Talking about mandatory places to visit in Poland, I realized Zakopane was the unique unseen of that list; despite Covid and travel restrictions I opted for a relaxing weekend on Tatra mountains thanks also to very favourable prices.
Since few times I abandoned a bit the idea of going alone in my raids and therefore shared this hiking with the fawn of Brescia.
The expectations were high but once in Zakopane the reality even overcomes my imagination: such an amazing place!
Preamble: we didn’t reach Zakopane directly but made an intermediate stop in Krakow, just to avoid arriving exhaust after 6 trip hours. And in the break I had the pleasure to share great moments and a memorable dinner with Peppe, ‘Ciro’, Alex, Valeria, Sara and…the epic Hermann Muller beer!
Hosted in the elegant Gold Hotel having a little but adorable SPA with sauna and jacuzzi, a perfect starting point for exploring the surroundings.
The little town is quite fiabesque, with a small river, a lot of eat&drink places and a City Museum unfortunately closed; ulica Krupowki is the main street and here below you can admire it during the fourthies.
The focal point of the excursion was reaching Kasprowy Wielch, the highest peak of the Polish part of Tatra mountains (shared with Slovakia); as suggested by the map there are several pathways to be discovered and we choosed the classical one.
After around one hour Dolina Bystrej: it’s a tiny agglomerate of houses with a big church on the middle and a crossroad point. The altitude is about 940 mt while in Kasprowy took 1987 mt : a gradient of more than 1000 mt!
The ascension in the remaining 2 hours was quite demanding: in Myslenickie Turnie (1360 mt) my physical condition deranged a bit and I needed some breath to follow up regurarly.
Between Myslenickie and Kasprowy there is a cableway working from 1936; the construction was completed after 168 days.
Then finally after slightly more than 3 hours Kasprowy Wielch: it was really cold and windy.
In Kasprowy we met also Mattia and Anna but they had a much larger walk!
I badly want to come back there again because there is the Morskie Oko, the biggest and most beautiful lake of the region; best season to visit it is on Summer also due to the lenght of the walk (more than 5 hours).
Nowadays the lake has a couple of thousand visitors per day; it is surrounded by an impressive chain of peaks that are over 2000 mt, and near-by there’s Czarny Staw, as well as the tallest Tatra mountains peak, Rysy.
In the early 19th century, a few shelters were already built along the edge of the lake; the current one is dated 1908 in the Zakopane style.
Recap: once in Krakow you cannot avoid Zakopane, it’s the coolest place of the region. Mountains lovers will find their heaven with a good offers diversity.