Winter Holiday in Zakopane

Why Poland and Why Zakopane?

A friend of ours had posted photos of their snow holiday in Europe. It looked like they had had a great time exploring and lots of fun in the snow. As we had our main vacation booked for this year, we decided to look for a short break during the February half term holidays. We drew up the following list of criteria for the holiday to fulfil.

• Good value for money without compromising on the activities or experience.
• A snow covered resort.
• Ski slopes suitable for skiing\snowboarding beginners.
• Hotel with breakfast and car parking included.

The google search began. We focused on less mainstream locations as we thought this would keep the costs down and quickly noticed that Poland and Zakopane ticked all of our boxes. Seeing the pictures of the snow covered chalets, mountains and ski resorts confirmed our choice and the decision was made.

Our Booking

We booked a short Monday to Friday break, the flights and car hire were booked through easyjet.com

Through Booking.com we found hotel Villa Znana which was perfect for our needs. It included breakfast, was close to Krupowki Street (the main shopping street) and they had a secure car park.

Drive time from the car collection point to the hotel was supposed to be 1hour 30minutes but took 3hours due to traffic volume. Please keep this travel time in mind for your onward journey.

On arriving at the hotel, the receptionist didn’t speak English but we managed to communicate via Google translate.

Our room was spacious but basic, it was fine for the 4 nights we stayed but for any longer it would of been more comfortable to have a sofa to relax on instead of sitting on the bed to watch TV. A continental breakfast was included in the price, this saved us the hassle of having to go out and look for somewhere. There was a large selection of meats, salad and bread but also yogurt and cereal.

There are lots of activities in and around Zakopane, and we quickly made a bucket list of what we wanted to see and do. We were able to book most of the major activities in advance. Whilst this had the advantage of a guaranteed ticket it also meant we had a strict timetable that had to be stuck to.

Zakopane is a great location with lots to do both on and off the ski slopes. We absolutely loved our time here and wish that we could have stayed for longer. I have a feeling that we will be returning…