The next chapter of The Bond Voyage was to head dead south – to the mountains of Poland. Quick hop I hear you say? On the map – yes, in reality – no. It took us the best part of the day to get to our first stop – Solina – with an artificial lake surrounded by the mountains and foothills of Bieszczady. It was a picturesque place but, having survived a storm and a spectacular light show overnight, we decided to press on. Plus, someone was blasting some incredibly offensive (to our ears) music and that sealed the deal.

We arrived in a place called Wetlina, a little mountainous village where the major Bieszczady walks and climbs start. We lucked out and secured a spot on a hippie campsite near a stream where we stayed for a couple of nights (one of them was the Midsummer). Can’t think of a better place to spend it really.

We ate some excellent local food at Chata Wedrowca and drank the local craft beers. Bliss.

The Bieszczady mountains were breathtaking. We left our green hearts there. We climbed a couple of peaks – Przelecz Orlowicza (1075m) and Smerek (1222m)…and that’s where the battery on our camera died. Link to the map.

It was time to move on to Beskidy where we spent a night in a campsite in Tylicz (with a pool!). We hit Krynica in the morning, a spa town with a huge park in the middle of the town and tried the local mineral waters (an acquired and somewhat “eggy” taste!). The sun was shining, we bought a kilo of huge local strawberries and with heavy hearts left for the Tatra mountains.

On another note, nearly 2 weeks on the road and we also examined contents of Rupert’s pocket. Here they are. Make your own judgment.

The drive through the mountains was breathtaking. We drove through Poland and Slovakia on fairly empty roads to Zakopane – the capital of the Polish mountains. Sylwia scored a car.

We stayed in the town centre for the first night but decided it was way too busy for our liking and decamped to a tiny family run campsite in a different part of town and took these pictures…

As you may imagine – we didn’t want to leave. Again! But it was time to head to Krakow for the Wianki festival and a well-earned stay in a city-centre apartment we booked for the weekend.

We’ve only been on the road for 5 days but we already feel we have seen and experienced loads. Weather has been dreamy (30+ degrees and sunny) so we packed away our thermals deep into the bowels of the van (hopefully never to be seen again!).

After leaving Lomza we headed dead south to a little historical town – Kazimierz Dolny nad Wisla. We set up camp just outside the centre and set off to experience the town and surrounding areas on foot. This area of Poland has had quite a sizeable Jewish population so we ate like Polish Kings in a Jewish restaurant called “U Fryzjera” (“At the Hairdresser’s” – note: masterclass in logo making!) and drank some refreshing tea at “U Dziwisza”. We climbed through the natural loess gorges up to the early medieval castle of King Kazimierz the Great.

We even squeezed in a very emotional Euro match (Poland-Germany) watched on a huge screen in the atmospheric town square with local supporters chanting “Polska! Polska! Bialo-czerwoni”. Needless to say, after a couple of beers, we joined in…

Originally, we planned to stay one night but it was truly too hard to leave. So instead we chilled our boots and left on Saturday, heading to Lublin via a spa town called Naleczow, where we took a bath in a pool of white clay (quite an experience, although total submersion definitely not recommended :/) and climbed a little hill to the surreal and dream-like little cafe called Kawiarnia Jasminowa (Jasmine Cafe). It was hidden through the jasmine trees in full bloom – talk about good timing! The smell was truly intoxicating and has beautifully complimented the home-made jasmine vodka…

Then it was time to go to Lublin – our third stop on this leg (the town is perfect for a city break if you’re looking for one!). We found a campsite outside of the town by a lake and took an opportunity to go paddle-boarding in the morning.

In Lublin we walked through the historical centre, meandering through the old shabby (but chic!) streets and having an occasional strawberry margarita in a bar or two… (strawberries are very much in season in Poland right now).

We also paid a visit to the museum situated at the site of former German concentration camp Majdanek where horrific crimes against humanity were committed. We decided not to take any pictures of that place because it got imprinted in our minds hard enough.

Next stop – Bieszczady Mountains…for the Midsummers…

PS. If you’re on Instagram you can follow Sylwia @missapplebaum for more photographic updates 🙂

The Bond Voyage’s first main event was to get married in a church in Sylwia’s hometown in Lomza. The party was kindly hosted by her parents. We had Rupert’s Mother, Jane and her partner Michael, and Ru’s brother Jeremy over from the UK. The rest of the guests were from Poland (but not just Polish – you know who you are 😉 ) friends and family who couldn’t have been with us at our civil wedding ceremony in September.

