Poland & Berlin: Part 7 - Day 7: Tatra mountains - Kuznice, Giemont (almost)

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 7.

27/7 Day 7: Hike in Tatra mountains - Kuznice and almost to Giemont

Costs
(A) Food
(1) Breakfast in a cafe in Kuznice - Grilled sausages PLN32, cappucino PLN16. Total PLN48 / SEK125,84
(2) 500ml beer at Schronisko PTTK Hala Kondratowa (a mountain cabin) - PLN15 Cash only / SEK40,82

(3) Dinner at restaurant in our hotel - Kompot 200ml PLN7, potato pancakes with mushroom sauce PLN39, warm apple pie with ice-cream PLN19, cappucino PLN15. Total PLN80 / SEK209,75

(B) Accommodation and miscellaneous
(4) Snacks (chips and nuts) at Sklep Zabka shop -  shared PLN41,99 / SEK110,09
(5) 2 nights in Hotel PTTK Kalatowki (emailed the hotel to book a triple room as I could not book from their website) - PLN1260 shared. PLN420 / SEK1100,57 per person. SEK550,29 per person per night.

The Story

27072023: Today, we check out from our hotel in Zakopane and enter Tatra mountains. It took us 30 minutes to walk from our accommodation to Kuznice town. I booked a hotel in the mountains. It is about 30 minutes' walk from Kuznice town. 

This is the view of the mountains from our hotel's window in Zakopane. It looks like it will be a sunny day. 

Look at the crowd who is going into Tatra mountains today.

The queue to the cable car up to Tatra mountains. 

First, we have breakfast upon our arrival in Kuznice town. This is the first cafe that we saw so we walked in. 

Now, we are headed towards our hotel. A 30-minute uphill walk. Not easy with the backpack but luckily it was an easy trail.

Our hotel!

I felt bad that my travel companion slept on the sofa. Well, it was comfortable, according to him.

View of the mountains from our bedroom.

After settling in our backpacks, we were ready to head out and hike to our intended destination - Giemont.

According to the signboard, the hike to Giemont will take 2 hours 45 minutes, but first, we will make a stop at Hala Kondratowa which is 40 minutes away.

The mountain cabin, Hala Kondratowa. It took us 30 minutes to get here. It is great that the signboards are generous with the estimated time. Here, we stopped to have beer. We did not have enough cash to buy lunch and drink beer so my travel companions chose beer. I know. They got their priorities all wrong. I hang along anyway.

We continued our hike towards Giemont. According to the signboard, it will take us 2 hours 5 minutes. It was a very scenic view during the hike but the terrain was troublesome for me as there were large rocks and the route goes uphill, of course. I was very tired.

We saw two deers along the way. I was startled by the noise it made.

There was a line behind me going up this route too.

It was another 40 minutes to Giemont and the route gets narrower. We decided to stop at this point instead - Kondracka Przelecz at 1725m above sea level. 

Here, I got a network signal from Slovakia and my phone received a 'Welcome to Slovakia' message.

We took a break, had chips and nuts and headed back down after 10 minutes, as everyone was hungry. After yesterday's rainy day in Zakopane, I was so happy to see blue skies and feel the warmth of the sun!

We got back to the mountain cabin, that we stopped earlier to have beer, one hour later.

We were so hungry when we got back to our hotel. We had our dinner in the restaurant in the hotel. 

I enjoy potato pancakes a lot! I deserved this meal today after the hike.

My warm apple pie that we enjoyed in the adjoining cafe.

We sat in the cafe for a while enjoying the mountain view. We were very tired and retired early to our room.