Category: Poland

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.

Our primary plan for the day was to go shopping. So we were off to Lidl first, but Tomak the manager of the campground told us there was a brewery on the way to Lidl, so we stopped off there first.

It was a very nice and large facility with a small hop yard in front. We were excited but when we went in we discovered their tasting room was closed permanently. They were selling beer in plastic bottles, so we bought three to bring back to François.

Our next stop was Lidl. We had forgotten it was Saturday, and the Lidl was crazy. It was our first shopping for food in Poland so Ton enjoyed exploring the local food options.

When we returned to the campground we decided to go to downtown Krakow and do some more exploring and find a place for lunch. But just as we were about to leave it started raining. It ended up raining for the next two hours, so we put our trip to Krakow on hold. Ton cooked us a nice meal instead.

Our neighbors in the campground are French and we struck up a conversation with them when the rain let up. It was a bit difficult as their English was limited and our French is less than limited. But google translate allowed us to cut thru the lack of a common language. We ended up spending a very nice afternoon sitting around chatting and sharing beer, vodka, and snacks with them. These kind of encounters are part of the fun of traveling in a RV. Despite not having a common language we had a great time getting to know a couple from Dunkirk in France, hopefully they also enjoyed meeting us.

When we decided to extend our time around Krakow, it allowed us to look at places we would not have been able to see on our original itinerary. One of those was Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa.

Jasna Gora is a monastery dedicated to Mary. It is most famous for a painting of Mary holding Jesus that is called the Black Madonna. This painting is supposed to cure people of illnesses and it has become a pilgrimage site for believers.

It was about 150 kilometers one way to Czestochowa, so we were on our way around 10 am. Our Corolla feels like a luxury car after our previous rentals of a Fiat Panda, and a Lancia Ypsilon we had in Italy. It also makes a difference cruising at 120 kph (I couldn’t quite bring myself to go the 140 kph speed limit which is 87 mph) vs 95kph we usually drive François.

We were not quite sure what to expect, so we were both quite surprised at the size of the place when we drove up. The tower of the basilica is one of the tallest in Poland, and the entire complex is surrounded by thick walls as it also served as a fort. The fort was strong enough to withstand a siege by the Swedes in the 1640’s.

The chapel with the Black Madonna is not in the main basilica but in its own church attached to the basilica. The walls around the chapel are covered with religious icons and plaques in honor of Polish military units including many from WWII. One wall is covered in crutches and other medical devices that people left after being cured by the Madonna.

One of the plaques was dedicated to Solidarity which was the organization of workers starting in Gdansk which helped to bring down the Polish Communist Government in the 1980’s. The leader of Solidarity Lech Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions in freeing the Polish People. He was an avid Catholic and the Peace Prize is on display at Jasna Gora.

Jasna Gora is a pilgrimage site with people walking to the monastery from all over Poland. The last 1.5 kilometers thru town have a dedicated perfectly straight path that allows the pilgrims to view the monastery as they complete their pilgrimage. It is quite impressive.

This is the third pilgrimage site we have visited, and while we knew less about it than the others it made quite an impression. The other two sites (Fatima in Portugal, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain) where surrounded by more commercialism, while there were some restaurants and a couple of souvenir stores the over feel was not focused on tourism, but religion . Jasna Gora felt a little more spiritual than those sites did.

On these trips I learn little things about Ton that I didn’t know even after 43 years. I always knew that Ton was fascinated with the stations of the cross in catholic churches. While she never converted, she did attend a catholic boarding school for many years and went to mass every week. Jasna Gora had the stations of the cross in large statues that you took in by walking the walls of the fort. Today I learned that she really likes the 6th station, which is known as Veronica wiping the face of Jesus.

We really enjoyed Jasna Gora. It was beautiful and powerful, yet simple.

We spent most of last night debating what to do for the next 8 days. It turns out most of Poland has next week off, and all of the places we were planning to stay next week are booked. After a lot of discussion we came up with three options. 1. Stay around here and explore Krakow and the Malopolska region in depth. 2. Drop down towards Vienna, where the Austrians only have Wednesday off, so things are a little less hectic. 3. Spend three days exploring Krakow, and then drive straight thru to the Baltic States, where they also only have Wednesday off. Explore the Baltic states and then return and finish Poland.

