From the city to the mountains

Price-wise, Poland has actually been fairly similar to Sweden with one notable exception: the buses. They are incredibly affordable, frequent, and surprisingly efficient.

We had already noticed that several buses ran every hour between Krakow and Zakopane, so after breakfast and packing our bags, we caught a tram to the main bus station next to the shopping centre we'd already visited several times. After a little trouble with locating the long tour buses from the local ones we found a FlixBus heading to Zakopane for the grand total of around 200 SEK for the entire family. We were on our way into the mountains!

During the 2 hour journey, I exchanged a few emails with our next accommodation and managed to arrange an early check-in instead of waiting until 4 p.m., which felt like a small victory.

Nestled at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, Zakopane is often called Poland's winter capital, but it's just as popular in summer with hikers, mountain bikers, and families escaping the heat of the cities. What struck us almost immediately was that the tourists were overwhelmingly Polish. During our stay, we barely heard any English, let alone Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish. It gave the town a very authentic feel, as though we had stumbled into a favourite holiday destination that international visitors simply hadn't discovered to the same extent.

Our new aparthotel was about a fifteen-minute walk from the bus station. After dropping off our luggage, our first priority was obvious: food. Sushi won the vote.

Once everyone had recovered from the journey, we packed our swimsuits and flip-flops and headed to the famous Chochołowskie Thermal Baths, about fifteen minutes away by Uber. Tilde decided she had reached her social limit for the day and stayed behind at the apartment, while the rest of us spent the afternoon soaking, swimming.

The first surprise came before we even reached the pools. Instead of separate changing rooms for men and women, there was one large shared changing area filled with lockers. Privacy came in the form of individual lockable changing cabins, rather like oversized fitting rooms in a clothes shop. It worked remarkably well even if it felt a little unfamiliar at first.

Each of us received a wristband that not only opened our locker but also acted as a payment method throughout the complex. There were several cafés and restaurants inside the complex and we ordered several ice creams.

The thermal baths themselves were enormous. There were indoor and outdoor pools, bubbling hot tubs in every direction, mineral and salt pools, massage jets, waterfalls and strong water currents that Viggo happily tested over and over again. There was also a 16+ part where me and Freja relaxed for a bit and later i was able to take Bengt while Freja watched over Viggo trying the waterslides in the kids area of the spa.

By around eight in the evening, we had finally reached our limit of warm water and relaxation and headed back into town. Dinner turned out to be one of the unexpected highlights of the day. We chose an Indian restaurant just five minutes from our apartment. Bengt has never been particularly enthusiastic about Indian food but this place may have converted him.

The restaurant was full of energy. The staff spoke loudly and gestured enthusiastically, and seemed to communicate with both each other and the guests all at once. More than once we wondered if an argument was about to break out only to realise a few seconds later that everyone was smiling. We never quite figured out what was happening but whatever it was, it seemed to work. The food was excellent, the portions were enormous!

Back at the apartment, reality returned in the form of rather thin walls. I fell asleep almost immediately after the day's adventures but Bengt spent much of the evening listening to our neighbours, whose lively family conversations carried effortlessly through the walls. At least they eventually called it a night sometime after midnight...Read more