Meeting the animals of Podhale

At Raba 500 playing with the local children Our younger guests love spending the day at home: no need to pay for travel anywhere. Just being here around Raba 500 is a holiday for children. There are about 15 children, aged 2 to 16 living around the hamlet of Bogdalowka, where Raba 500 is situated on the north side of Raba Wyzna. The children play outside spring through autumn, and run from garden to garden with a freedom that refreshing to see. Most homes have pets or farm animals: the children will see chickens, geese, turkeys, (many of which roam free in the lane) sheep, goats, rabbits, cows, horses, dogs, cats, hamsters, fish and, in the forest above Raba Wyzna, wild deer. Sharing is the rule, and if your child needs a bike, one will be found. Your children are sure to be invited into neighbouring children’s homes and are welcome to reciprocate as all the local children know that our door is always open to them. They may want to join the children helping their parents in the fields beside each house, raking hay, and then riding down to the farm on top of the horse drawn cart full of hay. In our garden, we have a climbing frame and slide, paddling pool, play house, swing and sand-pit and loads of out-door toys. In the evening, the children can host their own BBQ, inviting their local new friends round to cook sausages over a small fire. Our daughter will accompany them to the shops to buy supplies. Summer holiday evenings, June 21^st to 1^st September, usually find all the local children playing some sort of mass game until darkness sends them inside to bed around 21.00. During school time, however, children are usually in bed around 19.00 as they start school at 07.45. In the winter, sledging groups gather and all our guest’s children are welcome to join in. We have 4 ‘apple’ sledges and 1 bigger traditional frame sledge for their use.
	„Pod Gubalowka” market, Zakopane: puppy market The market is situated on the north side of Zakopane, most of it under the flyover coming in from Szymoszkowa. You can travel to Zakopane either by bus (6zl each way) or train (10zl return) or our driver can take you either one way (50zl between 2-6 people), or collect you later as well (100zl return trip between 2-6 people). The market, or jarmark, is about a 20 minute walk from the train and bus stations, through Zakopane’s main tourist district, including a walk down Krupowki pedestrian street. Our driver will drop you off and collect you from the car park at the entrance to the market. http://www.krupowki.biz/krupowki.html . The market is well worth a visit with all sorts of local produce on sale and tourist souvenirs. The hand knitted woollen sweaters are a must. Also, look out for the puppies on sale on the bridge just north of the underpass, and the hot corn on the cob and sesame buns stands. There are probably some 20 stands selling oscypek, the local cheese made from sheep’s milk. A smoked cheese, the darker it is, the saltier it is. You will be invited to taste the cheese at each stand. To the west side of the market you will notice a tall crane: here you can Bungee Jump, or just watch. 120zl per jump of 240zl for a pair. 30zl for a photo of you falling. http://www.jumping.pl/zakopane.html . Fantastic views from the top of the crane.

Krakow centre 1. You can travel to Krakow either by bus: 07.30 am or 11.20am: 14zl each way, 90 minute trip to Central Bus Station just north of the Main Square, the last return bus leaving Krakow at 20.00 (but you must check this yourselves when you arrive there) 2. OR by train, a 3 hour trip (!) leaving Raba Wyzna at 10.40, arriving at 13.30 and the return train leaving Krakow at 14.40, arriving Raba Wyzna 15.30 3. OR our driver can take you (2-6 people) one way to Krakow for 100zl 4. OR our driver can take you and bring you back, waiting in Krakow for you. You can leave him at Carrefour and take the tram into the centre and back (4zl) and find him in the car park where you left him (350zl between 2-6 people, up to 12 hours door to door) 5. OR he can drive you into the centre and wait in the parking beside the Main Square so you can return to the car with shopping bags and so on. 400zl between 2-6 people, up to 12 hours door to door. 6. OR if you have an evening flight back to the UK, our driver can return you to Balice airport free of extra charge, and you can leave your suitcases and bags in the left luggage lockers outside, suitcase