Morskie Oko - Wow!

Last night, we'd asked for breakfast at 7:30 so we could get at early start. The 18-seater mini-bus (10 zł each) took about half an hour to get to Polana Palenica; 20 minutes on a smooth back road and 10 minutes on a pot-holed national highway. I guess Zakopane is a relatively rich town compared to the rest of the country. Park admission is the normal 4 zł for Clarisse, half that for old farts like me.

The walk is a lot easier and quicker than we expected and we're glad we didn't take the horse-and-wagon alternative (40 zł each to go up, 30 to come back down). It took us only 2¼ hours to walk up to the rim of Morskie Oko - The Eye of the Sea.

View walking up the hill

Morskie Oko - Eye of the Sea. Any resemblance to Lake Louise is entirely coincidental

Begging Birds

After this one was around, there were no crumbs to clean up

Another beggar

We rested for half an hour and had our usual meat and cheese sandwiches. It took an hour to walk around the lake with many stops for photographs.

Morskie Oko

We walked around the lake including crossing the snowpack

Hiding by the lake

View walking back down

Walking down was fast, a mere 1¾ hours. The bus leaves every 20 minutes on the 20. After getting off the bus close to our hotel, we picked up some 9% beer and Śląski (Silesian) cheesecake and sat around till the beer and half the dessert was gone.

Here's the weather for Warszawa. It looks like the cold snap is about to end. :-)

What a change in the weather!

Dinner: Our original plan was to eat at the Tuberoza one last time but like the weather, we changed our minds and went for cheap 'n' cheerful instead. We were happy with our lunch a few days ago at Papitar so we headed there early as they close at 19:00. After five hours of hiking, we had a serious appetite for some traditional Polish food. Two beers, two plates of mixed perogies, a bowl of beef stroganoff, and a plate strawberry and plum knuddles (3 of each) comes to 47 zł (no tip, it's counter service). That's less than half of last night's dinner. Tomorrow it's off to Warszawa and some shopping.