It was a long time after when I was in Szklarska Poręba, and many people asked me how my holiday in the mountains was. It seems to me that this is the moment to tell you all, how I got there at all. I'd like to tell you about my preparations to this trip, about this what happend at location, and what reflections did I come to after returning from Szklarska Poręba. Are you interesting? If so, I encourage you to read this post!

    The whole trip was spontaneous. Due to the prevailing pandemic, they sent us on holiday at work. I was one of the person who had a lot of free days to use so I thought that I could go to one free week. I sayed about this to my mum, adding in jokes that I throw everything away and going on a holiday to mountains and she said that then she will drive with me and my dad. This is how my preparations for the trip began, because if they are willing, I have a week to use, so why not take this opportunity and actually go somewhere?

That's how I was planned out journey to Szklarska Poręba. First of all, we should have organized accommodation and train connections. Without them was nothing sense to think about what we'll do at the place. 

In order for this post not to be long and full of pointless details, I'll try to skip things such as the process of buying tickets or looking for accommodation on Booking, and I'll focus more on the trip. This one came way too fast. To be honest, I have absolutely nothing prepared. I knew more or less where I want to go, and only on the last night at home I wrote down some places worth seeing.

FIRST DAY

We had the train at 6:17 in the morning. I left the car at my hairdresser, who lives in the same town as the train station, and the three of us - me and my parents went on a proverbial adventure!

The end of August was the time when virus infections were only just increasing. Until I got on the train myself, I followed the information on whether my destination would be restricted in some way. It was not, but it is known that it is worth taking care of your own safety. During the trip we had masks on our face, but whenever the opportunity arose that there was no one around etc, we took them off. It seems to me that no one normal will be able to sit in a mask for half a day, and we just had a journey across Poland ahead of us.

I thought some fate haunted me. I hadn't been to the mountains for fifteen years and I wanted our "meeting after years" to be like returning to my own home full of sunshine, joy and warmth. Well ... one of these entities has been present since the decision to leave, but I cannot say that about the other two. The sun was like a medicine, and it wasn't as warm outside as I wanted it to be. The first day was cloudy.

We arrived at 4:00 PM. The first thing we did was we went to the place to stay. For the whole week I was a walking GPS with a phone in my hand, so we easily found a spot where we'll spend the whole week.

I have to admit I was very stressed. What does our room look like, will I really consider what was included in the booking offer, when will the money for the accommodation come out of my account, have I organized everything well ...

I was triggered by the impostor syndrome, which gave me only bad thoughts and cut my wings in a sphere that works poorly for me anyway, namely - self-confidence. Somewhere in the back of my head it was coded that something would go 100% wrong. Certainly somewhere, I read something wrong and there will be a problem there. Luckily it's just a syndrome and nothing like that happened.

We had what was to be included on site. The staff was nice and helpful, the room was clean, well-kept, with a bathroom, a balcony, and the building, which at that time seemed scary to me, had an elevator. As a claustrophobic person, at first I was afraid to get into the blame at all, but it was foolish to go down and up to the fifth floor. My laziness won and I got into this can, which turned out to be one of the coolest amenities in the apartment.

One of the walls was glazed, which gave me a sense of the possibility of any escape if, for example, for unknown reasons, this little something was to stop working. In addition, the view was beautiful, because I could see the whole mountains from it, which I was going to climb the day after.    

On the first day, due to our late arrival, we were not going to walk anywhere. Well ... then I didn't think that my short trip around the area would turn out to be a few hours' journey down the street, in the middle of the forest, on the outskirts of Szklarska, with no possibility of turning back if we don't want to be in the apartment after midnight.

I thought to show my parents where, fifteen years ago, we had an overnight stay with a school trip. If we had turned back at that point, we would have been in the room after an hour. But I decided that there is a waterfall nearby, so we'll go to it so that we don't have to go there, for example, the next day.

This "near" turned out to be about 2 hours away, and to make it funnier, from this place to our accommodation was two times more. Let's sum it up. If we left at 5:30 PM, we were at the Szklarki waterfall at 7:30 PM, and then we went to the apartments on Górna Streat we reached... at 21:30.

I thought my dad would eat me. Okay, I figured it out myself. He was just angry that we had gone such a long way, not knowing where and why, to go back to the room in the dark. A strange city, unknown terrain, my phone was the map, there was a forest around, the street we were walking on didn't even have a good shoulder, and we could dream about the sidewalk ... to sum up, we were in a black ass, and far from the place to stay.

