Poland: Zakopane

At the southern border of Poland with Slovakia is a town called Zakopane, at the base of the Tatra mountains. It's really popular for Polish tourists in summer, as we found out. Hardly any English speaking tourists, only Polish and German, but it was packed out. The main street was a circus.. maybe literally a fair. Amusements and pony rides, bouncy flashy toys, icecream and fairy floss, balloons beggers and buskers.

It started to pour and everyone whipped out their bright-coloured, cone-headed raincoats and turned into a mass telly-tubby / KKK tribe. All bright colours, baby sized up to adult. There were whole matching families, like on the snuggie ads. Mum loved it but I wouldn't let her buy one.

We searched the whole town for niegazowana water (no gas) to no luck... They love their sparkling water! Our hotel room had a great view to the Tatras, with Christmas tree forests in front. I love the look of those forests (woods?) They remind me of Hansel & Gretel and all sorts of fairytales. Don't think I've seen anything like them before! Would love to see the town in winter under snow, with its steep rooved gingerbread houses. Would be magical.

One day we caught a little train up the small hills and walked along looking down at the town with Tatras behind. Really touristy up there- you could do anything from zorbing (rolling down the hill in an inflatable ball) to high ropes courses, quad biking, rolling around in a giant bubble on top of a pool... Could get a photo with a giant beethoven Bernese mountain dog, or with a woolly white one that pulls sleighs in winter. We caught the chairlift back down.

Next morning we got up so early to get in the queue for the cablecar up the Tatras. We were in the queue by 7am.. but 8am at the front of the queue. Soared backwards over needlesharp forests, rocky faces, billowing green slopes with empty chairlifts. Moments of stomach dropping as we lurched past each tower made everyone say 'woo' at the same time regardless of language.

Mum had somehow allowed me to dress myself completely in cotton to go up a mountain.. maybe she thought I was old enough to know these things. I froze. I thought my ears nose ankles and hands were going to fall off they hurt so much. Lucky I brought a waterproof jacket incase of rain. Had a moment where I thought I wasn't going to make it. But then the wind stopped and I could function enough to pose with 1 foot in Poland and 1 foot in Slovakia, and play around on some rocks trying to get the 'Aunty M sitting on a mountain' pose. It was spectacular up there. Definitely a highlight of the whole trip so far. We were only 2000m up but felt on top of the world (kosciosko is 2200, Buller & Hotham around 1800. Everest 8848)

When we got back down, the queue was 6 hours long. Yep early morning was worth it. Our hotel had two saunas for all those winter ski bunnies- a Finnish dry one and a Turkish steamy one. I was so chilled to the bone those saunas got a good workout from us!