E3: Zakopane to Chochołów: Day 126

A short day ending at Chochołów, a village with many old wooden houses. 

I returned to the croissant café again this morning and enjoyed a blueberry, raspberry and mascapone croissant. The franchise, Lviv Croissants, is a Ukrainian company I discovered. Of course, the clue was in the name.

Catching the funicular up the side of Gubałówka, the mountain to the north of Zakopane, returned me to where I left the E3 trail previously and saved a lot of climbing. I did not have far to go today so I had another coffee while admiring the view, which included city spread out beneath me, and beside me, a giant, plant encrusted teapot. 

After a kilometre or so I left the stalls and tourists behind and continued on quiet roads. Although not all was quiet, half a dozen quad bikes passed me going one way, then returned a little while later. One of the many activities on offer around Zakopane. Sadly, beside the road I saw two monuments to people who had been shot by the Gestapo in 1943. Eventually the road turned into a farm track and climbed a few hills. A tractor was out cutting hay in the fine weather. Behind me the view of the snow streaked High Tatra peaks was slowly receding, ahead of me I could see the high ridge I would later be following in later days.

Around 2 pm I descended into Chochołów, and as advertised there were lots of wooden buildings, challet bungalow style, with their gable ends pointing to the road. Made of logs, to keep out the wind and water the gaps between logs are sealed with what looks like rope, but is a product made of wood I have read. Houses are roofed with wooden shingles and strung out along the busy road. A few people were washing the walls of their houses, maybe to brighten them up, removing the grime and dust kicked up by passing vehicles. The church was the only anomaly, being stone built in a gothic style. I paused for a blueberry ice cream before walking to my accommodation. 

Today is the last day of my walk through Poland on this trip, so I had a Slivowicz to celebrate after my meal in the local restaurant. 

Rest day in Zakopane: Day 125

A day sightseeing and resting in Zakopane. 

I woke up stiff. My legs struggling with the movements needed to walk me to the toilet. With exercises it wore off although straighening my leg was a movement it objected to. It led me to arrange a relatively short day tomorrow.

For breakfast I fancied a croissant and coffee, and it seemed there was just the place down the road. However they had turned the croissant into a huge range of sandwiches while also introducing it to the digital age. I had to order at one of those screens you now see in hamburger joints. There were numerous choices, I chose a ham and cheese croissant but then had to specify what kind of sauce I wanted, whether I wanted gherkins etc. and that was before specifying what type of milk I wanted in my latte. The filled croissant was messy to eat although it did give me a healthy dose of protein and lettuce for breakfast.

A little later I visited a couple of museums on the local area. Originally, people from the area were called Highlanders, and before the arrival of tourism in the 19th century scraped a living from potatoes, sheep and hunting. Their main resource was the forest, so they built wooden houses raised off the ground on stones with steeply pitched roofs "tiled" with wooden shingles. Intricate woodwork characterised the furniture and decorated parts of the house, and they made wooden instruments: simple violins, basses and pipes.

Visiting tourists brought increasing wealth. Architects such as Stanisław Witkiewicz admired the Highlanders' wooden houses which inspired the Zakopane style towards the end of the 19th century. Larger, modern, wooden buildings were constructed with the traditional rooflines and ornamentation of the Highland houses but with greater size and exuberance. To an extent it seemed an affirmation of a Polish identity. Despite there once being a Polish-Lithuanian empire, by 1795 Poland had dissappeared, swallowed by Austria, Russia and Prussia. Not until after the First World War did it re-emerge, having maintained a separate existence through its language and culture. Now it is a thriving, proud country. 

Today Zakopane exists only as a tourist town, I found it thronged with visitors despite it apparently being the low season. Lines of stalls met me from the funicular yesterday selling local cheeses and jams, toys for children, ice cream, waffles, riffs on traditional clothes and anything else that might encourage a passing visitor to buy. On the main street, shops mingle with restaurants and horse drawn carriages ply for trade driven by men dressed as the "Highlanders" that have long since gone. I frequently became entangled with long lines of school children on educational visits to the histortical sites.

I visited an old wooden church having often passed signs for such buildings, several kilometres off my route. They are part of the area's heritage. Beside the church was a cemetery. Although many gravestones were of stone, there were also wooden markers in traditional styles such as crosses or crucifixes with a little "roof" on them.

I spent the afternoon in my room, which has a little kitchen area with sink and microwave. Although we'll designed it has a large number of lights, the switches for which are difficult to find, not being located in any simple relationship to the bulbs they operate. It has rained heavily which has made me glad of my little appartment, cossy inside rather than out in the wet.

Dinner was at a restaurant where a Highland band was playing. Unfortunately the portions were so large I was unable to finish. The meal also lacked vegetables...

E3: Czarna Góra to Zakopane: Day 124

Today I entered a much more urbanised tourist zone.