size 8zl/24hr ( http://www.krakowairport.pl/en/20/46/22/Baggage-lockers ). The shuttle train to Krakow Central Station costs 8zl and you can buy your ticket on board. http://www.krakowairport.pl/en/3/176/35/en 7. OR you may decide to spend either your first night or your last night at a hotel in Krakow. There is so much evening entertainment available, that it’s well worth while. If so, we are happy to collect or return you to the airport but only taxis can enter the centre of the city so we advise you to travel with luggage by taxi between Krakow centre and the airport. Once in Krakow centre, there is so much to see! We highly recommend taking a horse drawn carriage trip around the centre for an hour: you will be taken through the streets surrounding the Main Square (Stary Rynek), past the Castle (Wawel) and through the Jewish Quarter (Kazimierz). There are shopping centres next to the Main Station and south of Kazimierz, and the Main Square hosts market stalls and the Corn Market in the middle. Cafes and restaurants ring the Main Square with outdoor seating, which is full of pigeons children can feed, and all sorts of entertainments take place in the Square throughout the year. Churches and museums abound. http://www.krakow.pl/en/

	Horse and cart ride to Morskie Oko lake Our driver will take you past Nowy Targ, then round the back lanes of Szaflary village, up and over to Lesnica, where you can stop and visit a beautiful wooden church if you wish. Then on up into the Tatra Mountains through Lysa Polana Pass at the border with Slovakia, continuing on the Polish side of the border to the car park at the base of the National Park road up to Morskie Oko. Here, you pay a small entrance fee to the National Park (between 2 and 5zl depending on time of year), then climb on board a horse drawn cart (summer) or sledge (winter) for a 2 hour journey (25zl each way, either single or return) up the Tatra Mountains. It’s worth packing an inflatable cushion if you intend to take this trip. About a 30 minute walk below the lake, the cart will wait while you walk up and around the lake. It’s worth checking what time your cart descends of you have bought return tickets. There is a lake-side restaurant which serves wonderful apple cake. A glacier feeds the lake, so expect it to be noticeably colder than home – sometimes 10 to 15 degrees lower than at Raba Wyzna. Don’t wear sandals, and make sure children have something warm to put on and a pair of gloves for May/June snowball fights beside the glacier. The more energetic can climb above Morskie Oko on the slopes, or to the peak of Rysy, the highest of the Polish Tatra Mountains. We lend you maps, and will advise against this is the weather is not right. Coming down, you can either take the cart again for a 1 hour descent, or walk down at your own pace. Our driver can wait for you in the car park, and return you to Raba Wyzna via Nowy Targ town centre square (300zl day trip for 2-6 people, up to 8 hour day trip). Otherwise, he can drop you off, and when you come down in the afternoon, there are tourist buses waiting in the car park to take you into Zakopane town centre, via the National Forest road along the base of the Tatras. Flowers in abundance! The train back to Raba Wyzna leaves Zakopane at 17.33, or if you want to stay later and eat out at one of the many lovely restaurants in Zakopane, our driver can fetch up to 6 of you, either from the car park by the market, or outside the bus station (which ever suits you), for 50zl, or 80zl after 21.00. Or a taxi for up to 4 people from Zakopane to Raba Wyzna will cost about 200zl. http://www.gory-szlaki.pl/rysy.htm

Drive a team of Huskies up Chocholow valley A little expensive but very popular with guests: 250zl for 2 people for 1 hour gets you in charge of a small cart (summer) or sledge (winter) pulled by a team of Husky dogs. This is an energetic and very enjoyable hour. The owner, Pan Jan is a real Goral character! http://www.fundog.pl/ . We arrange the time and date for you, and our driver will drive you down to Bialy Potok at the base of Chocholow Valley, (50zl 2-6 people each way) In winter, there is a lovely, not expensive ski slope here with both beginner and intermediate slopes, which you can include in your day out, our driver fetching you at the end of the day. Or if you want to travel on to Zakopane without our driver, there are regular buses to Zakopane from a stop some 100m along the main road.
