Blogs from Lesser Poland, Poland, Europe - page 16

Our first destination in Poland was Warsaw, from what we had been told our expectations were not high but we were still interested to come and check it out. The reason Warsaw is often the forgotten destination in Poland is that it was destroyed almost completely in WW2 so many of the old buildings are no longer there. After finding our hostel from the train station (this time going the correct way first time!!) we found some food. We then did the free walking tour which gave us a good look at the city. We were pleasantly surprised with the Old City which has been rebuilt quite grandly and is nice to look at. Our guide was quite the talker, informing us on the interesting historical events of the city along with some long winded unimportant ... read more

Waking up to a grey sky wasn’t really a surprise, but watching how heavy it was raining while we were having breakfast was quite disappointing to say the least… It didn’t look too promising but the forecast for the next days was even worse, and we didn’t tick Morskie Oko (the most famous of the Polish lakes in Tatras called The Eye of The Sea) off our list yet (this time), so we decided to give it a try anyway. Full of hopes and armed with raincoats we drove to Łysa Polana. Not really trusting my jacket I bought a rain-poncho just in case also... Better to have too many layers on you than too few, right? Even though Łysa Polana is a bit away from Zakopane (on the border with Slovakia), it’s quite easy to ... read more

For some strange reason I woke up pretty thirsty that morning… Obviously it didn’t have anything to do with the previous evening… ;) Still after some good portion of scrambled eggs and a strong, BIG coffee for breakfast, I was ready for another day of hiking… We were aiming to reach Giewont (1894m high) that day. It’s probably the most famous mountain of the Polish Tatras – it comprises of three peaks Great Giewont, Long Giewont and Small Giewont. Its silhouette resembles that of a Sleeping Knight – the Long Giewont forming the knight’s torso and Great Giewont his face (the chin, the nose and the eyebrow). Almost from any point in Zakopane you can see a beautiful view of Giewont and easily make out the profile of the sleeping knight. According to a popular legend ... read more

I was really looking forward to spending a week in beautiful Tatras and couldn’t wait to see the familiar peaks overlooking Zakopane, but then I just couldn’t imagine landing in Kraków and not visiting the Old Town even for a while… So with just a few hours to spare, we headed to the centre of Kraków. Wawel Castle beautifully set on the hill along Wisła (Vistula River) is definitely a place worth a visit. Once a royal residence, its chambers are full of treasures – paintings, furniture and all sorts of memorabilia from Renaissance times. But then with little time on our hands, we had to skip a visit to the castle this time and just strolled along the Wisła, and then walking through Planty (best known park in Kraków) we reached Rynek Główny (the Main ... read more

July 3rd: Still sick, a bunch of people chekced into the room after 1am and left the door open (light and noise from the hall) while they went off to do other stuff. Managed to tune out the roadworks and got some sleep though sometimes it does seem like the world is conspiring to stop me getting sleep or getting better! Heading to Krakow today, had some crazy chicken & vege tortilla for breakfast and went to the station. An older lady and I got into the bright orange 1970s style lift... it may have been that old too. Somehow it's buttons or the lights next to them had gotten mixed up so that when you were on level -2 and couldn't go any lower it would still stubbornly insist that you were on -1! The ... read more