Much of today was on roads, initially with a moderate amount of traffic. The village where I stayed merged into Bukowina Tatrazańska. A long stretch of buildings many of which were "Willas" (Villas) offering "noclegi" (accommodation) or "pokoje" (rooms). There were also places advertising pizza and "Łody" (ice cream), shut at this time of the morning. As I climbed higher up the road there were shops offering ski equipment and chair lifts for skiers, abandoned at this time of year. The chair lifts were scattered rather than being part of a resort and the pistes did not look exciting.

In the areas I have been walking through until today, the villages and old spa towns tended to be in valleys. On the ridges there were trees. In contrast, today houses had spread along the ridges and wooded areas were much reduced. New houses were being built. All the houses, new and old, had steeply pitched roofs, some excessively so with up to four floors within the pointy roofline. Cross gabled roofs, with multiple gable ends forming a cross, or more complicated patterns were frequent, as were steep gables on dormer windows, flared bottoms to roofs, and extra bits of roof. Swiss Chalet style taken to its extreme.

After a short section of woods and meadow I was dropped into a pass where, after an Ice cream, I crossed below a railway and busy road, over a river and up a hill. Turning off a road I climbed steeply by a dormant ski lift to an equally dormant glamping resort. 

High on the ridge I followed a road for many kilometres. A large chunk of rock with Pope John Paul II, the Polish born pope, projecting out of it commemorated his visit to the parish. After that I was expecting facilities crowding around the top of a funicular, but initially all was quiet, except for one or two people noisily mowing their grass or a builder banging. I began to fear that the funicular was not working or that I had missed it. Then I saw a series of car parks, their attendants sitting waiting for cars, one waving their yellow gilet at any stray vehicle. Suddenly, I hit a crowd. Like a wall, at one moment there was no-one then crowds of people gathered around stalls selling fluffy toys, ice creams, fridge magnets and similar. The stalls expanded down the hill a little, and among the pizzerias I found a café selling coffee and cheesecake. A grumpy ticket machine then threw my paper funicular ticket onto the floor, with its essential QR code.

All the good places had been taken in the funicular carraige, so I stood with my heavy rucksack, the oldest person there, for the short journey down into town. Being too early to check in at my accommodation I visited the tourist information hut. He recommended a few things including an art gallery that would be closed tomorrow. After dropping my bag off I walked to the place, an old villa, but it was closed. The only day it was now open was Monday, and today was Tuesday. However there was a nice "cukiernia" nearby, where I consoled myself with coffee and, almost had cake. Instead a small open sandwich with ham, tomato and rocket beckoned me, claiming it was better for me, so I ate that instead.

After chores, a few hours later I went into the main street of the town. After eating I searched for music. I found it at a restaurant where three violinists and a cello player, all male, were playing folk songs and sometimes singing in loud voices.

E3: Stromowce Wyżne to Czarna Góra: Day 123

A walk through woodland and more open countryside of green fields with distant vistas of the High Tatras.

As I was waiting for sleep to envelop me last night I listened to the sounds around me. Cow bells dingling on nearby slopes, a bird chattering noisily nearby, a more restrained bird singing stanzas further away, cars crossing the dam above the campsite, people at the campsite talking quietly nearby.

Next morning I was up early, away by 7 am, walking on a road that ran beside a reservoir. On a hill before me, above a second dam there was a castle guarding the valley. Called Zamek Dunajec, it dated from the 14th century. I passed it well before opening time and the line of stalls in front of it, which might have offered a selection of goodies, were all closed. Then the climbing began.

There was a long ascent, its gradient varying. As I walked through mixed woodland I was wondering where the many fluffy catkins came from that I frequently saw scattered on the track. PlantNet identified them as from Halberd Willows. There were not many of these trees but they seem to scatter a large number of catkins. Despite the woods, I could at times see down to the large reservoir to my right and the many houses dotting the landscape. The highest point was called Źar, where there was a stubby observation tower. On mountain tops such as this one I have noticed a little box with a miniature pitched roof. Looking inside the broken door of the one on Źar, I found an inkpad and rubber stamp. This made sense as I had seen people, especially children, with books in which they collected the stamps of the mountains they had climbed.

Soon after there was another of the ridiculously steep descents. Fortunately the weather was dry, however my poles were still essential to stop me slipping on the earth "path". My descent was made more complicated by a large party of school children climbing up. Many politely said "Dzień dobry", ie "Good Day", to which I of course replied, many times.

Reaching the bottom it was then a gradual climb up to the first village of my day, Dursztyn. At a small shop I bought a few items which I then proceeded to eat in the shade of the bus shelter. I rather over-indulged with a bar of chocolate, a sugared brioche and to be healthy, an apple washed down with "Vitamin Water".

