I woke up to the sound of things being rattled.  Rich was already up and showered.  Somehow, I had slept through him getting up and taking his shower.  I must have been tired last night.  I drug myself out of bed and starting getting things together while he finished up in the bathroom.  Today, we leave Cracow for Zakopane.  This would be our last destination before we start for home.

We went down for breakfast and then came back up to pack up our stuff.  After 10 minutes before our pick-up time, we got our stuff downstairs.  We picked up our important papers and additional papers from the lockbox in the hotel safe.  Since it’s not a good idea to carry your passport, we put these into the hotel safe.  We also added our additional credit cards and Euros.

It wasn’t too long before our driver came in the door and announced he was looking for us.  We went out to the car and stowed the luggage.  Time to make the 2 hour drive south to Zakopane.  There wasn’t a lot of small talk as we watched the hills grow into mountains and the valleys with their picturesque villages getting fewer and fewer.

Once we got closer to Zakopane, the traffic began to grow.  By the time we were about 10 clicks outside of town, we were crawling forward.  Our driver said this was typical.  During holidays, it would be much worse.  We moved forward by feet and not very fast.

We got through the middle of town and started out the other side of town.  We went right by the hotel at first.  The driver was able to make a quick U turn in the bus stop area to get back around and into the driveway.  I’m looking at the quirkiest little place with eyebrow windows and lots of wrought iron.  It was adorable.

We got our luggage and said good-bye to the driver.  Unfortunately, neither Rich nor I got his name.  He said he might see us on Monday if he was the one assigned to pick us up.  That might be the case since he knew where he left us.  We went up the stairs to the reception area to sign in.

The lady who owned the hotel didn’t speak a lot of English.  She had enough to understand how to help us sign in and get us up to our room.  The room was amazing.  It was more of a suite with a living room and separate bedroom.  It was decorated in traditional Highland style with blond wood furnishings.  We were in a room that had one of the eyebrow windows on the front of the hotel.  There were small side windows as well.  This was going to be a great location.

We had a safe in the room, but it was locked and we couldn’t get it open.  I asked the lady if she could open it for us.  She came up with a key and unlocked the safe and reset it.  Then she left.  Rich played with the safe, but got it locked up without getting our stuff inside of it first.  Well, we’d have to ask her to come back up later to open it again.

We decided to walk down to Kupowki Street and see what the tourist side was like.  We walked up a ways before we found a promising restaurant for lunch.  I ordered traditional Highland soup and Rich had a traditional mushroom soup.  We got nalesniki and pierogi as well.  That should take care of us for the rest of the day.

We continued up the street looking at the shops and watching the people.  At the top of Kupowki, the row of hotels and shops continued on.  We turned back to head over to the local market side of the road.  We stopped in to a couple of restaurants to check out menus for dinner later on in the day.  One promising place was devoted to fish.  That would be different from the past couple of weeks.

We had to go downstairs to find the tunnel going under the roadway to get over to where the local market is and the tram going to the top of one mountain.  The local market is full of cheeses, leather goods, scarves, jewelry and other items made and sold by the locals.  It was very colorful over there.

We stopped into a couple of stands and watched people buying some of the different cheeses.  The smells were very nice.  We walked to the tram station and determined the timetable for getting a tram to the mountain top.  If the weather was good tomorrow, we might wait until Sunday to do the tram.  At least we knew what times the tram ran up the mountain.

As we walked back, I was leading us up and down the aisles.  I decided I wanted a scarf.  Then we decided to buy a scarf for Busia as well.  Rich picked out a beautiful blue scarf for Busia while I found a nice red and bright one for myself.  We purchased them from different vendors, so the prices were a bit different.  Neither of the ladies at the booths spoke English, but they spoke money.  They knew what it cost and they knew when I gave them the right amount.  I was happy with my purchases and I think they were happy to sell me something.

We wandered back down the aisles.  I wanted to look at the leather goods, but knew I didn’t really have a way to get anything home with me.  It was enough to look.  Rich wanted to try the cheese, but I couldn’t get him to stop.  Maybe tomorrow, he can stop and try some of it as we walk to the tram station.  It all looks so good.

Up the street, we had noticed an old wooden church.  I wanted to check it out.  Inside, it was all wood with even the decorations in wood.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Some people came in to prayer and we left.  I started to enter the cemetery behind the church, but a man wanted money for you to walk in.  I didn’t want to see it that badly.  According to Rich, I was supposed to put money into a box to go into the church also.  I didn’t see that.  Stupid tourist.

At lunch, I had been looking at the tour book I picked up at the hotel.  There was a Stanislaw Witkewiecz who had designed a home in Zakopane that came to define the style for the area.  Witkewiecz was his maternal grandfather’s last night.  Now I know how it was spelled in Polish and not Lithuanian.  We decided to stop by the house and have a look at the design.  It was on the way back to our hotel.

The house is pretty typical for what we are seeing as older homes in Zakopane.  They are wooden structures that appear more like cottages in shape.  Some of these have been rather large homes.  These are probably the summer homes for people who live in cities, like Cracow.

We walked back to the hotel to rest up.  We are still logging a lot of steps on Rich’s app.  The other day, we had roughly 15,000 steps.  Today, we probably don’t have that many since we spent two hours riding in a car to get down to Zakopane.  I’m sure we’ll make up for it tomorrow as we walk from place to place.

I got another blog updated and posted with pictures to the Zurekbrau site.  I’m running about even now.  If I can get this one posted, I’ll be all caught up again.  It was getting toward dinner time and Rich wanted to head down to look for a place to eat.  I recommended the place with all of the fish dishes.  He was alright with that.  So we got on our shoes and coats.  A chill had come on since we came in.  We layered it on a bit to protect ourselves on the walk.  We made it down the street without injury.  Sometimes, the cars here seem to go pretty fast and we have a couple of crosswalks to negotiate as we head toward the center of town.  That’s the Centrum in Polish.

We got into the restaurant just fine.  Downstairs was busy, so we went upstairs and found a table.  The waitress dropped off menus as she was making the rounds.  The menus were attached to children’s walking sticks.  Marcin says that most children in Poland have had one of these sticks at one time or another.

Rich wanted a beer being advertised on the table, but it wasn’t on the beer karte (list).  The waitress came by speaking Polish and I let her know we didn’t speak Polish.  She quickly changed gears and spoke in English.  Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t carry the beer Rich wanted.  We ordered a couple of Pilsner Urquels.  She came back for our food order and brought our beers.

Rich went with the trout with grilled potato and veggie.  I had the halibut with grilled potato and veggie.  The grilled potato turned out to be two baked potatoes each.  The fish was grilled in foil with butter and topped with the sauces we ordered.  It was all so wonderful.  Since we had no room for dessert, we convinced her to give us our bill.

We walked out to the street and stood for a minute.  There were still a lot of people walking around. Stores were still open as well.  This place isn’t like Cracow and some of the other places that closed up at 5:00.  We headed back to our hotel and collapsed on the couch.  It is good to be on vacation.

Right after I finish posting this and getting the pictures up on the blog, I’m going to bed.  Good night to all.