Day 42 - A Mountain View

After another filling hostel breakfast it was just a short walk to catch the 9:10am bus to Zakopane, a mountain resort about 2-2½ hours south of Krakow. Zakopane is renowned for its spectacular mountains, criss-crossed by hiking trails in the summer and ski fields in the winter.


We arrived about 11:30am, but it took a while to find somewhere to get a map that would give us our bearings. There were a lot of (i) signs – but I’m not sure what they were all pointing to because we never did find a Tourist Information Centre. Eventually we asked in a small shop that seemed to be more about selling organised tours but the chap was most helpful and enabled us to make a concrete plan for our few hours in town.

The Tatry Mountains

To start with we walked down a market lined street, trying a very tall and quite yummy two-tone soft serve ice cream on the way, to reach the funicular station. This (fast) funicular took us from Zakopane (elevation 904m) up to the top of the “hill” called Gubalowka (1,120m) on the north side of town. From here there was a good view of the spectacular Tatry Mountains which soar to over 2,000 metres on the other side of town. To take in the view we walked about 30 minutes to a long chair lift that brought us back down to the outskirts of Zakopane. It wasn’t exactly a wilderness walk though; at least the first half of the walk was lined with more market stalls. There were also a couple of adventure playgrounds, for adults, which involved whizzing around on zip lines and negotiating elevated obstacle courses. I know someone who would have been right into that!

The Adventure Playground

Back in town we caught a mini bus to Kuznice where – despite the now rainy weather – we caught the big funicular up the real mountains on the opposite side to the “hill” we had been up earlier. The difference in description is absolutely appropriate, because this funicular takes you – in two stages – from an altitude of 1,025 metres to 1,987 metres. (The mountains themselves go all the way up to 2,048 metres, which makes them taller than Mt Kosciusko). Mist closed in from just before the mid station (1,360m) where you have to change cars, and at the top it was not only shrouded in mist but starting to rain, which was a real pity. So we were unable to linger for long, which was probably just as well because it was getting late anyway. The mist had cleared above mid-station on the way down so we were able to get some idea of just how steep these mountains were.

We made it down in time to catch a bus back to Krakow just before 5:00pm. The return trip was slightly faster as we were back at the Krakow bus station by 7:10pm. Needing an early start for the airport for our 8:45 flight tomorrow morning, we checked out the situation re fares and times for trains to the airport so we could time our exit from the hostel. We then spent up at the supermarket on supplies for dinner and tomorrow’s travels to use up as much of our remaining Zlotys as possible. As a result we cooked up a nice dinner for ourselves back at the hostel before Laura retired to bed and I retired to do some blogging.