	Krakow Zoo Our driver will take you out to Krakow Zoo for a day trip, although it will probably be Helen who drives, and her daughter who shows you and your children enthusiastically around the Zoo. To the west of Krakow, high up above the city, the hilltop Zoo has loads of space for the animals which, by their behaviour, are obviously quite happy to reside there. I am not usually a Zoo fan, but Krakow Zoo is OK! We charge 250zl between 2-6 people for a day trip with one of our drivers. The zoo entrance fee is 16zl for adults, 8zl for children, 3 years and under get in free. http://www.zoo-krakow.pl/index.php
Horse and cart ride from Raba 500 The horse(s) and cart(s) arrive around 17.30 outside the house, and we pack on all the supplies of beer, vodka, soft drinks, potatoes, cheese, sausages, bread rolls, ketchup, music machine with extra batteries... and all the other bits and pieces we need for a 3 hour trip to the forest! There's room for up to 5 people per cart plus driver, but we'll fit 6 on if need be. Summer or winter, we'll make sure you are comfortable with sheepskins to either sit on or hide under. Burning brands light the way, and those sitting by the beer crate can start the evening on the outward journey. We can provide up to 4 horse and cart combos so groups of up to 20 can enjoy a convoy through the village, bells ringing, horses clopping and neighbours waving us on. This is a wonderful evening out for all the family, something that local families do for fun on a summers evening. The price includes the cart driver's fee, (and makes a big difference to his monthly income by the way) and your food and drinks, and apples and carrots for you to feed to the horses, of course. (Ask to see the photos of the guests feeding the horse mouth to mouth….) We drive out around the back of Bogdalowka, onto the main road and canter through the village, starting our 30 minute drive out of town. Slowly up the hill over Raba Wyzna's sole speed bump between the junior and senior schools, we come down past the football stadium, and pull over onto a track into the forest. A wooden roof with rustic benches and tables awaits, and the drivers build a fire in the grill and a bonfire to the side. Cooking is self-service: everything will be laid out on the tables for you. You can either put your sausages, potatoes and cheese on the grill or the drivers will provide wooden sticks to impale your goodies on, and hold over the flames till they are hot through. The sausages are pre-cooked so no fear of food poisoning. The drinks go round, the food goes down, the music plays and you may get a song out of the drivers... In the winter, children can sledge down the surrounding slopes, build an igloo or snowman and then warm up around the fire. Around 20.30, we start to pack the carts and head back home singing as we pass the abandoned palace. Cost: 350zl for 2-6 people. e.g. 5 people = 70zl each = £15.55.

	Nowy Targ market On Thursday and Saturday mornings, the market at Nowy Targ opens around 05.00am, starting to close around 13.00. The Thursday market has a livestock section with farmers offering pigs, sheep, horses, cows, goats and so on for sale. Get there by 08.00am to really enjoy this part of the market. Saturday market can claim to be the biggest street market in Europe, especially in summer. It can take up to 5 hours just to walk all around it. You can buy just about anything here, from hand made wrought iron products to ball gowns, potatoes to trees, hammocks to skis: really, just about anything. During the market, there are various food stalls selling open-air grilled meats and sausages. Or there are several very Polish cafes offering traditional local fare in traditional local surroundings. Try Rumcajs. Otherwise, you can take a short walk up into the Main Square of Nowy Targ, where, on Thursdays, the town museum is open in the middle of the square, and any day of the week, you can visit the Church of the Most Blessed Heart of Jesus which, behind the altar, has an amazing white stone sculpture of the Last Supper. There are all sorts of restaurants: posh Polish, American Retro, Italian pizza, Polish traditional and cafes and bars. Also, don’t miss the best ice cream ever, available from the kiosk next to the bakery in the main square, west side. Take a wander round the streets running immediately behind the square too. And for New Year, the restaurants in the Square put on all-night parties, including a huge display in the Square.