To reach the next village I crossed open cow pasture, giving me a good view of the High Tatra Mountains. In the warm sunshine (I was sweating heavily) the snow on the mountains looked incongrous. Here, as elsewhere in Poland, I frequently came up on a small shrine or cross, with the Virgin Mary or Christ looking down, often in remote locations. I liked the ones that had a bench beside them so I could take a rest.

After another wooded mountain with some steep climbs I reached my destination of Czarna Góra. At the apartment I had booked a dog announced my arrival, alerting the owner who let me in.

E3: Krościenko to Stromowce Wyżne: Day 122

A shorter day in the mountains but still tiring with all the climbing.

This morning I discovered that I lost my hat. It has happened before. I put it down in a café then forget to pick it up. So this morning I deviated to the places I visited yesterday. Being Sunday morning they were closed, although peering in, there was no evidence of my hat. So I gave up and started climbing, missing the shade that the wide brim of my hat gives me.

I was not alone. Many people were out today enjoying the sunshine. Families, couples, friends and runners, the later moving with effortless ease (which I envied), noisy children, sun tanned athletes and pot bellied old men. Yellow waymarks guided us on the first part of my uphill route. Today I am in the Pieniny National Park. Maybe as a result the trails are in good condition. Surfaces are even where possible, with steps on steeper sections, and sometimes a fence to hold onto or prevent you straying and stepping on wild flowers in the glades between the trees. Sweating profusely as I climbed, I was glad of a spring where the water had been directed along wooden channels conveniently ending next to the path. Washing my face with the cool spring water was glorious.

Switching to a more adventurous blue waymarked path, I reached Zamek Pieniny, the sparse ruins of a 13th century fortress. The base of very thick walls remained. Perched on steep slopes it would have been easy to defend but not very accessible for friends. Continuing on my way I reached Trzy Korony, the highest peak in the area at 982 metres. As I found yesterday for Sokolica, a payment was required if you wished to reach the top. Today I paid out and gained access to a steel walkway and stairs that led to a small viewing platform at the top. The platform was crowded with people who did not seem to want to move. Although I managed to get on the platform and survey the extensive panorama around me, the number of people on the structure which was attached to a small pinnacle of rock, did make me nervous. Consequently I did not stay long.

A few kilometres later I left the blue trail for a red waymarked route that took me down to the river valley. Here there was an area with a restaurant, a historical display, stalls and a point where you could arrange a trip down the river on a flat bottomed boat. They were the same vessels that I saw yesterday, punted by men in embroidered waistcoat. From the displays, which were in Polish, I surmised that the taking of tourists on these traditional boats has happened for a century or more. If I was staying longer I would certainly take one of these river trips, but maybe on one of the kayaks that were offered.

There was then a tedious road walk to my campsite.

The campsite is of a reasonable standard. I made use of the shower and restaurant and generally had a lazy afternoon, hoping it would benefit my knee. I thought later I should have asked at the nearby boating location if they had any late afternoon trips down the river.

E3: Sczczawnica to Krościenko nad Dunajcem: Day 121

Today it was up a mountain, down to the Dunajec Gorge, up another mountain, down the mountain and then I decided to stop for the day.

For some reason, despite having checked the route last night, I completely missed that the E3 climbs a mountain called Szafranówka. For some reason I thought it followed the river and would be an easy, flat walk. Instead it was a steep climb, up a yellow waymarked trail, crossing under a chairlift. Seeing people (and their mountain bikes) drift upwards above me without any effort, just made me bitter. At the top the activities available included a long, curly slide which you went down on a sort of trolley, like a summer luge run. At the bottom there was a "ski" tow to pull you back up.

My route took me to an even higher summit where on a narrow ridge I reached the Slovakian border which I briefly followed. There was an equally steep descent to the River Dunajec now on a blue waymarked trails, where I could briefly walk in a relaxed fashion along a paved path and cycle lane.

I crossed the river on a foot ferry. A man with an embroidered waistcoat, propelled the flat bottomed boat to the other side with a pole, as if it was a large punt. As the river was flowing at a good pace, the boatman had to first push the boat upstream with powerful strokes so as to end at the landing point on the other side. Being a sunny Saturday the ferry was full of day trippers. 

The river lay in a gorge, and it was inevitable that there would be another steep climb on the other side. What I had not realised was how long the steep uphill section would be. The path was well constructed, zigzagging up the mountainside. Steps had been built and there was a metal handrail to assist the many people climbing up. The steel of the handrail had been polished to a shiny finish but the many tourists using it to pull themselves up. The E3 did not go quite to the top of the mountain, which was called Sokolica and nor did I. Not only did it mean an extra five minutes climbing (or so a sign claimed), there was also a charge to go up it.

