With some delay, let’s try to summerize.
The first week was a bit challenging.
Sun and springy green, then ice and snow with the wind from the north.
The 23h by train to reach Poland were quite easy, the time of a slice of Sachertorte in a sunny Wien, a run between the train platforms of Katowice and a comfortable night plus breakfast in Rynek Glowny main square of Krakow.

In Lesser Poland we immediately started to look for the High Tatras which pop out behind some round hills, 100km away from the old capital.

In Zakopane just a quick pop round to the supermarket in order to fill our backpacks with food.
The sun is high and camping is forbidden, but we don’t have many choices if we want to stay in altitude
The paths are well marked, they have different colours – black, red, yellow, green and blue – but I still have to understand their level of difficulty.
At 1600m there is snow and we slide on the path in the mornings.
A polish guide with his ski on the shoulder tells us it is still a good time for ski mountaineering.
We spend two nights surrounded by crowns of peaks between 2100 and 2600m, with a round moon which illuminates our tent and the avalanche around.
Our legs are running in, the adventure is still long and speaking with Rafaeł, a guy of the Tatra’s Rescue Team, we understand that the weather is going to be bad in the following days, so it is better if we go back to the valley.
Polish people don’t have many mountains in the country, so both the experts and the amateurs go to the Tatrzanski Park Narodowy, getting higher the level of risk.

Hitch-hiking is not easy here, only elderly couples who go from a village to another or curious young people stop and give us a ride.
We’ve been doing zig zag on the Polish-Slovakian border for a few days, along the Carpathian ridge and except for us, crossing the little columns with the P and the S marks, there’s not a soul on paths in the woods.

Yesterday we met the first Lemki, an ethnic minority, most of them are Ortodox and of small height which inhabit and live together in these passages away from the big crowds along with Jewish and Catholic people.
The area is full of wooden churches which look like sailing ships.

Under the protective light of a front lamp and a never-ending rain we cross the border again and exhausted we knock on the door of Miki and Helena’s house, a couple of Slovakian Lemki who host us for the night.
We drink a good rakja and sleep in a dry place.

Our curiosity arises, we hope that the weather gets better and the temperature higher.

Glorija is doing a great job as interpreter, the pen fills up the pages of the diary and photography documents with respect.