I thought that after this action, my dad wouldn't be going anywhere anymore. Our legs would go where the sun doesn't reach. From people who normally walk for a kilometer or two, we suddenly got away for a good eleven, all because I wanted see a waterfall.

Well ... human learns from mistakes, and that was one of those who learned me not to do more of these things.

SECOND DAY

That day we decided to climb Szrenica. The weather wasn't nice. It rained all day, but was reasonably warm. So I decided to wear something short and it wasn't really the best choice, because it wasn't that nice upstairs anymore. Plus, the rain made me cold and I was really cold!

We took the chairlift to the top. I was sitting on it alone so that I could feel better - and the higher the more I had cotton legs, although I'm not afraid of heights, I called my grandmother and cousin to talk to someone and not to think about "what would happen if the rope it broke. "

As I sensed, it was foggy upstairs, so my dreams of beautiful pictures with the mountains in the background blurred like footprints on a beach. Despite this, I was glad to show my parents the same places and paths that I walked many years ago.

I must admit that I was a bit afraid that they wouldn't go too far with me, but it turned out that it wasn't that bad. I just hope they enjoyed the trip and are happy to be able to go further than to a nearby town.

I honestly don't remember how long we were at the top, but I was angry that as soon as we went down to Szklarska Poreba, it got sunny on Szrenica ... Of course, I took a lot of photos, but the photos where it is cloudy, rainy and foggy aren't as cool as these in full sun.

Even though the weather wasn't very nice, my mother was happy and it was the most important thing for me. I have already seen it all a dozen years ago and only something could change slightly, while my parents have never been to Szklarska Poręba and generally in the mountains, so I'm glad that they were satisfied.

To cheer myself up, I was still taking photos on the way to my apartment and I bought myself a necklace with a cat pendant. Even before going to the night, we went to a restaurant. Of course, I wouldn't be myself if I hadn't ordered a cappuccino. So the tradition has been done!

In summary, it wasn't that bad, although we didn't like the weather that day.

THIRD DAY

We decided to spend Wednesday on a trip to Karpacz. At this point, I would like to draw your attention to the tragic connections to the town an hour away from Szklarska Poręba. On the boards with the schedule of bus departures and arrivals, I couldn't find Karpacz anywhere. Moreover, even if these were intra-city connections, it turned out that the buses run once and not. Real playfulness!

I really wanted to go to Śnieżka with my parents, so on Tuesday I decided to find out about the situation of how to get there. Walking tour was absolutely out of the question !!!

I was at the bus stop - nothing. I asked two girls living in Szklarska Poręba - nothing. I asked other people from this city - nothing. Nobody knew anything! The Internet was silent, giving me only one connection from Szklarska Poreba Średnia, but when I was there, I didn't find any confirmation that any bus passes this way.

I decided to put everything on one card. On Wednesday morning, I went to the stop at Szklarska Poręba Średnia to see if the bus indicated in the schedule was going here at 8:10. It was the penultimate journey to Karpacz (according to the Internet).

As you probably guessed, nothing came, and the next and the last bus may start from Szklarska Poreba from the center in an hour, so as I agreed with my parents the day before, I called them back and we were going to the center to catch the last bus. There must have been something damn connected between these two tourist towns!

I will write about the infrastructure in Szklarska Poręba at the end if you make it to this point. We reached the center in thirty minutes and ... five minutes before the departure of the bus, which - surprisingly !!! it really did exist.

I was already convinced that we would spend this day in Szklarska Poręba, but luckily we made it and we had an hour-long journey to Karpacz ahead of us!

Our first destination was the Wang Temple. It looked nicer on Google, but what to expect if the weather isn't too good again. Luckily it wasn't raining this time, but it was still cloudy with clearances at the end of the day.

Our next location was Śnieżka. To be honest, I was surprised how expensive the tickets upstairs are. I assumed that it would cost us about PLN 50-60 and here is BOOP! Here you go 160 ... Well, well ... did you want to go? Wanted to see ? Then you have to pay!

I remember that when I was on Śnieżka for the first time, it was very cold, so I warned my parents to take something warmer with them. I put on my jacket myself, my favorite sweatshirt, which you could see in the picture above, and I went on my adventure securely!