On descending I missed a turn onto a green waymarked trail which caused me to re-evalute my day. I had planned to reach Sromowce Wyżne, but having started late (as I had breakfast at the hotel) and with the slow pace caused by the steep paths, it seemed unlikely that I would reach my intended destination at any reasonable time and my knee would certainly be complaining. So I booked a room near Krościenko for the night. 

After a steep descent there was a short walk by the river to this town. Flat bottomed boats similar to the ferry I had travelled in, were being poled down the river. The riffles on the water, and the occasional standing wave suggested the water was shallow, explaining the use of the punt like boats. I idly wondered how they got the boats back up the river, where tourist rides were offered on them. It would take a lot of effort to pole them upstream. Then I saw on the opposite bank the boats being loaded onto lorries, after being split longitudinally into four sections for easier handling. 

At Krościenko, I peered into a church, which despite its quite modern look on the outside, dated from the 14th century. Then, having plenty of time, I lunched on pierogies, a type of dumpling found across Eastern Europe. This was unfortunate as I discovered that the room I booked was above a restaurant that serves only pierogies, albeit with a varied fillings.

Deciding I needed something different I walked back into town. As cyclists and people on electric scooters sped up and down the pavement instead of the road, i kept well to the side. After passing a football match in progress I found a restaurant where I dined on trout. After I wandered back to the old church where a trumpet duo were playing a slow tune from the tower. Although not note perfect it made a sweet sound in the evening air.

E3: Rytro to Sczczawnica: Day 120

A sunny day in tree covered mountains with a lot of climbing and a complaining knee.

Leaving Rytro early I began the long climb, knowing today the total ascent would be in excess of 1400 metres. At first it was up quiet roads, where the firm surface made for good progress as I rose through green fields. Flowers such as pink clammy campion lined the roadside. Then it was into the forest on rough tracks, going forever upward.

As I climbed higher, conifers increasingly dominated the forest, pushing out the brighter greens of beech and birch as I crossed the 900 metre contour. The highest summit I reached today was the top of Radziejowa at 1266 metres, however I went even higher, climbing up the many stairs to the top of the observation tower. A few people were about, parents taking their child out into the country, the tower was a destination for their rambles.

Today, beyond the wooded mountains surrounding me, to the south west I could see the much higher, snow streaked mountains of the High Tatra, while to the north I could see large urban areas at lower elevations.

Around 1 pm I reached the Przehyba mountain hut where I bought a Coke and a slice of what might have been biscuit cake, a heavy offering containing chocolate and embedded pieces of biscuit. Probably highly calorific, but with all the walking uphill with a heavy rucksack I decided not to worry about getting fat (my watch suggests I am using around 3,500 calories a day). The hut, with its terrace looking out at the distant Tartras, was run by the PTTK, the Polish Society for Tourism and Sightseeing. As well as maintaining a network of huts they were also the originator of the waymarks and directional signs. A hiker who was also at the hut yesterday spotted me and said "hello". The hut was popular with both hikers and mountain bikers. Many parts of today's route were also bicycle trails, and in the winter, used for cross country skiing.

Hikers I met on the trail would say "hello", but in Polish. My phrase book says hello in Polish is Cześć (sounds like cheshch), which I did hear, but more often people said "Dobry", as far as I could tell, which means "good", it is easier to pronounce and I assume is short for "Good Day".

After the morning's exertion my left knee was suffering, not fully extending with each step. Tracks with loose stones, from a few inches to several inches in size were the main problem, they forced my knee to bend sideways and then the rock might slip away further annoying my knee. My progress was slow as I carefully picked my way through the rocks, or walked on adjacent rough ground. However, I was not going to let it stop me and there were many sections of hard earth where I could move faster with confidence.

Later in the afternoon, I deviated from the red stripes marking the Beskid Trail and followed yellow waymarks down to Sczczawnica. The town is squashed into a valley with parts built on its steep sides. It is another place with Spa facilities dating from the 1930's and places like an "Inhalatorium", with saline inhalation on offer. It is now a tourist town with hotels, restaurants and hiking opportunities. I liked some of the old, slightly delapidated wooden buildings at the edge of town with lace curtain. I wondered how often they had to treat the brown wooden cladding to preserve it. Nearer the centre the old villas with fancy woodwork around their balconies had been renovated, painted and converted to guesthouses, shops and other facilities. Their red metal roofs were moulded around a complex array of dormer windows.

After showering I rinsed some clothes, a task made more difficult by the lack of a plug in the washbasin, a frequent omission. Then I visited a restaurant. My chicken filet with mashed potatoes and salad was fine, yet everyone else's dinner looked better. Sadly I did not discover which items on the menu they ordered. Google Translate was essential to understand the Polish menu but it was difficult to know what the translation meant. As people wanted my table I paid and walked down the road to a stall selling gofrys (waffles) and had one with cream for dessert. Even then someone else did one better and had waffle with fruit and cream, I just do not have the words or actions to ask.