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Traditional Polish food is really yummy and I learnt to cook here in Podhale so you’ll enjoy real home cooking, Polish style. Children of all ages love the meals we serve up, with many parents being delighted to see supposedly ‘fussy eaters’ tucking into their second helping of beetroot soup. All meals and soups are prepared from scratch, fresh ingredients sourced locally. Our potatoes are home grown and 100% organic. Milk is fresh from the cow each morning, although I have shop bought milk if you prefer. Cakes are made by the locals, and bread baked at the local bakery 2km away. Breakfast (included in your accommodation charge): cereals or home mixed muesli and milk, bread or toast, butter, margarine, home made jams, Marmite, yoghurts, ham, cheese, tomato, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit juice. Lunch: soup, bread, cake, coffee, tea, water: 20zl adults, 15zl under 12’s. Evening meals: 30zl adults, 20zl under 12’s. A three course meal, order it in the morning and dinner can be on the table anytime between 16.00 and 21.00. Just let me know. Dinner includes soup, bread, main course, cakes, coffee, tea, vodka, beer, juice or water. If you require wine, I can buy it for you at 35zl per bottle or you can buy your own on your way home. |
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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. No charge to take you and drop you off at the market with a map to the bus station for a bus ride home, or 60zl if you want a wait and return driver. |
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At Raba 500 playing with the local children Our younger guests love spending the day at home, and there's no need to pay to 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 is 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 21st to 1st 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. |
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Eating out locally: Siwy Dym and Rusnakowka Siwy Dym and Rusnakowka are both traditional style Podhale/Goral restaurants, both about 15 minutes drive from Raba 500: Siwy Dym at Zabornia above Rabka Zdroj, and Rusnakowka just outside Spytkowice. We’ll drive you to the restaurant, and give you the telephone number of our taxi driver, Pan Stojowski. The waitress will telephone him when you are ready to leave. Both have menus with English translation. Siwy Dym has live music every night from 20.00. A 3 course evening meal with a few drinks will cost about 70zl per person, including a 10% tip. http://www.siwydym.pl/restauracja1.htm and http://www.karczmarusnakowka.com/ |
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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. For example, 5 people = 70zl each = £15.55. |
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Meander Park Swim Centre at Orawice Just over the border, in Slovakia, on the slopes of the Tatra Mountains, a Polish group opened Meander Park Thermal Baths just over 4 years ago. The centre is still being enlarged, although the works going on don’t disturb bathers at all: this is a marvelous swim centre with 6 or more pools of naturally hot thermal mineral waters from the underground sea under the Tatras. Indoor and outdoor, massage jets, water massage beds and seats, sunbathing, wave pool, children’s pools and a huge flume slide, a day at Meander Park will be a family favourite. Our driver will take you there – a 45 minute trip from Raba Wyzna, with a stop in Chocholow wooden village if you wish - and either wait while you enjoy a 3 hour session, or leave you for the whole day, returning to collect you all at the end of the day. The centre opens at 09.00am and closes at 21.00pm. There is a poolside café, a restaurant, a bar, a snack bar. Orawice is on the edge of the National Park: before or after your swim session, you can take a peaceful car free walk up into the trees and enjoy the silence. Or take the chair lift up into the hills and enjoy the view of the mountains around you. The restaurant is outside the pool area: you can enjoy and evening meal there if you wish. We charge 250zl between 2-6 people for the 2 way trip. An all day ticket to the Centre costs 17€ adults, 12€ 7-14, f.o.c. 6 and under. In the winter, the ski slopes beside the swim centre have chair lifts and great slopes, for a variety of levels of experience. For big groups of 7 or more, spending the whole day here, we leave the Zafira in the car park and leave you the keys so you have a place to store ski/swim gear when not in use. Swim: http://www.meanderpark.com/PL/page.php |
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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, chickens, dogs 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.
