The best way to get to Zamosc is by bike, but if you haven’t got a bike try the train. Either way taking the flight to Okecie, Warsaw’s airport, should be your first step if you can afford the flight. An alternative is by overnight bus (eg Atlas Coaches 020 8993 5000). Flights are much a matter of checking available deals, either in the Polish press or try a site like Bogdan Travel. Don’t bother to change any money. Unless you want the added security of sterling travellers cheques, my advice is take cash and change it at passport control in Okecie. Our money goes a very long way in Poland.

So you’re landing ar Okęcie, Warsaw’s modern but crowded airport. If you’ve taken your bike, reassemble the front wheel and refit the pedals in the baggage reclaim and you’re off. Out, round the roundabout and within 20 minutes you can be pedalling beside the wide boulevards and leafy parks of one of the most elegant capitals in Europe. Warsaw. If you’re staying a night there’s lots to see, especially from the 30^th floor of the Palace of Culture, lovely restaurants, monuments and museums. But today we’re off to Zamość, the Padua of the North or in fact south, since we’re still in Warsaw.

Zamość is 250 kilometres (or160 miles) south of Warsaw. You can take an express bus from the airport to Lublin via points in Warsaw. If there was an express train all the way it would take less than 3 hours from Warszawa Zachodnia (west) station, but unfortunately the best train will only take you so far. So, take the express to Lublin, it will cost about £5, and better still reserve a seat. You might do this via a travel agent or at the station. Either way make sure you know the train times in advance of your journey. If your Polish is rusty get a Polish friend to write a clear request in Polish for a one way ticket with reservation on a slip of paper and offer it to the assistant. Lublin is Zamosc’s regional capital and only 50 miles away by fast road. From Lublin you can get a fast coach unless you can persuade someone to pick you up by car. You take the Lvov highway, number 17, but reaching Zamosc 100km short of the Ukrainian border. Don’t be tempted to take the train to Zamosc from Lublin, they exist but you can probably cycle the 50 miles quicker than PKP, Polish railways. In this respect Zamość represents the wild eastern frontier of Poland – the exotic side of Poland!

So, to summarise, jump on one of the daily flights to Warsaw, go straight to the station, take the express train to Lublin and in two hours you’re ready for the last 50 miles of highway to Zamosc.

So much for the cool, ‘be-there-by-sundown’, sophistocated Fodor carrying traveller from Loughborough. What about the Rough Guide reading, out on the open road, freewheeling actual cyclist. Same routine, Heathrow to Warsaw. Stick the bike into the baggage conveyor at Heathrow, reassemble at Warsaw. A clear poly bag is a good idea, because the handlers can then see it’s a bike and not mistake it for a trampoline. Out of the station you can clear the airport by taking a left at the roundabout, into Warsaw and then a right to Warszawa Okęcie railway station. This is what I did and by miracle (Poland is a land of miracles) a train arrived for Radom a few minutes later. Not that you’d want to got to Radom, a big city 50 miles south. Just use the train to clear Warsaw and then you can cycle to Gòra Kalwaria (Mount Calvary, ironically an old Jewish settlement) and the fruit growing region around Warka (remember, it’s pronounced varka). This is great cycling country. In early Autumn the lanes are lined with green leaves and rosey fruit. Women and men sell plums and apples and pears and a rich variey of vegetables along the roadside [731].

In Warka you can stay in a comfortable but basic hotel for a few pounds. There is an excellent restaurant, ordinary shops, genuine people and an old chateau, now a museum which is worth a short visit. It’s the home of the American revolutionary Kazimierz Pułaski and set in a pleasant garden. The restaurant Zajazd na Winarach Tel: (0)48 667 26 76 is nearby and also has motel rooms. The Hotel Pułaski Tel: (0)48 667 24 21 is where I stayed. Situated opposite the huge winged sculpture, dedicated to the airforce, it shares its building with a sports centre. You will therefore meet young Polish sportsmen and women during your stay. There’s no dining room, but you can get breakfast in the café opposite. Warka is not only known for its fruit, Pulaski and its airforce history, but is primarily know for its beer. Warka Specjal and Warka Strong are excellkewnbt and you will find them all over Poland, along with Zywiec, EB, Okiem and other excellent brands. Try them all, and then try the Wodka!

Orchards cover the area south of Warsaw

Leaving Warka, you take the 731 to Kozienice and the richly forested Kozienicki Park. The roadsides are a haven for mushroom gatherers, the woods abound edible fungi of the best quality. It’s rural, woodcutting and farming country so beware of aggressive dogs. Cycling past one farm, not one but two large dogs decided to give me chase snapping at my shivering calves as I press the pedals hard and fast.

