A wonderful day and one hard to bid farewell to such lovely hosts. We ended the evening before with my first drink of vodka in Poland--and a Finnish vodka at that--they know how to discriminate, and then a superb fresh-mint tea.
This day started with a hearty breakfast and then a departure to Mount St. Anne, a very popular Carholic Pilgrimage Site here in Poland. At 36 km. (23 mi.) from their house, it bumped us along our trail by two days, and helped build more slack time into a tight schedule. The mount of St. Anne, where a pagan shrine already stood during pre-Christian times, has a most unique geology: it's a monadnock, an isolated small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. This Upper Salesian area is also strategic to both Germany and Poland and both languages are visible everywhere.
We admired the site, obtained the stamp for our pilgrims' credentials, and marched on to Kamień Śląski. Here we encountered a popular, nicely appointed Sanatorium at $15 per person incl. breakfast (and they spoke German). A hundred meters before this health spa, we soaked our feet in a cool wading pool just made for pilgrims (even if we did only walk 15 km/9 mi).
Tomorrow we expect rain and the next two days as well--but it's fun to walk in the rain as well: pura vida!
