GR 54 – day 0
12.7.2023 Wednesday
We already arrived in Kraków yesterday, we used a ferry too. We left our car at our friends’ place in the garden, and in the evening we went with them to a Czech restaurant for a beer. Jozef paid by card and by mistake tapped payment in EUR instead of PLN. This one-centimeter slip cost him €12, and he beat himself up about it all evening. But now we’ll remember, always pay in the local currency. This is the last time for a long time we sleep indoors, on a couch.
Today we fly from Kraków to Lyon at 12:30. Alarm’s at 8. We repack a bit and find out we have way too much food again. At 9 we leave the apartment and go for coffee. It’s a pretty modern part of Kraków, so there are lots of cafés. We just get an espresso, and it’s really sour. We buy some breakfast at a grocery store, and since we still have time, we go check out Schindler’s villa and factory. There’s a train station in the Zabłocie district with a direct train to the airport, so we choose that over a car, to avoid traffic. We arrive with plenty of time and buy tickets for 17 PLN from a machine. The trip to the airport takes 23 minutes. At the airport we repack our bags again. Jozef’s backpack is checked-in luggage, so it holds the poles, knife, cooking gear, toiletries and food. We wrap it in plastic film so nothing gets torn . At check-in the scale shows exactly 10kg. Then just the security check, which we pass fast as always, since we pack everything neatly. And as always, Jozef wonders why not everyone does the same, since they slow things down. We charge our phones and wait, we have 1.5 hours. It’s fairly busy for such a small airport, but we find a spot with a free outlet. Boarding goes quickly, but for some reason we’re half an hour late. We make it up in the air and land in Lyon at three. We get our luggage fast and then have over half an hour before the bus. We eat a bag of dried fruit to make the backpack lighter. We’re already sitting on the bus when Jozef realizes he doesn’t know where his phone is. He looks around and suddenly jumps off the bus and runs to a bench, where he’d left it. Usually things like this happen to me, not him. The bus ride is quiet. No music plays, no one talks loudly, so we just watch the landscape as more and more hills appear. Suddenly proper mountains rise up ahead of us, and we know we’re close. We get off in Grenoble and rush to a sports shop to buy a gas canister, since the bus was a bit late and we’re not sure if we’ll catch the next one.
We walk fast, so we make it. At Carrefour we buy Camembert, salami, ketchup and some sweet soda for a spare bottle. At the bakery next door, a baguette and of course flan.
We arrive at the station 15 minutes before the bus leaves. I try to buy tickets, but it fails three times. I give up and we wait under the roof, since a storm’s coming. I see a girl next to me has a ticket, so I ask her to help. The problem was I hadn’t inserted my card far enough, it needed a bit of force. A woman drives this bus, and Jozef has his doubts. The moment we get on, three-centimeter hail starts falling — we’re glad we’re inside. The bus goes pretty fast. We enter the valley where our destination is. The hills are unbelievably steep and tall. You’d expect this place to be thriving with tourism, but the houses along the road are pretty run-down, like no one even lives there. Quite different from Chamonix. We reach Bourg d’Oisans and head fast toward the start of the trail. A fairly strong storm is coming.
We don’t know what to do. Today we planned to hike 5 km with 800 meters of elevation gain and camp there. The rain’s coming in fast and the wind’s strong. We check a campsite, but reception’s already closed. So we go to another one. There’s still a light on there. We make the sensible choice and stay at the campsite for €20. We pitch the tent fast and cook Asian instant noodles. Everything’s ready within 20 minutes.
Thunder rolls in from every direction. I’m glad we’re here and not halfway up some hill. We even take a shower, and tomorrow we’ll try to push as far as we can, ideally to reach the spot we’d originally planned for tomorrow.
