Road trip!
Since I'm a little behind and I'm getting sick of typing out updates I'm going to start condensing these into a few days at a time.
Today I leave the lights of the city behind. I have decided to hire a car for a few days to drive around the polish countryside. I've got a few ideas about places I want to visit but I'm mostly just interested in driving around.
Picked up the car from the Wroclaw airport. I ordered a small car but ended up with a 2017 Audi A3 sedan. Not a bloody 8 seater minivan like I got in Japan but I wouldnt' call it a small car either. Throwback to the old days when Cam used to ferry us around in the red a3.
Poland drives on the opposite side of the road to Australia. It always takes a little getting used to but after about an hour I was pretty fine. There are two things I usually struggle with driving on the other side though:
1. The far edge of the car. The furthest side is usually the left. I know where the left side of the car is pretty naturally after 20 years. Having to be aware of the right side is challenging. I keep cutting corners so I tend to overcompensate and go too far into the centre of the road.
2. Central Rear view mirror is on the wrong side! I keep looking left to look in the mirror then have to quickly look right.
Anyway. My first stop was the Unesco listed Peach Church in Swidnica. Very unusual church in my experience. Old wooden church that looks more like a Danish farmhouse to me. The interior was quite beautiful though it did border on gaudy in my opinion. I also unfortunately arrived at the same time as a school group so I didn't stick around for long. Children suck.
My next stop was going to be Jaskinia Niedzwiedzia (bear cave) which is a pretty cool looking limestone cave with tons of stalactites and stalagmites. Unfortunately I neglected to check the website properly and it seems you need to book in advance outside of the main tourist season. Balls.
Regardless it was a beautiful drive through the area. There were a couple of really spectacular photo ops I passed up because I was driving and going past them the following day it just wasn't the same. The lighting was wrong and it just didn't work. I just really love alpine areas. The trees, the snow ... it just really appeals. I really want to live in a snowy mountainous area at some point in my life.
I stayed the night in the town of Ladek Zdroj. A mountain town that seems to thrive on ski season. I was a bit early for that so it was super quiet. There were only 2 places I found that were open for dinner (both of them pizza places) so I went to the one closest to the main market square. The pizza was pretty good. Lots of pizza places in Poland surprisingly. Second only to kebab shops.
After pizza I stopped in at a coffee shop who had a jazz duo playing. Was obviously the only happening place it town because it was pretty packed. They basically ran through every classic sort of jazz number (including a few from a Cuban jazz CD I have) and they were pretty entertaining. Mad rush to leave when the show was over though. I think everyone had cleared out within 5 minutes of the last song. Amazing. But I guess in a town where everyone has to drive home there's no point lingering to drink booze or coffee.
My hotel was verrrrrry old fashioned and uncomfortably warm. I slept terribly and had to turn the heater off in the end because it was just ridiculously hot.
The next morning I went to a gold mine in the town of Zloty Stock. The mine itself was reasonably interesting but they were only offering tours in Polish so I didn't get a lot out of it. The polish speaking people in the group (I.e. Everyone else) seemed to enjoy it though. I stopped off at a beautiful looking church and some interesting looking abandoned buildings on the way to the gold mine.
I had originally planned to stop somewhere around Bielsko-Biala for my second night but I was quite enjoying driving so I decided to push onto Zakopane and do 2 nights there. Zakopane is THE Polish ski town. The Polish equivalent of Queenstown in New Zealand.
The drive there was fun. At one point I ended up on the freeway and despite the fact I was doing 140km/h most of the way (highway police and speed cameras don't seem to exist in Poland) some of those drivers made me look like I was standing still. People were aggressively tailgating me at times. Some of these dickheads must have been going close to 200km/h with the speed they blew past me. Crazy!
I got to Zakopane and checked into my quite lovely hotel.
Showered then headed into town to take a look around and find some dinner. It's a very pleasant mountain town with the typical mix of restaurants, high priced designer stores and pubs. Would be a fun place to come for a ski trip sometime. I ended up at a canteen style place for dinner. The food was OK but nothing to write home about.
The next day I ducked into the tourist office and asked for a recommendation for a nice easy hike to do. They pointed me towards a nice little trail that was about an hour each way and very easy going. Perfectly suited my mood and interest in hiking. Walked up a nice easy path to a cafe and then a waterfall through some beautiful alpine landscape.
After the walk I kicked around town for a while, had lunch at a lively looking place then headed back to the hotel to drink a couple of beers and look at the snowy landscape out the window.
Google maps took me back to the hotel via some sort of snowy off-road path which was a bit nerve-wracking at times. Dirt road covered in snow and ice with trees and rocks close on either side. I got out OK and I'm glad I didn't get stuck in some snow or scratch the rental car up.
I thought I had booked a hotel a bit out of town to get a view of the mountains but it was unfortunately right in suburbia so all I could really see were the snow covered roofs of houses around the hotel. Regardless - it was a pleasant afternoon.
For dinner I went to a nice Polish restaurant not far from the hotel called "The Inn at Mill". I had a delicious meal of "highland noodles" (which was basically potato noodles with bacon bits and mayonnaise) and smoked trout with baked potatoes. It was really nice. Definitely a tourist restaurant because all the staff were dressed in "traditional" Polish outfits and there was a band playing "traditional" Polish songs but the food was really good.
The next morning I got up reasonably early and dropped the car off at the Kraków airport for my next stop.
I probably could have seen more on the trip (stopped off at a couple of castles for example) but I'm always too ambitious with my schedule when driving. Regardless - I enjoyed the drive and I went through some beautiful countryside and small towns on the trip.
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