We had so much fun and danced so hard till the early hours that there are not many words we can use to fully describe this fantastic experience. So we won’t. We will use the choice pictures from the day, which were taken by our rock star photographer friend Pawel Wadolowski (thank you again!).

After a few false starts, we committed to a departure date and booked a spot on the Eurotunnel. No going back now! With our first adventure imminent – a brief 35 minute snooze in ‘Murphy’ as we whistle deep beneath “La Manche” – the surfboards went on the roof and…we were off!

With a nine hundred mile drive ahead and a fixed arrival date at the in-laws, our delayed departure meant the first change in plans of the trip was necessary.

Initially we had planned to head to Hel peninsula in the Baltic. In part because of the nice ring that “first stop – Hel!” has but also due to the excellent kitesurfing. So instead we plotted a route (more-or-less) ‘directly’ to Lomza via Le Parc Naturel Scarpe-Escaut (not a soul in sight) and Cologne (nice enough but don’t stretch for it).

Check out the rude window displays that call you names…

After 3 days on the road and way too many hours in the slow lane of the Autobahn, we crossed the border into Poland. Spotting a lake called Nieslysz west of Poznan we rolled into the excellent (read as ‘empty’!) campsite “Kormoran” and grabbed a waterside spot just in time for a sunset paddle and swim.

Although we left this beautiful spot after just one night to prepare for the small matter of our Catholic nuptials, with many more (dare I say better?) days and nights ahead it feels like the Bond Voyage has truly begun…

We have decided to take our cat, Salsa, with us on this trip. In general, cats are not your usual roadtrip companions (we hear you!) but before making this decision we had done our research and spoken to a specialist travel vet at the Clerkenwell Animal Hospital, who were most helpful in alleviating our fears and getting the furry monkey prepared for 4 months on the road. She needed an update to her vaccinations, new pet passport, rabies injection and de-worming. This ordeal lasted a month with repeated visits, as not everything could have been done in one go. The last visit was to obtain travel certificate and an anti-insect collar. Eastern Poland’s forests are known for the ticks so we didn’t want to take any chances. The collar we were after wasn’t available in the UK so we used our team in Poland (aka mom and dad) to help us source that.

We have also trawled the net in search of testimonials from people who have travelled with their feline pets. There are actually people out there who are as crazy as we are to have taken their cats on the road with them, and both parties survived. Phew!

There are various considerations to take into account such as: cats running away, overheating, wellbeing, stress… a lot to take on whilst on the road but, on balance, we thought it’s worth giving it a go. Worst come to worst – we will leave with our family in Poland or UK. She might love it or hate it – but we won’t know until we try!

So far so good – Salsa’s been doing a great job checking the blind spot for the driver….

Our last few weeks could have been described with one word: logistics. Neither of us has ever prepared for a trip of this magnitude or prepared the cat for her biggest adventure yet! We learnt one thing: Allow twice as much time to pack and organise than you think you need.

We started with listing everything we could think of in a separate categories, assigned owners and put due dates…sounds familiar?! Whilst we tried to keep to our planned schedule with plenty of spare time, we didn’t avoid doing things last minute. This included updating Sylwia’s passport with her married name, driver’s license and van re-registration papers…

Preparing the vehicle

We bought the van last summer with a view of converting it into a campervan for little surfing and kite-surfing trips out of London. Rupert has done his last van conversion himself but with a full time job – this would have proven a challenge so we asked a company in Brighton to help us design our camper of dreams.

Here’s a posey photo taken when we first got it….August 2015.

Murphy, as we affectionally called it, is a short-wheel based Ford Transit Custom. It fits in a regular parking space so there’s limited space to play with when it comes to conversion. We needed a bed, a kitchenette, some cupboards and, of course – windows at the back & rear. The conversion took a few weeks more than we anticipated (can you sense a theme here?) but we were very pleased with the result. Picture below doesn’t really do it justice but it does feel like a second home and we’re absolutely elated to be able to spend our summer in it.

Next was organising our clothes and other belongings… I am not sure if it warrants a whole load of narrative around but let’s just say it took a few fair goes to whittle the shoes and clothes down to bare minimum (not an easy challenge, especially for a woman!).

All in all the prep was a logistical challenge, as you may imagine but it taught us a few lessons that will sure come useful along the way.