Today I will be writing about the Tour de Pologne.  Here you see a picture in Warsaw where they are getting ready for the race.  The race ran from August 1-7, 2010, beginning in Sochaczew and ending in Krakow.

The next time we encountered anything related to the race was on August 6th when we about to leave Auschwitz to go for our afternoon trip to the Salt Mines.  Our tour guide said that we needed to hurry because soon they would be closing the roads for the Tour de Pologne.  We hurried, but we still had a problem accessing the road that we needed to be on in order to leave.  After driving a short ways, we had to stop.  (We made use of that stop for our lunch break.)  Then the most amazing thing happened - the Tour de Pologne came right where we were and we got to see the cyclists, their escort cars, etc.  It was a great feeling to see part of it. 

However, thinking we were just going to eat lunch, I did not have my camera with me at that time.  Vacation hint - always keep hold of your camera!

I should go on to explain that in this year's Tour de Pologne, after the cyclists left from Oswiecim, the city of peace, they went to Auschwitz II Birkenau where the whole Tour de Pologne observed a minute of silence.  One cyclist per country was to stand in front of the camp and leave a white rose at the barbed wire fence.  Following that, the group was to walk past the concentration camp.  I would have loved to have seen all of that take place,  but it probably was not possible to do that and to visit the salt mine.  Here is a statement I found about this event, "With this commemoration we wanted to try and send a message of universal peace, equality, brotherhood and transnational solidarity.  Those are fundamental values that are stronger than linguistic, ideological or religious barriers, and they are the basis of both sports as a whole and cycling.  They are values that both sports and cycling can and must help spread worldwide."  What a wonderful sentiment!

Not knowing a lot about the Tour de Pologne, I looked up a bit of information.  The tour was first held in 1928.  Until 1952, it was held sporadically, but since then it has taken place annually.  The estimates for this year were that there would be 2,000,000 spectators, 400 cities and towns visited, 50 vehicles in the caravan, and 14,000 water bottles used.  The distance traveled is typically around 1,200 km.

The winner was Daniel Martin of Ireland.  He got a yellow jersey for winning the race and a Fiat Bravo car as a prize!