The Oder River Offers Interesting History and a Great Bike Ride

During the winter months nearly half of the surface of the Baltic Sea is covered with ice, the largest concentration of ice coverage for any large water mass in the world.  The reasons are plenty, one is that the Baltic is not necessarily a salt water sea, it is rather, brackish.  Brackish is just a good term for a mix of salt and fresh water.  Ice floes enjoy the brackish Baltic as ice is more easily formed in calm, predominantly fresh water over salt water.   The Baltic owes a great deal of this fresh water supply to the Oder River.

The Oder begins in the Czech Republic and flows north into Poland and for a little over 115 miles makes up the border between Germany and Poland.  It finally empties into the Bay of Pomerania on the Baltic at the Polish city of Szczecin, the country’s second largest sea port in terms of annual tonnage (Gdansk is the largest).

The Oder is 531 miles in length and close to 40 cities dot the river on its flow north.  A series of tributaries from the east and the west keep the Oder flowing at a fast pace.  Much of the river is navigable and is the tenth most trafficked river in Europe.  

The Oder was a serious topic of discussion following the Second World War and was a major focus of the Big Three (Churchill/later Atlee, Truman and Stalin) at the 1945 Postdam Conference.  The river would be essentially the line between east and west with East Germany providing an initial buffer to NATO.  After some tender negotiations the Oder-Neisse Line was adopted as the border between Germany and Poland. 

Immediately, millions of Germans who moved into Poland were ordered out and millions of Poles, most in Germany as forced laborers, returned to Poland.  The new line agreement did not end border disputes with the last coming in 2011.  Following the war, many cities and towns that bisected the Oder were split between two separate countries.  Today, these towns and the Oder make a great bike ride or bicycle vacation.

Riding along rivers is always a good bet seeing that rivers do not climb mountains, if you follow a river you are likely to be on flat ground and enjoying a nice cruising speed.  While biking the Oder, riders have the ability to visit the many bisected towns.  Four major towns were halved with the largest combined population being the towns of Görlitz (Germany) and Zgorzelec (Poland).  Gorlitz is noted for relics from the Protestant Reformation and scars resulting from the Thirty Years War.  Footballer Michael Ballick calls Görlitz home.  Across the Oder, Zgorzlec was part of Prussia to 1945 and has a good deal of Greek-influenced culture as over 10,000 Greeks settled in the city during the Greek Civil War (1948-49).  

The Oder presents a unique chapter of world history that literally spans 1,000 years and it can easily be enjoyed from atop the bike saddle.  Visit this site for more information, www.mecklenburger-radtour.de.  Visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net.