Dovidenia Slovakia, Dzień dobry Poland

Zagan the motorhome is among his own kind at a El Camp motorhome dealership in Tyniecka just outside Krakow, Poland (N50.03445, E19.87665). Fear not dear reader, there is nothing wrong with him, for 30 Zloty (£5.25) a night you can stay here and use the service point.

Yesterday the cloud hung low over the peaks, again, and the rain turned to snow. We had a few admin jobs to do and as we had free parking and free wifi we figured we’d stay another day. We had a great Skype session with our friends Rose and Paul in Darwin, Australia. As they sat in the sunshine sipping bubbles to celebrate Paul’s birthday, we had a cuppa, as it was before breakfast, and chilly in the ski resort. Rose asked us what the food was like in Slovakia, we looked at each other. We’d only had pickled bar snacks so far, so today was a day to rectify that.

Charlie was tired out by a walk around the town (he’s not allowed in restaurants with us any more as his etiquette is appalling) which seems to be 75% hotels, with a lot of green space between them, 15% ski hire places and 8% souvenir shops and a few other essentials like a train station and post office. It’s a nice enough place and I suspect it’s stunning on a bright winter’s day or in summer. But a soggy mid-May day just wasn’t the right time to see it.

We didn’t need to venture far for our meal, the pension next to our car park had a decent-looking restaurant with a large conservatory filled with booths that were made to look like horse drawn carriages. The waiter came over and we cheated by asking if he had an English menu, ‘English? German?’ he replied, English or German would do. The menus arrived and it took me a while to work out why Jay was so much better at translating the German menu compared to me – he had the English version. A dark beer for Jay and large wine for me (it is always listed and priced on the menu by the 10cl, but you can ask for multiples) and we looked through some of the books on the region while we waited for our food – all of which was listed as Slovakian specialities.

A poem in one of the books caught my eye, it was by a Polish composer called Mieczyslaw Karlowicz who described the mountains around us at the dawn of the 20th Century:

…The Tatras can sulk for weeks beneath a thick veil of fog,
keeping you waiting for a single smile,
just like the most capricious of women.
But once the veil comes down and the blue eyes of the lakes brighten up,
once the snows become rosy and the sharp peaks breathe the fresh eastern wine,
it is as if a mysterious hand reached out toward me from the mountain tops,
to grab me and to carry me away…

Weeks!!  They can be veiled in clouds for weeks!  Decision made right there and then, this was our farewell to Slovakia meal, tomorrow we go north into Poland. Jay’s starter arrived with two plates – I like their thinking – and was a meat feast with pickled peppers, what tasted like bacon fat pate (but in a good way) and a shot of something. Surely all starters should include a shot.

The main courses were cheese and bacon in gnocci for Jay and ravioli (called pies on the menu) for me. I had planned to have the pear strudel for desert but it wasn’t going to happen – I was so full I could burst. While the starter was definitely ‘mountain food’ which we really should have done a long hike in order to deserve it, the mains were both very Italian, northern heavy Italian, or maybe the Italians got the ideas from the Slovaks. I have no idea but for a little over €18 for everything, it was very good.

This morning we pulled back the curtains to find another motorhome in our parking, time for us to move on and let someone else have a few quiet free nights. We plotted in a campsite just south of Krakow and followed the road around the mountain range, passing hikers and ski resorts along the way. Soon we were in Poland, we could tell by the road surface, smooth dark tarmac whisked us north along with cars going far faster than us and pulling off stupid overtakes, nipping back in to avoid a collision making Jay have to slam on the brakes – did the Italians learn their driving from the Poles?

Spot where Slovakia ends and Poland begins!

Some people didn’t make the corner

Just your everyday road obstacle in Poland!

Reaching the campsite we had to turn across a speeding dual-carriageway onto a narrow dirt track, no problem we could see a campsite sign at the bottom of it. Reaching the bottom of the track we discovered that the gates were shut and there was nowhere to turn around, so we carried along the track a bit further to see what we could find – the end of the track was what we found, so I jumped out and guided Jay on a big long reverse back. On our way back one of the campsite gates was half open so I nipped in, it was open only, this wasn’t the entrance, we had to go back on the main road and take the next turning.

When we finally got turned around and back on the main road we had to go in the opposite direction as the traffic was too fast to try to cross all four lanes. A nifty u-turn on a side road and we’re back heading towards Krakow and the campsite, spotting the main entrance to the campsite would involve another crossing of four speeding lanes, we opted to carry on.

The lovely weather followed us to Poland, but at least it’s not snow!

Lidl to the rescue once again, if in doubt ask satnav if there is one nearby. We parked up and did a bit of a shop – cheap beer, not so cheap wine (well cheap compared to the UK but not compared to the countries we’ve been in), got some Zloty out and found this place in our Park4Night.com database. We pulled in and parked and went in to see what to do. Everyone spoke perfect English and gave us the wifi details and a form to fill in, we pay when we leave.

While here I took the opportunity to get some replacement rubber bits for our gas stove, ours had gone brittle and were falling apart. They’re the bits the pan stands sit on, which were all moving slightly. It’s a busy place with motorhomes coming and going and lots of folks buying the special motorhome loo roll for an extortionate amount – if you buy this stuff too, please try Lidl’s cheapest loo roll, it’s just the same and a fraction of the price.

There are about four other vans stopping here for the night, but it looks like everyone has gone into Krakow. We’re not in, as we stopped by last time we were in Poland. It’s a lovely place, but tonight we need to plan where we are going to go next – the dirty laundry is taking over the drinks cupboard, and we can’t have that!

Ju x