Zakopane: Tatra Mountains Day 1

Hello! I am here with my favourite thing ever, Lody!!! :D stopped to buy water at the supermarket, and of course I had to buy lody on the way as well. haha

it was already dark when we reached the Tatra Chalet, and the sky was a vivid blue, so beautiful. 

Anyway, I really have to say that the Tatra Chalet was superb!!! It is so luxurious, and cosy like a big house, with free jacuzzi overlooking the forest, and sauna facilities for guests. 

It's designed like a wooden winter log cabin, and although rooms are a little small, they have a balcony overlooking the mountains and forest. we really loved our stay there (: 

 anyway, we reached at night, so we were looking for food, and we drove out to the main square. All we saw were a few grill bars, with lots of roasted meat roasting over spits, and live music. so we decided to try one of these.

look at the cozy wooden interiors!

we favour hot soup a lot when it's about 2 degrees at night.

this meal was quite epic. I ordered pork steak with cranberry sauce, and my friend ordered ribs.

We had a huge shock when our food came. This wooden board had 2 chunks of meat and my face was like this :o

1 serving of pork steak meant 2 steaks!!! and then they slammed the platter of ribs on the table. our faces were :o :o because the ribs were so huge they didn't even fit the wooden board!!!!  We were SO STUFFED with meat that night, trying to finish as much as we could, plus we had 4 baked potatoes and a plate of salad. Really worth it (80 zloty = 33 sgd for 2 people)

look at the meat being roasted

oh and here's the exterior of the Tatra Chalet, set in an idyllic location amidst the trees (:

Breakfast is included at the Tatra Chalet, and look at the sumptuous spread. There were only 4 people staying at the resort when we were there, so this spread is all for just the four of us!

An assortment of bread rolls, egg salad with chives, cheese dumplings, cheese platter and ham board, tomatoes and goat cheese and random other things

and cereals, fruits, yoghurts, juices (: so fresh and healthy!

after a yummy breakfast, we decided to drive to the Tatra mountains. We parked our car on the Slovakia side of the border, and we were so amused that we could park our car in Slovakia and walk back to Poland over a small bridge. (This later prompted us to spend a night in Slovakia, but that's getting ahead of myself for now)

In the Tatra National Park, there is a famous hiking route to a lake called Morskie Orko (9km, 2 hours each way). There are 2 options for getting there. The first is to walk all the way, the second is to take a horse carriage ride for 7 km and walk 2 km of the way.

Unfortunately we were too late to catch the last carriage, so we walked. ):

but we got to slow down and enjoy beautiful scenery!

look at the snow caps in the distance

However, I got worried that we would take too long to walk there and back, and we wouldn't be able to return by sunset. This National Park is no bukit timah hill!!! there are risks of avalanches, bears, wolves etc and it would be pitch dark after the sun goes down. and i wasn't about to take that risk of getting lost

so we found a nice perch along the trail overlooking mountains on all sides, and we had our picnic lunch of fruits, juice, pasta salad, bread, ham and cheese (: It was such a fun experience, best view ever!

 yumyum!

and then it started to snow!!!! I was so excited and we kept taking pictures :D

we made it back down the mountain in good time before the sun set, and we had plenty of time to take pictures!

Even though we'd only hiked for a very short time, the cold and everything made it quite tiring, and we were glad to go sit down and have dinner after climbing down.

 always starting off our meals with hot soup

seafood carbonara

and salmon tagliatelle in creamy sauce

The second day in the mountains was even more exciting because it snowed heavily!!! and i will blog about that next time!

love,
shermine