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Raba Wyzna has one bar, Rabacowka. The landlord, Pan Jan, is a bit of a historian and his bar is full of Partisan Memoria: the Gorals fought hard, guerilla style, against the Germans and the Russians. It’s rarely busy in the bar as the people of Raba Wyzna tend to party at home, but weekends find a variety of locals in the bar and they will be delighted to entertain you. If you want a meal at Rabacowka, let me know the day before and Marta, Jan’s wife, will do the honours. The back bar is a games room with pool, darts and an air hockey table. It’s 10 minutes walk to Rabacowka from Raba 500: if you can’t walk home, Jan the landlord will happily drive you. |
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Gubalowka Ridge by funicular railway from Zakopane 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 funicular railway station is situated at the north end of the market ‘pod Gubalowka’ which 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, about 5 minutes walk from the funicular railway. It costs 14zl for the return journey, but you can buy a single ticket and walk down. On the ridge, you can take a horse drawn cart, or sleigh in the winter, along the ridge and walk back. There are climbing walls ideal for even younger children, an aerial assault course, open-air grill bar, pizzeria, various stalls offering local handicrafts and the dry toboggan run which is excellent fun: you can reach speeds of up to 40kph! And, for older and adult children, check out the Aerial Assault Course page! |
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Summer or winter, our friends Jacek and Asia will take you on a hair raising drive up the track to their shepherds hut on Turbacz for an evening BBQ. Food, drink and transport all included, you’ll pay them 90zl each. This is another one of those Star Trek excursions, where we take you where no tourist has been before. Local people who live on the mountain in huts will hear that you are there and will come and visit, with dubious bottles of home made alcohol, and musical instruments. If you are lucky, Asia’s father will turn up and put his old Jimi Hendrix tapes on. A night to remember! If you like, up to 7 of you can stay the night in the shepherds hut. There’s no electricity, but they’ll leave you a car battery so you can listen to music, and then come and collect you late the next morning. Pay them 120zl each if you stay the night. If you stay on a Saturday night, you can go to mass at midday, at the chapel on the summit of Turbacz. http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbacz |
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Rabka Zdroj Pizzeria If you are visiting Rabka Zdroj for the day, you will almost certainly visit the health park at some time. If you do, and you fancy some lunch, there is a very good Pizzeria to the east side of the park. Pizzas cost between 5zl and 40zl depending on the size. We recommend it! At weekends, they have a DJ and you might want to make an evening of it. We will make sure you have the telephone number of our recommended taxi driver, Pan Stojowski, so the Polish/English speaking waitress can call him for you, and he will bring you home. It’s about 45zl from Rabka to Raba 500. Or during the day, you can walk 5 minutes down to the bus station for a 4zl ride home. |
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Rabka Zdroj open air swimming pool At Rabka Zdroj, the next town 10 minutes drive away, is the open-air swimming pool, open between June and September. There is the big pool and a baby pool with little slide, lots of grassy area around for sun bathing, changing rooms and toilets and a sand base volley ball court. Snacks, drinks and ice cream are available and sometimes, they offer grilled snacks, but we usually take our own picnic. All day entrance fee is 14zl for adults, 7zl under 14’s for an all day pass. We don’t charge to take you and fetch you, or you can come and go by bus. We supply big towels and have a variety of inflatable pool toys, and a chiller box for your picnic supplies and drinks. |
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Eating out in Nowy Targ and Zakopane There are lots of restaurants in Zakopane to choose from: too many for us to list, but we do recommend the wooden restaurant next to our pickup point. At the entrance to the market, with an English language menu, it is not that expensive, and you can relax and come out to the car when you are ready. As the last train leaves Zakopane at 17.33, if you are eating out you will either need to book our driver to collect you, which for an evening pick-up costs 100zl between 2-6 of you, or come home by taxi which could cost 200zl plus. In Nowy Targ, there are various restaurants around the Main Square: Italian, American retro, posh Polish and traditional Polish cafes. Our driver will come out and collect you for 50zl between 2-6 people or you can get a taxi home for about 100zl.