Of course, it was cold, but to my surprise, I was warmer than on Tuesday in Szrenica, where I was throbbing, while Śnieżka only felt a pleasant chill. (Until I started climbing the mountain, of course!)

However, before we went upstairs, we noticed - quite by accident - a waterfall. Beautiful, with access to practically the same water. It was a risk-physicist. Either I'll have a nice picture with a waterfall in the background or a "washed out SLR" camera. As you probably guessed, an SLR can always be dried, right?

Thanks to this, I have one of the coolest photos from this trip and a better mood as a representative of narcissists.

Coming back to the topic of Śnieżka. Climbing it was cold, wet, windy, foggy and steep. I myself was supporting myself with a DSLR tripod and I don't know how I managed to climb to the top. Sometimes I had the feeling that I was spitting my lungs out and I just rolled down the mountain because I wouldn't have the strength to get off it on my own legs.

My parents let go of this pleasure, stopping about 200-300 meters from the summit. Overall, they didn't lose much. Visibility was poor due to the fog, and it was windy and it was cold. I walked quickly around the area, then returned to my parents to go with them a little lower to the shelter where we stopped for food.

I have to admit that I ate a good cheeseburger there, but I think my local one tastes better. The big and probably decisive difference was that there is a garlic sauce in the Człuchów cheeseburger, which I haven't experienced in this mountain one. But the bun is better! So it can be said that there is a draw after all!

It was time to go back and what turned out? As soon as we went down, the sun cleared and the sun came out. It was so warm that I changed into short pants and I was already making black scenarios about returning to Szklarska Poreba (me + bus + heat = motion sickness). Luckily, nothing unpleasant happened and we returned to our accommodation safe and sound before the last full day in the mountains.

FOURTH DAY

I love mountains and probably everyone who knows me knows about it. I'll definitely come back there again. There are so many paths that I would like to go, and so little time to use ... Mountains are one of the most beautiful places that God has created!

This beautiful day was our last day in Szklarska Poręba. On Friday, we were returning to Pomerania, but if you think that nothing happened on Friday, you are wrong!

FIFTH DAY

We spent the whole day on the trains and I don't know what else I could write ...

Overall, I'm satisfied with the trip. I appreciated every second on this trip and I don't regret a minute - even the rainy one!

We were thinking about another trip to the mountains for the next year. Maybe the Tatra Mountains?

What was disconcerting, when we got home, the cat was not happy at all. (Yes, I know cats only enjoy eating, but by God we weren't there for a week!) Bastet didn't even jump on me or bite me. Absolutely nothing! But I love her anyway!

I was also supposed to mention the infrastructure so I do mention it. It was one of the worst experiences out there! My two kilometers from downtown turned out to be a winding road in the woods where three-quarters of the way had no pavement!

In Człuchów, sidewalks are almost everywhere! Ba! You can go to Chojnice by bike, because we have a bicycle path built, and there? The sidewalk was a rarity. Our accommodation was located in the upper part of Szklarska Poreba, so when we were going home, it was uphill, and when we were going to the center, it was downhill.

Terrible public transport, or rather lack of it! In addition, to get to the center, there was a big arc, because there was no simple, shortest way. There was no such thing, so we did a lot of bow every time and instead of walking two kilometers for ten minutes, we walked for half an hour! Szklarska Poręba is a city only in the center. In the suburbs, houses are spaced apart and look like houses placed randomly in the middle of a field or forest.

Lots of greenery, lots of trees, beautiful flowers. You can see that not every piece of nature has been taken over by human yet. Our accommodation would be an ideal place if not for the distance from the center.

The mountains are definitely the place I want to come back to. Regardless of whether the city is within a meter or 10 kilometers. Mountains are such a corner of the world where I feel free and completely unlimited. The perspective of looking down at the world is very liberating.

It is a place where a person can rest, think about many things, arrange them in their head ...

I'm damn glad that in these difficult and limiting times I still had the opportunity to go to a place where I feel good and which I would like to share with others.

If anyone is wondering if it's worth it, it's ... it's worth it. It's worth spending the whole day on the train to stand on the green grass, breathe clean air, look up ... see all those beautiful flowers, treesand streams ... just to be.

I will definitely come back there again. Because this is the place I want to come back to!