Hello from Frankfurt! We are flying home today but have some time to finish up the last blog of our tour of Poland!
We left Krakow and headed to Zakopane for a week of "nature". Bucolic scenes away from cars and people is just what we are looking for after the three city tour. Well... that is not exactly what we found in the touristy town of Zakopane near the Tatra National Park.
We did some hiking, saw a castle, visited a spa, got a massage and ate some good food! We also dealt with lots of traffic, tons of tourists and an apartment that was right next to the very busy fire station!
Enough complaining .... here are the pics:
Our first hike was to a little waterfall.
It was a nice day, hot as usual.
The next day we went to Niedzica Castle. It sits on a little lake. The castle is quite old - 13th century but is in decent shape having been lived in until 1945.
This is the potty chair that would have been used by the lord of the manner... kind of like a potty-training toilet for adults!
Of course the dungeon...
Let's stop the tour to talk about food, our favorite store and Polish flavors...
quesadilla flavored chips -
fancy beef & potato?
or, my personal favorite ... gyros!
the ongoing joke was that there was Zabka on every corner ... years from now we will remember Zabka (convenience store that we frequented in every town in Poland).
Next day up was another hike that sort of ended up out of control. It started innocently enough with a trip up two gondolas to 1987 meters (6600 ft) to start our hike.
This is the trail we hiked on... the ridge also is the border between Poland and Slovakia.
This is a border marker with "P" and "S" ... at this point we were still laughing...
First peak was Liliowe at 1952 meters.
The next peak, at 2051 meters, was quite windy!! (still smiling!)
Headed down toward these lakes and the chairlift to take us back up to the Gondola. Gorgeous!
That is the end of the pictures, the end of the smiling... the chairlift was not operating when we arrived. We had seen people on it earlier!
At this point we had been hiking three hours and were expecting a ride! Now we have to make a decision - two hours down to the bottom - where we caught the gondola that morning OR one hour UP to the top of the gondola. But it isn't really a choice of one or two because we are OLD and it takes us longer!!!
The good news is we did make it down to the bottom. The bad news is that It was HARD and sitting here four days later we are still sore.
I did set a record of steps in one day... LOL 29,000!
The day after that adventure we had a massage in the morning, did some light shopping and ended the day at a thermal bath. This helped get the smiles back on our faces!
The mountains really are beautiful - nice to be in a thermal bath in these surroundings!
Tuesday we were back to the National Park to see Morskie Oko, the most popular lake and a "must see" when in Zakopane.
There are a couple of ways to get there - walk two hours on an asphalt road, uphill all the way (boring!) OR take a horse-drawn carriage!
Best Euros we ever spent!
The lake was beautiful!
We took the horse buggy back down as well. It was such a boring hike. We were content with the 45 minute bit at the end (the buggies don't go all the way to the lake) ... the legs could not handle much more than that!
Funny story - if you have ever been to Europe you know that it is not unusual to have to pay to use the toilet. Poland is the same.
I had finally had enough when we got to the trailhead for Morskie Oko, having paid five Zloty ($1.25) to enter the Park and then the toilet was four Zloty! Come on! Raise the entry fee and make the toilet free! Coincidentally I did not have four Zloty and needed to go ... but really ?!?!?
We had a nice time in Zakopane overall. The fire station had over 20 alarms while we were there so that was a bit much! There were tons of people and cars - at times it felt more crowded than the cities we had visited.
Poland was wonderful, full of history and beauty. Traveling with Falk and Svenni was wonderful as always, we are blessed to have such close friends though we live far apart.
Special thanks to Justin, Roslyn & Hilmer, and Marieke & Alex for watching our house and dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. We appreciate you so much!
Headed home tired and happy!
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