Exploring the Timber Architecture Route in Lesser Poland

Traditional tile fireplace

Its been a very packed couple of days in Zakopane!  Alas, my luck with the weather finally ran out - and unfortunately it was on the day that we were supposed to do a 4hr hike in the Chocholowska Valley!  We had started the day with a trip to another cultural center called the Red Manor House (named after its red tiled roof) where we were able to see (and shop) the local arts and crafts, including some of the traditional Highlander style clothing we'd played dress-up in the day before, as well as lots of wooden carvings and glass paintings.  Some of the glass paintings looked kinda amateurish so I was not tempted by any of those - but I did buy a cool looking carved wooden bird (I would be revising my opinions after our glass painting workshop the next day!).  After our trip to the cultural center, we then visited the oldest church in Zakopane (they seem to have a lot of these!) - again, in the trademark style of the region featuring rustic carvings from local people.  I don't recall too many of the details (I tend to zone out in churches) but basically it was all very old.

I may scoff now.... but soon I will have a great 
deal more appreciation for the skill and artistry
!

Another old wooden church

After the church, it was time for lunch (more food!) so we went to a place along the famous Krupowki Street - the pedestrianized street in Zakopane that is called the "Champs Elysee" of the town.  While that might be a bit of stretch, it was certainly fun to stroll down it, checking out all the shops and restaurants, without having to worry about getting squashed by traffic.  Our restaurant was a nice, but basic, inn-style place where we would again try some local favorites - fried cheese for appetizer, then stuffed cabbage roll and potatoes for main course, then a weird cheesecake thing for dessert.  It was fairly tasty but holy shit - none of this is light, healthy fare!  While I'm certainly enjoying the food, I'm not sure my digestive system and waistline are sharing the same levels of enthusiasm for it.  I think by the time I leave Poland I might even be done with pierogis and potatoes and be craving salad!

Cloudy with a side of fog

It was decision time at lunch as to whether to do the hike or not.  The plans had been modified due to the crappy weather (it was still raining and it was actually cold) so the hike was going to be shorter and in a different part of the park (not the valley as originally planned).  I figured I'd already done enough hiking this year in inclement weather (looking at you, Mt Fitz Roy) so I made the decision to pass completely and instead head back to the hotel to chill out and have a nap.  I mean - I'm on vacation, right?  I did rouse myself later on in the evening to go back out for another stroll down the Champs Elysee and found an adorable little art cafe for dinner where I may or may not have ordered a plate of potatoes as my main course.  No judgment, right?

The other ladies get ready for their hike...

..while I remain perfectly happy 
with my choice to nope that one out!

My little oasis art cafe where I had a lovely, 
quiet dinner

All the ladies hard at work on their creations!

The next day, the weather had improved considerably and our itinerary had us driving to the town of Bukowina Tartrzanska and to the Culture Center and School of Dying Trades (catchy name!).  We met a young lady who gave us some of the history of the center - it recently celebrated its 100year anniversary (which in these parts makes it a youngster!).  The main reason we were there was to try our hand at glass painting - examples of which dotted the cultural center and which we'd also seen during our visit to the Red Manor House the day before.  We were led upstairs to this classroom, where there were a dozen stations set up, each with a little pane of glass and a black permanent marker.  There wasn't a whole lot of instruction given, other than you needed to paint the front details first, then work backwards, as you would be painting on the rear side of the glass, then flipping it over to view the finished product.  Fortunately, they had a set of templates depicting various scenes and objects that we could choose from - lots of the ladies chose to do flowers and floral scenes - I decided to do a big fat happy marmot.  You trace the outline with the marker on the back of the glass, then simply fill it in using acrylic paint - then you're done!  I think we were painting for about an hour - and I'm actually pretty happy with how mine turned out!  I guess doing all those terrible Bob Ross paintings during the pandemic (that Mum gets to "enjoy" in her basement at home) might have rubbed off on me!!

Site of the cultural center for Dying Trades

Glass painted chandelier

The beginning.... my carefully selected
marmot template.  Closest thing to a mouse
that I could find.

With a little inspiration from Google....

Adding in the Polish name for Marmot...

In process....

Almost done....

Ta-da!  Finished product, the right way 
round.  Pretty happy with that, tbh!