Ton got out a piece of paper in the end and wrote down the day by day plan for each option, and we decided to stay in the area. It turns out rental cars are ridiculously cheap this week, we can rent a nice car for about $13/day so moving around will be easy. We love the campground we are in, the facilities are first rate, and the owners are bending over backwards to help us, and the price is very good. Also, there is quite a bit to see in this region, and Krakow is reported to be a city that merits multiple days to see.

With our plans decided we started our day by heading over to the airport to get our cheap rental car. The first place we went tried to rip us off by demanding we buy full insurance coverage from them because we could not produce an international drivers license. The insurance they insisted on was 3 times the cost of the car rental. They really had this act down, first refusing to rent the car, then as I was about to walk out, the guy said let me see what I can do to help you. That’s when he hit me with the I can rent you the car if you buy our outrageous insurance. We walked out, went down to another rental agency and 20 minutes later we were on the road in a nice Corolla. It ended up costing us $20 dollars more for 8 days than the original place. The international drivers license never came up.

We decided to head into Krakow and run a little reconnaissance on the old town. Krakow is the second largest city in Poland, and the most visited by tourists so the downtown was pretty busy. Its near the end of the school year so there were lots of students on field trips in the old town.

Our quick pass thru town showed why it is a big tourist attraction. Unlike most cities in Poland Krakow was not fought over in WWII, or subjected to any bombing, so the medieval and 18th century buildings have survived intact. It was the ancient capital of Poland before Warsaw, so it has always been an important city, resulting in a lot of interesting buildings. Also, it has one of the few intact Jewish quarters in Central Europe.

After walking quite a bit we were a bit hungry so we headed down to a smaller market where there were a bunch of small food stalls. There were several kebab stands, and a couple of small pastry stands, but we were there for a Polish specialty called Zapiekanki. This is a recent food development going back to the 1970’s. At that time the communist government decided to allow a limited number of private food stands to operate, from this loosening of control came the Zapiekanki. It is a half of a baguette covered in cheese, ketchup, and other toppings. During the communist era the toppings were basic, today they can be quite exotic. The one we choose was called the Diablo, and included hot sauce, jalapenos, mushrooms, and Arab sauce. It was delicious and pretty spicy.

By now it was pushing 4 o’clock so we launched ourselves into stop and go rush hour traffic. Greta Garmin led us down a major road heading north out of town. The traffic was moving at a crawl but we were going with the flow. Then Greta told us to turn left onto a road that looks like it will be completed in about 2027. I had bad words for Greta, but she insisted that the construction site was the way and would not pick another route. We finally had to put her in timeout and break out google maps to get to the campground.

After having the campground to ourselves for two nights we now have neighbors from France. When, the wife saw our plates she was very happy and hit me with a blast of French only to be disappointed when I told her in very bad French I was American and couldn’t speak French.

The weather forecast called for rain all day, so we had intentionally decided that we would hang out in François with no plans except for a late lunch at the small cafe attached to the campground. We had arranged for a typical Polish meal with the mother of the owner of the campground.

We enjoyed a nice relaxing day waiting for the rain that was forecast to last all day to begin. While it was still pretty cold, the rain didn’t actually begin until 5 pm after our dinner. The place is very quiet and the only noise beside the occasional car are the birds chirping and the stream babbling away.

At 3 we went to the cafe for a 5 course traditional Polish meal. The cook/mother explained each dish to us. Ton really loved the soup and the carrot salad. We also tried some local wines which were better than we expected as we are pretty far north and Poland is not known for its wine.

When we were paying the mom told us that she has been working hard on her English, but she really had a hard time understanding the English of people from India. We thought that was a strange comment as this part of Poland does not look like a hot bed for Indian tourism. She than told us that two years ago a Bollywood film was partly filmed here, and that they had up to 150 people on site during the filming. Because of that Bollywood connection they are getting quite a few Indian guests. We were not surprised that someone picked this place to make a movie as it is that beautiful, we were just surprised that the film was an Indian one.

We also learned that the logistics of our trip are going to get a little bit complicated at the beginning of May. It turns out than in addition to May 1, which is labor day, that May 3 is Constitution day in Poland. Because they fall on Wednesday and Friday this year we were warned at dinner that a lot of people are using vacation days to take a 9 day holiday. We are probably going to have to plan on booking our places in campgrounds during that period, instead of just showing up like normal.

Tonight we are in a beautiful Agritourist site near Krakow. The site is in the very small village of Gacki. Gacki is full of very wealthy looking homes in a valley surrounded by granite cliffs. We choose Gacki because we knew there would not be much sight seeing today as we had a four hour drive to Krakow. Tomorrow it is supposed to continue with the cold and rain all day, so we decided we would wait out the weather. The weather is supposed to improve Thursday with sun and highs near 70! So we decided to find somewhere we could relax the next two days rather than fight mother nature.