Chocholow to Zakopane centre walk You can either get the bus to Chocholow from Raba Wyzna centre – about 8zl each - we supply you with maps so you’ll know where you are - or our driver can take you, 2-6 people, for 50zl. Our driver, or the bus, will drive south from Raba Wyzna over the ridge and across the plain where in summer you will see storks and their babies in the nests perched on roof tops and telephone posts. Ask Staszek to stop for photos anytime. Chocholow, a 400 year old wooden village, is the start of your walk: can set off across the field track towards the eastern end Gubalowka Ridge. Before you trek off, there is a general store in Chocholow if you want to stock up on water and so on. The stone church is also worth a visit, and on the main street across from the church car park where our driver will leave you, is Chocholow Museum, a wooden house that has been maintained in the style in which it was first lived in, where central heating is a little wooden panel in the kitchen ceiling to let smoke out if the room gets too hot, and contraception is a bed for the husband in the barn. The track takes you south between fields in which, in summer, there will no doubt be local people raking hay. Your greeting is “Szczęść Boże!” to which they will reply “Daj Boże!” The track becomes a lane through the forest and up to a stunning view across Zakopane in the valley, to the Tatra Mountains. Walking east along the ridge will bring you to a lovely wooden restaurant at the top of the Szymoszkowa chair lift, on which you can take a ride down into the valley, where the horse drawn carts wait to take visitors into Zakopane centre for shopping and market. The train home to Raba Wyzna leaves Zakopane at 17.33 from the Main Station, or you can pre-arrange with our driver to collect you from the market pick-up point: 50zl between 2-6 people, home to Raba 500.

	Rabka Zdroj horse drawn cart trip around town We’ll drop you in Rabka Zdroj free of charge, where your children will love flagging down a passing horse drawn cart as if it is a bus, or we can pre-arrange a pick-up point for you. You’ll have to negotiate the price with the driver but don’t pay less than 100zl per hour. He’ll take you all around Rabka Zdroj, a health resort town with its own mineral waters. Ask to be taken to the health park with it’s unique Distillation Towers: these brushwood towers have evaporating mineral waters dripping down them non-stop, thus creating a false ‘seaside’ microclimate around the towers. Breathe deeply and gain the benefit. Get dropped off at the Church Museum, then wander back through Rabkoland funfair to the bus-stop for a 10 minute trip back to Raba Wyzna.
Rabka Zdroj Monday livestock market No charge for transport to Rabka Zdroj and we provide you with maps of many of the attractions in the town, although you may well find more for yourselves. The Monday market is nowhere as big as Nowy Targ, but it’s a good start to the day, and children will enjoy seeing the animals on sale, especially the chicks in the spring. There’s a lot more to see in Rabka Zdroj whilst you are there: check links to the Church Museum, the open-air swimming pool, ice-skating in winter, Rabkoland funfair and the Steam Train Museum in Chabowka on the way home.
	Sidzina morning coffee and walk in the forest We have arranged a unique day out with a visit to Pani Janka and her family, who live in Sidzina Mala, in the middle of nowhere. A private family, with 6 children all ready to play with yours, they have a small farm with pigs, cows, turkeys, chickens, dogs, rabbits and cats, and you can help feed the animals and milk the cows whilst you are there. They live off what they grow, and are always busy preserving and making food. Hard to describe, as every day spent here is different. You will drink tea or coffee with the family, eat home made cakes and Granny will have you churning home made butter with her. This is a day to experience real life in Podhale, to go where no other tourist group has been before. (Star Trek). In winter, Janka’s husband will tow you into the forest behind the tractor on a sledge for up to 6 people. This is a really unique experience. In summer, we walk into the forest and search for grzyby, very tasty forest mushrooms. If you like, we can stay in the forest and have an open fire BBQ in true Podhalan style. We bring the mushrooms home, slice them and lay them out in the sun to dry, so we can store them for cooking in the winter. After your walk/sleigh ride, you are invited back into the farmhouse for soup before we drive you back to Raba Wyzna. Your payment of 50zl per person is for the family you are visiting: we do not deduct anything for our car and driver’s time.
Horse riding lesson at Czarny Dunajec We can book horse or pony riding lessons for children at our daughter’s horse riding school. At Czarny Dunajec, about 25 minutes from Raba 500, the horses, ponies and their owner are teaching children to ride from Sunday to Friday. Helmets are provided, and the cost is about 25zl per hour per child. You can either travel there by bus (6zl), or our driver can take you, wait and return 50zl between 2-6 people, or you can combine it as part of a fuller day, booking the lesson to coincide with a return from Zakopane or Orawice Hot Springs, for example, and just pay Staszek 15zl extra on the other day trip charge
	Horse riding safari from Raba Nizna If you can ride a horse through walk to gallop, and would enjoy a really free-range ride up hill and down Podhalan dale, ask us to book you in at Raba Nizna and the owner will take you off up over the hills for a 2 hour+ trek. It’s about 100zl each, and 50zl between 2-6 of you for our driver to take you, wait and return, but well worth it. Please don't ask to book this excursion unless you really can ride a horse.
