New Year's Day in Zakopane


Advertisement
Poland's flag
Europe » Poland » Lesser Poland » Zakopane
January 2nd 2009
Published: January 7th 2009
Edit Blog Post

01/01/2009 Oscypki and the Broken Shoe

We had a quiet new years eve so we could be up early on New Year’s Day to drive to Zakopane in the Polish Tatra mountain area.
*Note to self - if you want to drive anywhere without traffic, do it on the morning of the first day of the year!
Barely a sole on the road made our drive very easy on the way up, coming back was a different story…
The closer we got to Zakopane, the more snow on the side of the road. As we were driving we saw a 22° halo in the sky, it looked like a bright ring around the sun. This forms when clouds are very cold and contain hexagonal ice crystals that are reflected and refracted by light - beautiful!
We found our accommodation, Pension Anna, just off the main road in Poronin, the small town just before Zakopane. The couple that ran the pension were very friendly and spoke English. We had a bite to eat from the big buffet, some Polish coffee (same as Turkish) and delicious cakes; the gingerbread cake with jam was our favourite!
We then got rugged up and caught the bus to the city centre of Zakopane. As we waited for the bus, a full one drove straight past the bus stop, and then just a minute later, a guy driving a small van pulled into the bus stop and we crammed in, thankful to be out of the cold for a few minutes! Of course we had to pay him as he is like a kind of private shuttle bus.
Luckily it was a beautiful day, cold but a clear blue sky! We wandered around the touristy part of Zakopane for a while and admired the cute wooden cottage style buildings, street stalls, parents pulling their bundled up children on sleds and the Polish fashion. I was also amazed at icicles hanging from roofs.
I was complaining about my feet being so frozen and Mario was complaining that my shoes weren’t good for such cold weather and walking on the snow…and then his favourite hiking boots that he has had for about 13 years, fell to pieces, the rubber sole crumbling! The rest of our afternoon we spent looking for new boots, but most of the non-touristy shops were closed, so then we bought super glue!
We ate a delicious lunch of soup and bigos, then had hot drinks at an upstairs café overlooking the main street, Krupowki. We had a play in the snow, it was very fluffy and light, then caught a proper bus back to the pension.
We ate dinner at the pension, tasty kapusta (pickled cabbage) soup and schnitzel with potatoes, beetroot and carrot and strawberry compote for our drink, yum!

02/01/2009 Lunch in Slovakia

We planned to get up early the next day, but that didn’t happen. It had snowed a lot overnight and the sky was dull. Mario dusted the snow off the car and we headed for Kasprowy Wierch - the most famous peak in Poland. We caught a minibus up the hill, then decided to wait in the huge line for the cable car up to the top of the mountain. After about an hour waiting and still not close to the front of the line, we decided to walk back down the hill to the car and go for a drive elsewhere. We ended up in Slovakia! We had driven quite far around the Tatra Mountains and reached the border of Poland and Slovakia, so we decided to go there just for lunch! There were beautiful views of the huge mountains, and lots of ski slopes along the main road. We then found a Slovakian restaurant and enjoyed their cuisine! See the pics of our food!
Still in Slovakia, we found a small ski slope and tested out our ‘plastic apples’. Basically a piece of apple shaped plastic to slide down the snow on! Fun!
It was snowing while we began driving back to Zakopane and got heavier and heavier. The road became completely blocked with traffic and we were still about 40 minutes away from Zakopane, so we turned around and took a different way. We still had A LOT of traffic and took about double the time to get home, than we took to get there! Anyway, through the cold, snow and ice on the road, we finally made it home! What a great trip! Enjoy the photos, I would love to go to the Polish mountains again one day!





Additional photos below
Photos: 60, Displayed: 25


Advertisement

Small slope for kidsSmall slope for kids
Small slope for kids

and we also watched a man slide down on a wooden sled, which collapsed halfway down haha


12th January 2009

Love snow!!
so beautiful you lucky thing!!! when does the snow start in europe?? be seein you soon!!!
30th October 2009

cehasz
hi.my name is burhan(antonio) ı think new years in zakopana.mybea 10 day.hw much euro.just room mybea breakfast and room?djinkuya bardzo :))

Tot: 0.24s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 128; dbt: 0.1182s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.4mb