We arrived about 2pm. The owner of the campground invited us to arrange a meal with his mother at the cafe so we walked up there. She showed us around the cafe and told us the story of her great grandfather who left his wife and 5 children in a small village in Poland to go to the United States for a few years to earn some money. He returned one time with a bunch of gifts and then headed back to the US never to return again. It is rumored that he had another family in the US. She ended the story by saying I assume he is buried somewhere in America, but we don’t know where. We arranged for lunch tomorrow and she promised to make us some famous Polish dishes.

Now we are happily settled in, listening to the birds sing, the wind blow in the trees, and the brook babbling by. Life is good and on top of the beautiful nature we have strong WiFi which means tonight will be movie night.

Wroclaw is another city with a very complicated history. It sits at the intersection of three different powers, and has been ruled by all of them multiple times in its history. It was originally part of the Czech speaking Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of Poland, then the Hapsburgs, then Germany, and now Poland again. It is actually much more complicated than that. As an example of how things have changed, in 1900 when it was part of Germany and known as Breslau the population of the city was 98% German speaking and 2% Polish. Today it is 98% Polish and 2% German.

It is a very beautiful city, but we didn’t enjoy it as much as we would like as it was extremely cold today. On a trip that has been cold and damp from the beginning, today was by far the coldest day. When we got to the center the temperature was still in the 30’s and it was windy. We spent the first hour shopping for warm clothes. Ton bought another sweatshirt to augment her vest and coat, and I ended up paying too much for a stocking cap to cover my head, because I cannot divide by 4. (4 Zlotys=1dollar)

We enjoyed walking around the market square, it is very large and surrounded by nice looking buildings from the 1800’s. The square was mostly empty as everyone was walking briskly to where ever they were going, as it was not a day to linger outside.

We spent about an hour exploring the square. But some of this time was spent in the McDonalds getting a coffee warm up. The coffee in Europe is really excellent, but sometimes you just want a cup of good old watery Amercan coffee, and you can always find it at McDonalds.

We finally decided to head to the old covered Market as we figured it would be interesting and heated. Usually we would walk, but since like Prague as seniors we had free access to the transit system we jumped on a tram for two stops.

The market was nice, and pretty good sized. But what caught our eye when we first walked in was a small cafeteria style restaurant with a long line of customers. We knew we had found our place for lunch. We joined the line and when it was our turn we ordered our food by pointing at what looked interesting, with the ladies behind the counter than pointing at what side dishes they recommended we get with our main course. It was fun and we ended up with a tremendous amount of food for what amounted to $10. When we sat down, the couple at the adjoining table starting chatting. They were a mixed Dutch/Polish couple about our age. The Polish half explained that this cafeteria was typical of the restaurants during the communist era, but was still an institute in the town. The food was hearty, plain and simple. It was really a good meal and an exceptional value.

After about 4 hours and another visit to a coffee shop to warm up we decided to pack it in and head back to François. The weather is supposed to be just as cold for the next couple of days, but it is supposed to warm up closer to the weekend. Tomorrow we are going to shift to Krakow, but we may just hunker down for a couple of days and wait for it to warm up so we can enjoy the city.

Today we entered our 18th European country,(19th if you count the Vatican, we are debating the technicality since François the motorhome did not enter the Vatican). The distance today was 290 kilometers, so I expected it to be less than 4 hours. We have been traveling almost completely on freeways this trip so I expected the trip to be a little over three hours. For the first 150 kilometers we were cruising along on nice empty freeways. It was stress free and I could drink my coffee while François moved along on cruise control. But then I noticed that the next turn on Greta the Garmin was a left turn, and you obviously don’t do that from a freeway.

It turns out that the new stretch of freeway in Northern Czechia, and Southern Poland is not complete. So we had about 120 kilometers of 2 lane roads thru the Sudetes Mountains on the Czech/Poland border. The drive was pretty but instead of averaging 90 kph, our average speed with villages and mountain roads was around 60 kph.

It is also very cold. The low overnight in Prague was 31 degrees, and the high today in Wroclaw was 40 degrees. So when we arrived at our campground in Wroclaw, and joined the only other camper a nice couple from Finland, we decided today was a laundry day. Tomorrow we will bundle up and head into town to check out Wroclaw.