Haymaking An ideal end to a day at home at Raba 500, summer evenings often find us wandering up the lane to the fields on the way to the forest, where neighbours energetically mow, rake, turn or harvest the hay. This is the real Podhale, with wooden home-made rakes, grass either scythed by hand, or by horse drawn mower, and the horse drawn cart to take the dried hay down to the farm. You will be welcome to join in at the lower fields: it’s best to take a couple of beers with you as the fumes keep the hay flies away as you sweat your way round the haystacks. Children can roll in the hay in the lower fields but will not be invited to the upper fields as vipers can often make an appearance there in the untended strips of land. Carts drawn either by antiquated tractors or horses are filled and the children love to pile on top and ride down to the farm, geese, dogs and chickens running alongside in the lane. Some days, we spend all day in the fields and a picnic lunch is enjoyed sitting in the shade of the haystacks. A real day out.
	Potato planting around Raba 500 If you come to stay with us either at the end of April/beginning of May, or at the end of August/beginning of September, depending on the weather, we will be either planting or harvesting potatoes in our garden and in the fields. It’s hard work but fun, and all our friends and neighbours join in. The horse ploughs the furrows and we jab the seed potatoes into the soil quickly before she comes round again. Halfway, we all stop for a beer or two, and then get back down to it. Harvesting includes all ages, with the children having fun collecting the smallest potatoes for seeding next year. Again, the horse does the heavy work, dragging a spidery contraption which throws the potatoes out of the soil, some 6 foot into the air. A real Podhalan experience and it all takes place in our back yard. Oh, and our potatoes are talked about on the Internet, they are SO good.
Horse riding lessons at Chabowka For small children, we can book you in at our local horse and pony club which is 5 minutes away by car. No transport charge, a lovely grassy area for the lessons, and a little club house for snacks and displaying children’s drawings of the ponies. It's about 30zl an hour for a lesson and Marysia will be delighted to accompany your children and enjoy a lesson with them. These horses and ponies are for children only.
	Sleigh rides This section will be up-dated before the 2010/2011 winter season as options change each year, but in the meantime: children love the horse drawn sleighs that run along the Gubalowka Ridge during most of the winter. In Zakopane, on the south side near the Skoki, ski jump runs, and up to Kuznice in the National Park, you will also get a lovely sleigh ride through most of the winter months. In Rabka Zdroj, when the roads are snowed up, sleighs are out and about, and we have our own horse-drawn sleigh driver, Marek, who will come and take a group of up to 4 of you around the snowed over roads of Raba Wyzna when ever you like, evening or day-time, and he picks you up in the centre of Raba Wyzna so you can walk down and meet him then go to the pub, Rabacowka, afterwards. Reckon to pay at least 100zl per hour. These sleigh drivers have a limited amount of time they can work their sleighs during the year as the roads are kept so clear for cars!
u Bogdalu BBQ and farm fun My best friend and neighbour, Krystyna Bogdal, lives with her family across the road from us. Their small farm is a regular venue for fun and games! You and your children can learn to milk a cow and then have the milk you milked with cereals for breakfast next morning. The family will put on a BBQ for you, and you can wander around, meet the horses and the bull, the dogs and wild cats and dance in the grass to local Goralskie music. In summer, a paddling pool is ready for children and adults alike. A very ‘real’ experience, and adults should not expect to come home sober. No transport charge of course, even if we have to drive you home (!). A very full afternoon or evening, with snacks, BBQ, drinks etc. costing 50zl each. Another ‘to go where no other tourist group has been before’ experience.
	Sunday walk up Turbacz to mass at 12 In the summer, we can drop you off just outside Nowy Targ at the start of the trail up to the summit of Turbacz. If we leave home about 08.00am, that will give you a good 3 hours to climb the easy, but in places quite steep, trail. You’ll need good footwear but children can manage the climb too. At the top is a small chapel with a huge natural amphitheatre where some 2000 people gather for mass at midday on Sundays. People come up on foot, on quad bikes, on horse-back, and on the way down, look out for wooden shepherd’s huts where the owners will have bigos on the stove all day long and you can buy a drink and lunch from them.