{"id":118,"date":"2010-09-09T12:21:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T16:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=118"},"modified":"2010-09-09T16:18:06","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T20:18:06","slug":"poland-day-10-daytime-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"Poland Day 10 – Daytime fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is early 6 PM in Zakopane as I am writing this, and my legs are sore\u2014or more properly, my knees. It had been a rather full day so far. And in about an hour or so we will once again board the bus and head out for our dinner which is going to include some local food as well as some G<\/em>\u00f3rale<\/em> music. Not sure just what all that will entail, but I\u2019m sure it will be great fun.<\/p>\n

It has been a busy day so far, but the Warka piwo<\/em> I had a bit ago on ulica Krupowki<\/em> and the Le<\/em>\u017aajsk piwo<\/em> I am having right now are helping relax me, for sure. Breakfast was served starting at 8 AM and I was there pretty much for the beginning of it. We boarded the bus about 9 and had a tour of Zakopane first, and then a few side trips. One was to a very old G<\/em>\u00f3rale<\/em> church, it is very beautiful and very small, but I do have pictures. Sorry it is too difficult to put them on the web now, but I will after my return and you will be amazed at them. The architecture in Zakopane is very interesting. The \u201creal\u201d buildings, that is, the older ones, are all wood. I mean all. As in everything. Except the door hinges! Yes, no nails were used, the rain gutters are wood, and they used wooden \u201cnails\u201d to put it all together. And the roofs are wood shingles too. Now some of the newer buildings \u201ccheat\u201d with metal rain gutters, using nails, and with tin roofs, but all wood is the original way, way back when.<\/p>\n

By the way, the gorale are very religious people, and when they heard of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, they gathered at this church and prayed for his recovery, and promised god that if he recovered, they would build a shrine. Thus our next stop at the Sanktarium Matki Bo<\/em>\u017aej Fatimskiej<\/em>. It too is very beautiful and again, I have pictures I\u2019ll post at some later date.<\/p>\n

This region, part of the podhale<\/em>, is famous for its o<\/em>\u015b\u0107ypek<\/em>\u2014unpasteurized goat\u2019s milk is made into cheese, formed into shapes with wood molds, and then smoked for 6 days to cure it. We stopped at a farm and saw one of the houses or huts where they do the curing. And also bought some. I believe a very tiny piece or two (and I mean very tiny) could possible become entangled in my dirty socks (but the piece safely wrapped in very durable plastic) and make its way into\u00a0 the US. But only if I forget about it, I cannot promise. And if there is a problem, I hope you will sent me bail money\u2026.\u00a0 Anyway, I did get a few small pieces and one to eat as well. It is awesome. So we saw a place that makes it.<\/p>\n

After that, we also journeyed to a wood carver\u2019s shop. Very interesting. The guy does great carving. Again I have lots of pictures. And his son is also learning the trade, I managed to get a few pictures of him carving too.<\/p>\n

Finally, after all of that, it was on to the funicular. We took the funicular up to Guba\u0142\u00f3wka. I have not words to describe what I saw, nor the emotions that went through \u00a0me. You see, I saw the Tatra Mountains. These are the same mountains that my great grandfather and great grandmother saw. They left this \u201cgod\u2019s country\u201d for America to make a better life, which they did, and for which I am forever grateful. There was a lot of good emotion going through me to see this sight, it is awesome.<\/p>\n

The bus left us off near the funicular to guba\u0142\u00f3wka, but to get there, we had to walk through a flea market. I did buy just a few things there. Oh and by the way, for all my friends and relatives, you should know me well by now and know that I\u2019m not much of a gift and\/or trinket buyer, so my apologies in advance. Maybe a few of you will get a postcard if things work out right, but that may be weeks away. But I did look at the stuff in the market and buy one or two things. After the trip to the mountain top and the walk back through the flea market, I continued up Krupowki street which is a pedestrian way with lots of shops. There is a little o<\/em>\u015b\u0107ypek<\/em> stand on every corner it seems, but I already had some. I did sample a few things, however. I did get a p<\/em>\u0105czek<\/em> with a chocolate filling, though I have only eaten part of it. Later I had a placki ziemnaki<\/em> as well, though again, I only ate part. I did wash that down with a piwo<\/em>, the brand was Warka<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the midst of all this, I actually walked all the way back to the hotel and left some stuff here, then went all the way back, quite a lot of walking. And I did buy one thing for myself, a thing I really wanted. I got a ciupaga<\/em>. It is too big for my suitcase so I\u2019ve no idea how I\u2019ll get it back. Chris says to mail it, so I\u2019m expecting him to help me do that. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

So it has been a very full day so far and I am glad to be sitting down, resting my knees, and enjoying a piwo<\/em>. Besides Zakopane, we\u2019ve been in Ko\u015bcielisko and Chocho\u0142\u00f3w \u00a0and perhaps a few others, quite a tour of the mountain area. I should also note that we visited another small church and also a cemetery here in Zakopane. That cemetery is \u201creserved\u201d for people of some note, area people who have made a difference. There is even a plaque in Polish that proclaims that Poland and the world in general may forget these people, but Zakopane will not. Pat found a bunch of tombstones with the last names\u00a0 of one of her relatives on the Urbas side, though at this moment I don\u2019t recall the surname. But that was very cool too.<\/p>\n

If you have read this far, you are a real trooper! For those who leave comments, it gives me great joy to know that you are reading this, so keep it up. And you may have noticed that I sometimes post things more than once a day, so do read them all and don\u2019t miss a thing. I really am having the time of my life here. My \u201creal\u201d life back in Lake Mary and with work and all seems so remote (though I do miss my house and friends just a little, but know I will be back there all too soon!). I really do love it here and am thinking how I can come back next year. Since I work for AT&T and will get a nice bonus if the company does well this year, you can help finance my trip if you use their services! LOL Well, I tried. But seriously, I\u2019m having \u00a0an awesome time. I cannot wait to get some of my pictures online, but that will happen in due time, and I will write here when I do that as well. So, there is more of this day to write about, but for now, I will quit and give myself a bit of a rest\u2026..\u00a0 Dobry wieczor<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is early 6 PM in Zakopane as I am writing this, and my legs are sore\u2014or more properly, my knees. It had been a rather full day so far. And in about an hour or so we will once … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poland-tour-2010"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}