An early start in Krakow and off to Zakopane

Pension Szarotka
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We arrived in Krakow at a horribly early time (it was still dark outside), with no sleep and feeling slightly grumpy. We had forgotten the Polish phrase book in London, so all we had was the Lonely Planet guide to Eastern Europe and about five words in Polish. We were heading to Zakopane, a town in the Tatra Mountains, for two nights and so needed to find the bus station. It looked like the station was right outside, but there were many exits and we really had no idea where to head. We found the tourist office, but the woman didn't speak English and just sort of gestured out the door, so we headed in that direction. And walked around the train station. And then walked some more. Asked a taxi driver, who gestured in another direction, and then walked some more. Found an area that looked like a bus station, but buses from there didn't go to Zakopane. Someone tried to get us to take a taxi, but the guidebook warned about tourists being scammed a lot and said the bus station was right outside, so we declined (big mistake, but remember, we'd had no sleep!) By this point it was light outside, and after a little more walking and dragging our suitcases behind us, we decided we would just get a taxi, and not worry if it only went five feet! In the end, it turned out that the bus station was being temporarily housed about a kilometre away while construction was going on... And this is why I will always research things on the internet from now on before going anywhere!

The beautiful Tatra Mountains (or at least the beginning of them)
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The "bus station" was in fact a huge car park with a little shed for purchasing tickets. I went in with my non-existant Polish (and let me just say, Polish is nothing like English, so you can't really wing it) and managed to book two seats on the next bus to Zakopane. It also looked to me like we actually had seat numbers. We were starving, so bought the pretzels that are sold everwhere (and delicious) and waited. Turns out we waited too long, because when we tried to get on the bus, the driver gestured that it was full and we would have to wait - he wasn't really all that interested when I showed him that we had booked seats! So it was back to the ticket office, where I now had to explain that we hadn't been allowed to get on the bus. The woman behind the counter (who had been quite kind during our first transaction) was not pleased about us not being on the bus, and I'm pretty sure said something along the lines of "these stupid English girls can't even get on the right bus" to her colleague! Still, I left the office triumphant, with new bus tickets, and we went and stood right next to the bus stop to make sure we didn't miss it.

I was worried about the Polish liking for offal type products

Zakopane was about an hour and a half away, and my housemate fell asleep as soon as we sat down and didn't wake up until we got there. The scenery was great on the way, really rural and hilly. Once we arrived in Zakopane, we got a taxi right away (no more walking aimlessly for us!) and asked to go to Pension Szarotka, where we had a room booked. We ended up at Hostel Szarotka, which was about two minutes from where the bus had dropped us off and not actually the right place. So we walked back to the taxi rank (man this was a long day!) and got another taxi to the right hotel. The woman there was friendly, but informed us she had given our deluxe room to someone else and so we ended up in a pretty small room, with incredibly hard beds. We could have cared less though at this point. We decided we would lie down for a catnap and then walk into Zakopane. Unsurprisingly, we actually fell asleep for about 4 hours.

We woke up feeling refreshed, and in time for dinner. We walked into Zakopane town centre, which was kind of alpine in style and quite bizarre really. I think it is mostly Polish people who vacation there, hiking in summer and skiing in winter - the Tatra mountains are stunning though. We sat down at an Italian restaurant (without any Polish phrasebook, we had no idea what any of the other menus said, and I was worried about the Polish liking for offal type products) and had a pizza. We were sitting on the balcony, and this person in a dirty animal costume came up, seized Kristy by the shoulder and (we assume) asked for money. She was quite startled, I saw him coming but was unable to get a warning out in time! I assume this must be a Polish (or Zakopane) form of begging. We didn't have any Polish change, so ended up giving him some Czech money just to make him go away, as he didn't accept the usual brush off. After that we had one drink in a lovely bar that had swings for stools, then walked back to the Pension - it was absolutely freezing and we were tired. And so ended a very long and stressful day.