After we'd all exhausted our creative juices painting, it was time for lunch (more food!) and so we went to the VERY nice restaurant next door, where we got to order whatever we wanted from the menu.  All the food here is very reasonably priced and I ordered some lamb and - yes - potatoes!  It was delicious!!  The restaurant also had a terrific shop attached to it, where it sold lots of tasty treats including the flavored vodkas we'd been given to try during lunch (coffee flavor, black lilac, vanilla) and "crem" - basically pistachio and hazelnut spreads.  All very very yummy!!

Interior of fancy restaurant

Had to rescue Krusty from the bear, though.  
I was very brave.

Pretending to be an influencer

All manner of deliciousness

Exterior of the restaurant - very cool!

After lunch, we started driving through what is known as Lesser Poland and the Timber Architecture Route, stuffed full of wooden houses built in the Zakopane style, established by an architect called Stanislaw Witkiewicz.  We had the opportunity to go into one, occupied by a local wood carver, to see inside these two roomed houses.  One room was the Black Room where the fire was & where everyone lived; the other room was called the White Room - where linens and fancier clothes were kept and used for special occasions only.  The Black Room was full of authentic artefacts from the period - lots of wooden implements for cooking, farming and the like - and this is where the whole family (and occasional baby animal) would live.  The former White Room was now the wood carver's studio, so we had the opportunity to watch him work as well as buy any of his hand made pieces (basically lots of statues of Jesus - definitely needed to make a few more bowls and spoons for us heathens).

Timber houses lining the roads

Extra roof insulation??

Inside the Black Room of the wood 
carver's cottage

Two adults, two kids would sleep in this 
tiny main bed!

At work

The wood carver's many many chisels and tools

Our final stop before getting back to the hotel was at a cheese smoking hut, where we got to see the smoking process that goes into making the oscypek cheese that we've eaten so much of this week!  There are three main shapes of the cheese - one big spindle shape, one larger ball and one smaller cylinder shape.  You can also buy string version of the cheese - so of course I bought some!  

Site of the cheese smoking hut - I loved the tilework 
of the driveway

the smoking hut - you can see the cheesy
spindles at the top of the picture

two of the three traditional shapes of osycpek cheese

the cheese molds that are used to emboss
the pattern on the outside

As we spent a bit of time in the bus today, we'd had some time to learn more from Ala about what life in Poland was like, before the fall of communism in 1989.  Pretty grim, in short.  She described growing up in the 80s in a place where there were no colors, everything was grey and run down and poor.  She remembered standing in long lines with her parents waiting to buy basic food supplies and how food was still rationed with tickets.  For example, the ration of toilet paper was 2 rolls per person per YEAR!  (I struggled to wrap my head around that one).  How you would buy what was available, vs what you wanted.  She remarked on just how completely different her children's lives were now, vs when she grew up - and when her parents grew up.  She said when she grew up, she had basically nothing - and now her kids have everything.  She talked a bit about the various politics of the region and went through a fair amount of the history of Poland - it was all fascinating stuff! (I just wish I could remember more of it - but I was usually in some form of food coma).

Highlander quartet

That evening, we had a short drive from the hotel to go to another restaurant for a "night of regional specialties including folk entertainment and dancing".  These types of dinners usually make my heart sink as they tend to combine both mediocre food with mediocre performances of questionable authenticity from bored looking locals, put on just for the tourists.  

This was not that.  

We had the restaurant to ourselves and it was decorated in the same traditional style we'd been seeing all week.  Our entertainment was a 4 piece band who VERY enthusiastically played and sang traditional Highlander songs for us, dressed in all their woolen finery!  It was VERY loud, quite discordant at times - but weirdly enjoyable (I'm trying to figure out how to upload a video so you can also "enjoy" the experience - I may end up just posting it to Facebook if I can't get it to load up here).  They were having a great time too - especially the chap on the far left with the impressive 'tache - and so were we!  Apparently this group actually tours around Poland and internationally too - including Chicago, which has the largest Polish community anywhere in the world outside of Poland!  Dinner was a HUGE trough full of various meats and vegetables - it was simply Too Much!  But overall, the night was a lot of fun - even if the sheer volume of it all had me reaching for the Advil when I got back to the hotel for the night!

Tomorrow, we head back to Krakow and the last two days of our trip.  Its been a fun experience so far and the south of Poland is gorgeously scenic - it reminds me of some of the beautiful countryside we saw in Slovenia too.  This is definitely a part of the world I'd revisit - next time, with ManpanionTM in tow!