My recollections of Kozienice were of a pleasant market town (on Thursday), with lots of action. The rain and cold and lack of obvious café prevented me from lingering and I didn’t see any hotels. A few miles on towards Pulawy on the 738, however, there’s a small pleasure lake and an excellent little café. Peculiarly many of the places that looked like cafes turned out to be only serving ‘pivo’ – beer, whatever the hour, just pivo. Someone later told me that petrol stations were always a good bet for coffee or light meals, though these are mostly on the main roads and I ways on the minor roads. Minor roads don’t carry heavy traffic and are therefore excellent. The heavy traffic on the major roads has indundated the verges, creating huge ruts and puddles in rainstorms. These are dangerous and should be avoided by cycles.

As I edged closer to Puławy the Wisla comes into view. The mighty river, Vistula, as we call it, links the Baltic with great cities like Torun, Warsaw and Krakow. It’s wide and sandy banked. As you enter Puławy there’s a narrow girder bridge, delightful to walk or cycle with views down towards the ancient Jewish trading post of Kazimierz Dolny. Puławy itself seems a fine town with a restaurant called Bristol and a palace to escape to for a plesant walk or picnic. The Rough Guide is rather disparaging about poor Puławy but my impressions were very positive. Apart from its important bridge over the Wisła, of which there aren’t many, and its palace, it is also the gateway to the tourist mecca of Kazimierz Dolny. This is a charming medieval village with little town square, surrounded by arches and ancient buildings, churches and a synagogue. It grew rich as a result of trade, largely fostered by Jewish mercants, invited by Kazimierz the Great. It is also a town with a more recent dark history, like so many in Poland and a monument of smashed Jewish gravestones can be seen in the wooded hillside.

On the other side of the hills, know as the Lublin Uplands or Kazimierski Park Krajobrazow, lies the pleasant spa town of Naleczow (pronounced nawenchoof). There’s a very low bridge as you draw near to the town which has the useful effect of preventing heavy traffic using the route [830]. The Sanitorium is the central feature of the spa park, but there are rather grand villas (or Willas) along the main thorofares. There’s a hotel in the centre, called the Pzedsiebiorstwa which has a good restaurant. There’s also a tourist office, just as you leave the town on the Lublin road. So a call to the Biuro Turystyczne Zakwaterowan i Wczasów "Naleczow-Zdroj" at ul Bochotnica 22 Tel (0)81 501 46 34, will fix you up with a bed and breakfast. If you call in advance, which is always wise, Marian Wójcik speaks German. Why do I always want to tell them ‘jestem z Anglia’, I’m from England before trying a bit of German. Maybe it’s the Basil Fawlty in me.

At night in Nałęczow, I popped into the Hotel Ewelina (Tel: 081 501 40 76) for coffee and cakes and mixed briefly with the wealthy Lublin smart set. In the morning I set off on the 25 km to Lublin. I didn’t stop in Lublin at first, prefering to visit the Majdanek Museum first knowing it closed in the early afternoon out of season.

Majdanek is not well known in Britain, but was second only to Auchwitz in its murerous record. It is estimated that one and a half million people perished in this extermination camp. Jews, of course, but also Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Czechs, Jehova Witnesses, gypsies, prisoners of war, prostitutes, homosexuals, criminals, social misfits, mental patients, handicapped people, and political prisoners of the Nazi regime. Fortunately the camp is not run as a tourist attraction, it is a solemn, honest, faithful reminder of what was. So faithfully kept that the barbed wire still borders the town.

Back into the town centre and the city is easily navigable from the pl Łokielka where an archway leads into the old town. The old town leads on to the castle and from the castle I found my way back through the park to the road south and into the Vovoidship (County) of Zamość. I was begining to feel I’d made it, but had another 50km or more of road.

At first the terrain was fairly flat but it climbs into gentle uplands before the plain surrounding Zamosc itself. There is tobacco growing in fields surrounding many small farmsteads. In other fields are horses some pulling ploughs, others carts carying home the crop.

As I entered Zamosc I felt that the countryside had suddenly given way to sophistocated urban life. They would laugh, but I almost felt I could be entering a city like Krakow or indeed, Loughborough. Czesc!

Telephone codes are like British codes, they start with a zero, but if you are dialing fro Britain drop it and prefix numbers with 0048. Local codes are 2 digits (eg Warsaw 22) Phone numbers are 6 or 7 digits. So the Polish Youth Hostel Assn in Warsaw is 022 498128. The code for Zamosc is 84 and the town hall is 084 639 30 73. Lublin is 81, Warka is 48.