Arrival to Zakopane

in Warsaw
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We arrived to Zakopane in the evening, so it was already dark there. We were very tired after a long road from Belorussian Brest through Warsaw, so on that day we just had a short walk in the city center.

At first we settled in the Start hotel and had a dinner, then went on the street to check what was the city like.

Zakopane is a little city of about 30000 inhabitants. It is situated in High Tatry mountains, near the Polish-Slovakian border. The highest place in Polish Tatry is Kasprowy Wierch, it's about 1,9km high.  The city is Polish most famous place where people try mountain skiing. I think it's really good for beginners, but not only to them.

the shop on Krupowki
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We arrived to Zakopane in the end of January, but the Christmas trees were still standing outside, and the New Year atmosphere hadn't disappeared yet. The darkness made all the wooden houses look even more beautiful, with their nice decorations. These wooden houses are built in special Góralsky style and I could say they look like toys, if you don't pay any attention to their size .

My first impressions from Zakopane are - many tourists, very white snow, horses, beautiful buildings.. Like in a fairy-tale, that's true. That evening me and my mom went to Krupówki - the main street of Zakopane. It took us about 10 minutes to get there from the hotel (by foot, of course) and the whole street and then we just strolled a bit. It's interesting to observe the people, to visit shops and watch some souvenirs (as we were not going to buy them on the first day!).  The street is quite long, I think you'll need about 30 minutes to walk through it. In the bottom of the  street you can see the road to Gubałówka, the mountain about 1km high. We didn't ski there though, because we had never tried mountain skiing before.

our hotel
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Well, now time to finish with my 1st day report.