had belonged to the Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession until 1945. Following the expulsion of German Protestants, it had been taken over by the Roman Catholic Church. Whilst its exterior remains fairly plain, the interior has been romanised! New stained glass windows have also been installed of which this is an example.
The next morning, Tuesday 13th October, we decided to have a long day of cruising, and return to Mikolajki. It had taken us around four hours to cruise from Mikolajki to Gizycko and around three hours to cruise from Gizycko to Wegorzego. Therefore, it should be perfectly possible to cruise from Wegorzego to Mikolajki in no more than seven hours which proved to be the case. We left Wegorzego at 09.10, and reached Marina Miko in Mikolajki, just after 16.00.
However, our return journey was not without incident, Early in our cruise that day, we passed this yacht. But rather than navigate again through the centre of Gizycko and wait for the opening of the swing bridge, we chose to use the alternative route west of the town. This involves cruising further south on Lake Kisajno, and then passing along a short canal under both a road bridge, followed by a railway bridge, before entering Lake Niegocin.
Whilst navigating this canal, we twice made contact with the canal bottom, even though I tried to remain right in the centre of the waterway. Clearly this was because of the low water levels we had been told about before setting out, though this canal had not been designated as one to avoid.
This second problem was that, once we were out of the canal and onto Lake Niegocin, there ceased to be a buoyed channel to follow, even though it had been there, two days previously! Magda had warned us that, from Thursday 15th October, the navigation authorities might start to remove the buoys for the winter. But this was Tuesday 13th October! So we navigated south across the lake, guided only by our map and visible geographical features.
We cruised further south through Lake Jagodne, where both green and red buoys were fortunately, still marking the correct channel. Then it was back through the four relatively short canals linking three lakes……
The Masurian lakes are located in the far north-east of Poland, not far from the border with Belarus, Lithuania and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. They consist of a series of moraine-dammed lakes, interconnected by a number of short, man-made canals. There are only two locks, both at the southern extremities of the navigable system.
The area has been popular for boating and sailing since the early 1920s. It is an amazing natural paradise and motor boats are prohibited from some areas, in order to protect the flora and fauna.
Mikolajki, where Marina Miko is located, lies at the centre of the lakes area. It is one of the main centres for visitors to Masuria, with a variety of hotels, apartments for rent, boatyards and restaurants.
When we finally arrived at Marina Miko, following our ‘interesting’ and expensive taxi journey, we were met by Magda and Jacek. Magda spoke virtually word-perfect German and some English. Jacek had some English. So most of our handover procedures and instruction, was conducted auf Deutsch, with translation back into English by Sybille, when I didn’t completely understand the German, and translation into Polish by Magda for Jacek, when Sybille asked something on our behalf, auf Deutsch 🙂
We discovered that we were not only, the sole hire boat leaving the marina that day, we were also the very last hirers of the 2015 season, even though the hire brochure states that there is availability for two further weeks, until the end of October. Magda suggested that we must be pretty hardy characters to be boating in mid-October in northern Poland, bearing in mind that the maximum temperature that day was 6° Celsius.
Two things were made to clear to us. Because of the lack of rainfall over the summer months – Poland having experienced in July and August, similar heatwave and drought conditions as the Czech Republic, water levels were up to one metre lower than normal. This meant that the whole south-eastern area, including Lake Sniardwy, the largest lake in Poland, together with the canal and lock leading to the town of Pisz, were off-limits because of the lack of sufficient depth of water. A number of other little bays off other lakes, were also unavailable for cruising, for the same reason.
Secondly, because it was the end of the boating season, there were now only a few places where we could moor overnight and have access to electric power and water. These were duly marked on our cruising map.
Fortunately, the good ship ‘Mamry’, our home for the following week, had a very effective gas-fired hot air heating system, which had been switched on for a few hours in advance of our arrival. However, after a brief instructional cruise, we tied up once more at Marina Miko, allowing us to take full advantage of the onshore facilities – shower and toilet, together with a 240 volt electric connection for the boat. That evening, we walked over the footbridge into the main part of Mikolajki, having our evening meal in a restaurant that declared itself to be ‘Russian friendly’, but only in English!
We then cruised the length of the much larger and longer Lake Jagodne, before arriving at this bridge, which spans a 100 metre long canal linking to the next lake, Lake Boezne.
Having moored on one of the floating pontoons at Ekomarina, we went to the marina office to announce our arrival. On payment of 54 zloty/CZK 350, we were allowed to connect to mains electricity, given swipe cards that allowed access to onshore toilets and showers, and which also gave access to another room with a washing machine! We decided to take full advantage!
