Home and a leaving do!

We got up fairly early this morning and after breakfast at the hotel went to a large Auchan hypermarket in Calais to stock up on nice food and wine.  We got our booked “Le Shuttle” at 11.20am which got to the UK at 11am British time.

A slow drive round the M25 got us home in time for me to go into work for my leaving do and drinks.

A long drive to Calais

An unexciting day where we drove 1150 km from Obercunnersdorf to Calais.  The drives through Germany and the Netherlands were easy but there were some bad traffic jams around Antwerp and Ghent in Belgium.  There was also a very slow French police border check on the A16/E40 motorway where it crosses from Belgium to France.  This has apparently been in place since the awful attack in Nice.

We got to Hotel Meurice, where we had started the holiday, around 8.30pm and had a quick wash then went out to eat dinner.

We went to Café de la Tour where I had a delicious andouilette.  After a couple of drinks we had a relatively early night ready for the journey home in the morning.

A day around Obercunnersdorf and area and dinner in the Czech Republic!

We started today by going to a local Lutheran church with our friends in Obercunnersdorf then when back to theirs for a leisurely breakfast.  We spent the afternoon at an inland beach by a lake where we did our first Sunbathing of the Holiday!

After going back to shower and change we went to the Czech Republic for dinner (actually only 20 minutes’ drive away) where we ate at a restaurant called Pivovar Kocuar (The Tomcat Brewery).  Dinner was tasty and copious!

Back to Germany to see more friends

We bought a few presents from the “alcohole” shop opposite the hotel this morning before leaving Zakopane around 11am.

We got to friends in Germany in Obercunnersdorf around 7.30pm after a rather slow drive from Zakopane to Krakow and the A4 motorway, caused by lots of traffic and tractors!

Our friends fed us a delicious barbeque and we were still sitting outside in shorts at midnight it was so warm.

Dunajec raft ride

We went out a bit early today to go to Sromowce Wyzne to do the Dunajec raft ride – a very popular attraction for tourists in Poland.  The river was not exactly choppy but the raft was fun and we saw some great views including the “Three Crowns” mountain peaks.

The ride ended up in Szczawnica where we had lunch and then got a bus back to the parking place at the start of the ride.





Later in the day, after a rest at the hotel We had dinner at a traditional restaurant called Bakowo Zohylina Nizino which was also very tasty.

We went to our favourite bar, the Piano bar, with a very cute cat for a couple of drinks and then came back to the hotel ready for a final sleep before moving on from Poland back to Germany tomorrow.

A funicular, a cable car and the Slovak border!

Today we wandered into Zakopane for shopping and went up the Funicular to Gubalowka.

In the afternoon then walked to Kuznice to get a cable car up into the mountains towards Slovakia at Kasprowy Wierch.  It was pretty cold up at 2000M but the views were stunning and we were right on the Poland/Slovakia border.

We came back into town and had a really excellent meal at a smart restaurant called Gorycja Tradicyja.

A walk in the mountains and a pub with a cat

We went for a walk today, starting at Zakopane going up the Dolina Strazyska and then down Dolina Bialego.  On the way Gordon did the little extra climb up Sarnia Skala.

We had dinner at a great little restaurant very close to the hotel, called Przy Potoku.

Later we had a drink in a lovely little bar in the City Centre, that has a lovely cat that demands cream off the barman that starts at 10pm.  Beer was about £1.35 for 500ml.  Hic.