Today we headed up into the Tatra Mountains near Krakow. The Tatras are part of the larger Carpathian Mountains and are located in Slovakia, and Poland. They are the tallest mountains in the Carpathians with two peaks over 8000 feet.
The drive up to Zakopane was mostly on a brand new freeway that starts in the suburbs of Krakow, and ends about 40 kilometers from Zakopane. From there the rest of the trip is on a good two lane road, but Zakopane is one of the most popular tourist attractions for Poles in Poland. As a result the traffic was bumper to bumper for the last 40 kilometers.
Zakopane was fairly bustling when we parked up. It is centered on two things, a large pedestrian walkway thru the center of town which is lined with restaurants and tourist shops, and ski resorts on the surrounding hills. The Tatras were still snow covered, but the ski resorts were bare of snow, so everyone was focused on the promenade thru town. We joined them for a stroll.
One of the first shops we saw had an interesting cheese on display. Oscypek Cheese is only made in the Tatra Mountains in Poland. It is an old cheese first produced in the 1300’s, and had almost faded into obscurity for being old fashioned. But lately it has come back in style. The cheese is made primarily of sheep milk, that only can be collected between April and October when the sheep are eating mountain meadow grass. The sheep milk is turned into cottage cheese, that is then boiled and compressed into blocks of cheese that are molded in decorative shapes. The cheese is then placed in brine one of two days, before being smoked for 14 days. We are told it is best eaten fried with jam. We will be testing our cheese and will give you a report later.
As we were strolling up the promenade Ton was having a great time going from one traditional Polish restaurant to another, and investigating the menu, and gauging the price/value ratio. After checking out several restaurants and debating their merits (mostly with herself as they all looked good to me) we settled on one that specialized in grilled meats Tatra style. The meal for two was huge, but we managed to almost finish it.
Prior to its current incarnation as a posh resort town Zakopane had a much more rough reputation. The locals were called Highlanders and like many mountain people they were known for being difficult to govern and distrustful of outsiders. They made their living raising sheep, lumber jacking, and occasionally smuggling people or things over the border to Slovakia.
After our meal we needed another promenade thru town to walk off some of the meat we had consumed. We were tempted to visit a couple of breweries we passed, but were too full to enjoy the beer. We did stumble into the town market which was full of local goods, and non-local goods that the locals thought they could sell to the tourists. Ton enjoyed looking thru many of the stalls, and finally settled on a couple of book bags to take home with us.
The drive back down the mountain was busy. So far the area around Krakow has impressed me with the volume of traffic. Even on Sunday as soon as we hit the suburbs of Krakow we were in stop and go traffic for about 10 kilometers.