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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. |
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It’s rare in the summer to have rain during the day at Raba 500, but if we do, there are plenty of day trips that keep you out of the wet, or why not spend a day at Raba 500? And during the winter, there may be some people who fancy a day at home relaxing from an excess of ski muscle use. If so, there is plenty for adults and children alike to entertain themselves with at Raba 500. The library has over 1000 books with lots of variety for all ages, although we have no Barbara Cartland. A mini pool table for children, X Box, Play Station (although we haven’t got many games so if you are aficionados, best to bring your own game with you). TV: we have cable TV so there is usually a channel to suit. We can also lend you a lap-top if you fancy a film in bed in your own room, and we have 100’s of DVD’s for you to choose from. We also have a wide variety of jigsaw puzzles and some board games and 100's of music CD's from Slipknot through Siouxsie to Sinatra. For adults or family groups, there’s the sauna, 50zl for all of you for up to 6 hours use. We also have toys in abundance, although they tend to the girly side. Lots of dressing up clothes, big and small so we can put on a pantomime if you like. In the dining room there is a fridge for guests use, so if you want to buy any food supplies for yourselves, feel free to use the fridge to store them. Otherwise, we offer a lunch snack of soup and bread for 20zl per person. |
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The garden at Raba 500 covers some 2000m sq, all safely fenced and gated so even small children can run out and play anytime. We have a splash pool, play house, climbing frame and slide, sand-pit and swing and a wide variety of out door games and toys, bike, skate board, roller blades and so on. You can host your own BBQ if you wish – the ladies at the local butchers will be delighted to help you choose your sausages. Sun shines most days throughout the summer: sun bathe or sit in the shade of the apple tree, sit in the pool with a cold beer, or under the sunshade at the bar with an iced drink: you don’t need to go anywhere for the day when you stay at Raba 500. |
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No charge for transport to our favourite beginner slope, 5 minutes from home. Two great slopes, one for absolute beginners on a rope pull lift, and the second for skiers ‘first day’ reminder session, a button lift up to a shallow start, then steep finish. Lovely little wooden café selling snacks and drinks: take some sausages along with you and grill them over the open fire. Many of the instructors speak English, snow cannons at night, and the cost: 7zl for 10 ascents on the rope lift, 14zl on the button lift. You can’t get better value anywhere. Open from 09.00am to 21.00, (if there are enough people skiing), floodlit after 15.30, if you get a morning flight we can get you skiing on your first day. Some of the keener skiers might want to go for an hour or so after dinner: no problem. http://www.chabowka.com/ |
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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 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, bars and discotheques all round, and all sorts of evening entertainments take place in the Square throughout the year. Churches and museums abound. http://www.krakow.pl/en/ |
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We have phrase books and dictionaries you can use to write a shopping list of supplies required for a picnic up the hill in a forest glade on Raba Gora, above our house. You can walk into the village and make your purchases, then take the Jan Pawel II marked path (and our map) and wander up the hill past the village cross, into the forest and along to the picnic area. A good walk, but not too far for children, although we can drive you up the hill as far as the forest edge if some of you are not keen on up hill walking. Lovely views, take the camera, but do stay out of areas of untended long grass and weeds: there may be snakes. You can carry on along the Jan Pawel II marked path as far as Rdzawka village across the Zakopianka, then walk back via the wooden church and art gallery on main road above Rokiciny Podhalanska, the path bringing you down through the village with a short walk along the 958 back home. Or ring us on your mobile from either the church above Rdzawka, or the church at Rockiciny and we’ll collect you - no charge. |
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This is a lovely walk, following a marked trail south from the chaplet on the lane outside Morawczyna. We’ll lend you well marked maps before we drop you off (no charge for taking you to the start of this walk) so you won’t get lost. Running gently downhill between fields, you are facing the Tatra Mountains all the way down to the plain so you’ll have beautiful scenery all the way. Local people will probably be working in the fields, so remember to greet them: “Szczêœæ Bo¿e!” to which they will reply “Daj Bo¿e!” Passing through the village of Krauszow, you join the country lane which takes you on into Ludzmierz. Visit the Sanktuarium at Ludzmierz church and the beautiful church gardens with the statue of Jan Pawel II. We can collect you here, or, alternatively, you can walk on another 10 minutes down to the main road, turn left towards Nowy Targ, and about 10 minutes along the road, as you come into the forested area either side of the main road, you will see a signpost right, to Goralskie Strawa. This is a beautiful restaurant with traditional Goral indoor bars, and an outdoor terrace bar, but it is in the middle of an old industrial estate so the approach to it is very odd, but worth finding, especially for apple cake and coffee after a walk. Again, we can collect you here, or you can return to the main road, and walk 10 minutes towards Nowy Targ and catch a train back to Raba Wyzna and home. The trains leave Nowy Targ for Raba Wyzna at 14.54 and 17.56, and take about 25 minutes to get to Raba Wyzna, with 3 stops in between. Single adult ticket 5zl. |
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