After being the Anglican Chaplain in Prague for just over nine months, I’ve finally taken a proper holiday (vacation to the American readers of this blog) as, having celebrated the Eucharist on the morning of Sunday 5th July I am not officiating at Sunday worship again in Prague until Sunday 26th July. This is the reason why I haven’t posted anything on this blog since the end of June until today.
I wrote a number of blog posts whilst we were away in the hope of being able to post them from where we were staying. But the facilities and opportunity to do this never materialised so instead I will be posting them over the next few days now I’m back in Prague.
We decided to have a completely unplanned holiday with absolutely nothing booked in advance. The only thing we decided was to travel in the car to Croatia and spend some time relaxing on one of the numerous islands that lie parallel to the Dalmatian coast. Therefore, having written those last few emails, tried to remember to pack everything we might need, unloaded the dishwasher for the last time and put out the recycling and rubbish, just before 5pm on Sunday 5th July, we finally set out.
The aim of our drive that Sunday evening was to at least leave the Czech Republic and reach somewhere in Austria. Leaving the flat in Prague as late as 5pm meant we would not get as far into Austria as I’d originally envisioned. However, there was remarkably little traffic about and we reached Ceské Budejovice in an hour and fifty minutes, ten minutes quicker than when I’d driven there the once previously. Beyond Ceské Budejovice, we entered territory that was totally new to both of us. And as we did so, we had two experiences which we were really not expecting.
After travelling on from Ceské Budejovice for about half an hour, we were within two or three km of the Austrian border when we saw a woman standing at the side of the road. She had bleached blonde hair and was wearing an exceedingly short skirt, together with a bra top that left a large amount of midriff on view. I remarked to Sybille that there was bit too much flesh on show & she agreed. Then, within a hundred metres there was another young woman in a short halter neck sun dress followed by a third in a short frilly miniskirt and a very cropped crop top. It was only when we saw the third young woman that we both realised what we were seeing. All three were prostitutes openly touting for business. Slightly further on, on the other side of the road, we saw at least four more.
Whilst the fall of the Iron Curtain twenty years ago, has undoubtedly brought massive change for the better in the lives of the bulk of the population of the former communist counties of Central & Eastern Europe, some changes have been for the worse. In particular, laws in relation to gambling in the Czech Republic are now either lax or almost non-existent. When travelling along the Nürnberg – Prague motorway, I had seen signs to casinos, strategically located just inside the Czech Republic, enticing Germans to cross the border and gamble, freed from the strict regulation of gambling in their own country. And here on the Czech – Austrian border it was the same as I observed several hotel-casinos just before we left the Czech Republic and entered Austria. And with gambling has come prostitution.
What we observed was the bottom end of the market. No doubt, the ‘higher class girls’ work out of the hotels. Whereas police seem to be everywhere in Prague, here they were noticeable by their absence. I am well aware that there are complex issues, both legal and moral, in relation to prostitution and gambling which I’m not going to try and address in this blog post. But that evening, I saw something I had never seen before in my life and certainly something neither of us had expected to see on our journey from the Czech Republic to Austria.
On entering Austria, we decided to make for Freistadt, the first town of note on our route. Freistadt has a well preserved mediaeval town centre, surrounded by much of the original walls and is very picturesque. We found a reasonably priced room in a pension situated in the heart of the mediaeval centre and then found place to eat. But as we explored the town after our meal, we had our second experience that we were not expecting. Here, on a sunny Sunday evening in July, in a picturesque town in Oberösterreich, there was hardly a soul to be seen. And as we looked more closely at the shops and businesses, we noticed that many were having closing down sales or had already closed down and were for sale. There were no longer tourists visiting the town in their usual numbers and therefore little business for the shops. We also discovered that there were only two other people staying overnight in our pension.
Living in Prague, we have not really experienced the worldwide economic downturn as such. Czech banks have not overextended themselves with dodgy loans and the like and therefore the effects tend to be secondary with fewer tourists visiting the city and more hotel rooms free. But there are still plenty of tourists about. However, in Freistadt in Oberösterreich, the full effects of the current economic crisis were manifest in a manner that neither of us was expecting to see.
I must apologise that unusually, this blog post is not accompanied by a photo. For obvious reasons, I didn’t take any pictures of the ladies at the side of the road! And for reasons I cannot explain, neither of us took any photos of Freistadt.
