ZAKOPANE, Poland (dpa) – The people at the ski-lift in the valley have already been waiting two hours to be ferried up to Kasprowy Wierch. They stand there weathering the brisk cold, their faces sinking ever deeper in to their woollen scarves and hats.
At 1,987 metres, Kasprowy Wierch is the main attraction in the Polish winter resort of Zakopane. Up there, the eye is free to wander over a seemingly endless array of majestic sugarloaf peaks stretching away to the south.We are in the High Tatras, which form the northern arm of the Carpathian Mountains: Central Europe’s forgotten mountains.All the same, Kasprowy is quite small in comparison to other peaks, such as Rysy (2,499 metres) or the summits on the Slovakian side which usually cannot be climbed in winter. Many of the High Tatras’ peaks tower almost three kilometres above sea-level.Poland’s oldest cable car, which leaves every hour for Kasprowy, holds only 210 passengers. This is because the mountain is owned by the national park administration, which is keen to keep numbers down. For the last few years it has steadfastly refused requests from Zakopane to replace the cable car with a new, modern installation featuring chairlifts up to the summit.So if they want to travel on the cable car, all that the tourists can do is wait for the next departure upward – and that can take between 30 minutes and five hours.Another option is to buy a reserved ticket for double the normal price of around seven dollars. Depending on your bargaining skills, a horse-drawn trap back into the town can be arranged for another 15 or 20 dollars, or there’s the bus for a dime.Zakopane has something of the reputation as Poland’s answer to St. Moritz: open to anyone with a name or the necessary cash. But it is more than that. It is a national symbol.In the 19th century Polish intellectuals settled here, in an age when the Polish nation existed on no map, a place where artists, composers and writers gathered to work on creating a culture with the ultimate aim of uniting a people dispersed throughout Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.The town today numbers 30,000 souls, but 150 years ago it was little more than a tiny Gorale village. The Gorale, a simple highland people, who have managed to retain their own culture and language in the surrounding villages, are characteristic of Zakopane.On Ulica Krupowki (pronounced oolitsa krupuvki), one of Poland’s most famous streets, the Gorale sell sheepskins, smoked sheep’s cheese and souvenir items from their small wooden huts.For ten dollars, you can buy a hand-carved chess set, while a pair of hand-knitted woolly socks changes hands for just one dollar fifty. And these socks keep feet warm at minus ten degrees. In the same street, the windows of the boutiques and sports shops display expensive Italian leather boots and western-made snowboards.Winter athletes will find a broad range of activities on offer in Zakopane. There are trails for cross-country skiers and the ice rink is ideal for skating. And the two ski jumps regularly feature top athletes in practice. There are around 50 ski lifts in and around Zakopane today, and not a winter passes without a new one opening.In fact, the city fathers are possessed of an ambitious goal. In 2010, Zakopane intends to be the venue for the Winter Olympic Games. That is still a long way off, though.The national park administration is still too protective and infrastructure is far from satisfactory. After heavy snowfalls, even during normal holiday traffic, vehicles can only move at a snail’s pace on the small road which links Zakopane to Krakow some 100 kilometres away.But the arduous journey is worth it. One of the rewards: Zakopane’s unique architectural style, which assures a wealth of unusual sights. Steep gabled roofs sit majestically on mighty wooden houses and stacked on each other.Villa Koliba, the first house built in the Zakopane style, is a museum which celebrates the typical Gorale architecture.The Tatras are all around: behind the houses on Ulica Krupowki, the jagged mountains point like wolves’ teeth. Their peaks attract holiday crowds in summer as well as winter.And there are other features to marvel at, for example, mountain lakes such as Morskie Oko, the “Eye of the Lake”. At 1,395 metres above sea-level, it is in a large basin, surrounded by the highest cliff faces found in the Polish Tatras. In summer the rock face is jet black and in winter snow white as it towers up to a kilometre above the lake.In winter the ice on the lake is so thick that cars could drive across it – if it weren’t for the two-and-a-half metres of snow covering the one-and-a-half metres of ice. In summer, on the other hand, the observant visitor can spot fish 14 metres below in the lake’s clear, green waters.In contrast to the Tatras’ other lakes, fish can survive the frosty winter in the deep Morskie Oko, a fact which has added to Gorale folklore. An old legend claims that the lake is linked to the Mediterranean Sea by a subterranean channel.Wrecks of ships which sank in the Adriatic Sea are said to have reappeared in Morskie Oko. Polish geographers refuted the old claims in the 1990s: they found that the lake is exactly 50 metres and 80 centimetres deep, and that there is no trace of a link to the Adriatic.
