Skip to main content

Zakopane

Now there will be two Zakopane posts -- I've been having trouble with both the blog itself and the internet connection. But it was such a lovely weekend I think it deserves two posts!!

Zakopane has been known for decades as a resort town, and it lives up to its reputation. The town is filled with hotels and pensions; the streets are lined with folks holding signs: pokój z łazienką -- room with bath; the sidewalks were covered in ice and snow, with mounds of snow on either side. And there was a number of beautiful Polish-style wooden houses -- decorated with wood carvings, and often with sweet-looking porches -- even sleeping porches. Beautiful in winter, and I bet the breathing would be great in summer as well.




The downtown pedestrian mall was a bit touristy for my taste, but most importantly Zakopane is surrounded by mountains, and in February those mountains are covered in snow.

We took advantage of it -- sledding, downhill skiing, cross country skiing along the mountain ridge (where Steve took the above picture), even a Polish "Kulig," or horsedrawn sleigh ride at night, with torches, across the snowy farm fields.

 Zakopane takes its vacationing seriously, and so did we.


 We were able to end the trip with a visit to the Aquapark, a three-story glassed in building with views of the mountains, many pools, slides, etc., including a geothermal pool outside that you could slide into, AND some of the most amazing water jets for pounding out those kinks in our shoulders and backs... We were having so much fun we didn't even venture into the saunas. I guess you always have to save something for a return visit!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sober Reflections on the Current State of Russia

UPDATE: Evan Gershkovich, with other American and Russian political prisoners, was freed on August 1. As someone posted somewhere, we can rejoice that our people are out and the Russians have received murderers and spies in return. The optics of Evan's (and Alsu's) rushed trials to make sure to convict before the trade deal went through are bad... but then, what is good out of Russia these days? Trying not to despair. This good news is something anyway. Just over five years ago, I found myself with ten days on my hands in Europe. I had taken a group of 20+ students to Hungary and Poland, and I was due to participate in a conference in Croatia. There was a window. Any normal person would head straight to the beaches of the Dalmatian Coast. Instead, I went to Rome, to John Cabot's Guarini Institute , where we held a panel on the topic of  30 years after 1989 ... and then I went to Russia.  Musing on the former Soviet Union and my time there as a student--especially after wat...
Post a Comment
Read more

RIP Randy Nolde

In everyone's life there is a teacher who motivated her to try harder, strive for more, reach beyond. Or in my case, a teacher who teased, goaded, poked, pried, laughed, lampooned, and somehow created an atmosphere where I was ready to work my tail off to make him proud. Randy Nolde, we will miss you. Mr. Nolde was my Russian teacher in high school. I first got to know him as a younger person -- the Russian Club Banquet was quite the event in my home town, and my grandmother used to take us regularly even before my sister enrolled in Russian language class. Every year, the high school cafeteria underwent a magical metamorphosis. Huge murals of scenes from Russia -- fantastic, colorful onion-domed churches, and young peasants reaping wheat, and Armenian maidens with long braids and colorful costumes -- hung all around the edges of the room. On the menu: chicken Kiev made by the cafeteria ladies, supplemented with cafeteria salad, but also khachapuri  and piroshki  made b...
6 comments
Read more

Cringeworthy? Really??

It's so sad. I've gotten my first reaction to my new book. Well, second reaction. My sweet husband was brought to tears reading the introduction (possibly because he remembered just how many drafts of each section of the book, and of all the sections left on the cutting room floor, that he had read, and read, and read before). But now I've heard from a potential reader that his Russian friend-in-exile (and more importantly that friend's teenage son) think the title is кринжовый. Ouch. That hurts. Why do we need Russian literature? Do we? My Polish friend wrote to encourage me when she saw my linked in post about the publication and assured me that SHE and all her friends still love Russian literature ... even and despite the fact that Russians sometimes misbehave. (Some Russians more than others, and sometimes not just misbehaving--the world's reaction to the murder of Alexey Navalny in prison is noteworthy and important. We need to hold those responsible in contem...
1 comment
Read more