We got up late after our big walk day. I made a nice hot breakfast of kransky frittata that was enjoyed well by Lisa and Glenn..

We then headed to the centre of town to see the Traditional Highland Festival parade. 

Waiting for it to start we had a coffee in a very plush cafe with lots of fancy looking cakes. 

It was a good coffee and we shared a local apple cake. 

The street had many traditional smoked cheese stalls – all part of the festival. They are very pretty with a patterned texture.

Soon the parade came along and we watched the different groups coming through doing a little performance at a central point.

They are from different countries in the region including Poland, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy and surprisingly Senegal – not sure how they got in!

We followed them down the street. We found some sports shops open on a Sunday! Sean bought some new shoes as his current ones had hurt his feet yesterday. Glenn bought a bright rain jacket – we will be able to spot him easily now. They looked very proud with their packages. 

We continued down to the church which is newish from the 1900s. It was very brightly painted inside. 

Outside were some boards showing the lives of famous priests who came to Zakopane including Pope John Paul II who lived not too far away and came here to get away from Communist oppression and get a bit of skiing in. 

His parents were interesting – his father was in the army with a good moustache. His mother died early so his father had to bring the family up himself doing all cooking and cleaning. 

We then went up the oldest street with all the wooden houses. First was the old wooden church. 

The old cemetery outside had lots of notable people in it as Zakopane had been a place lots of artists and doctors came to – to enjoy the healthy atmosphere.

Many headstones were made out of wood in interesting shapes. 

I found the grave of Jerzy Ustupski, a rower who won a medal in the 1936 Olympics – the Hitler Olympics. He was in the Warsaw uprising and went on to be the president of the voluntary rescue organisation. 

We left Sean resting at the cemetery then continued up the street seeing many wooden houses. 

The last one we went into was the Koliba Villa  museum which was built by artist and architect Stanislava Witkiewitska. He started the theme of wooden houses which had actually started in England based on Swiss rural chalets and became the Queen Anne style there. 

It was very beautiful with everything carved in wood. There were large ceramic heaters in many rooms. 

There was an art gallery area with Stanislav’s paintings.

We didn’t take long as Sean was waiting for us. Picking him up we walked down the road towards the funicular. There were many stalls in the way selling more cheese and a lot of woolen products. 

We got onto the funicular and after 3.5 minutes we were at the top of the hill.

The views were great and we could see where we had climbed to yesterday – quite a climb!

There were lots of bars and shops up here so we settled in for some beer and snacks.

We tried the traditional smoked cheese with cranberry sauce which had a surprising taste – very chewy and almost like a smoked sausage. It went well with the cranberry sauce. 

We checked out the inside of the restaurant which was lovely with chandeliers similar to mine at home. It was set up for a cold environment with lots of fires and cosy velvet seats.

We went back down on the funicular and went to see the start of the festival at 6pm which had interesting horn blowers starting it off. 

There were then representatives from all countries in a joint song and each coming forward to receive a decorated loaf of bread. Then lots of speeches started which were boring for us as we understood nothing so we went back to the vans. 

Sean made very nice tacos with lots of fresh veg for dinner and we enjoyed our current favourite wine – a Tempranillo called Baby Bull. 

In doing the dishes Lisa discovered their shelves under the sink were all wet – the kitchen tap was now leaking very badly. Unfortunately that means a drive back to Krakow for Sean and Glenn tomorrow morning to buy a new tap!