As with most trips, the first day was an early one, heading over to Stansted airport for the first flight out to Kraków. Aside from the usual chaos of getting through Stansted, we had an uneventful journey (exactly what you want). We then picked up the car (quick and easy service from odkryj-auto.pl) and drove down to Zakopane.
After checking in to our accommodation, Willa Bystry pod Nosalem, we lightened our backpacks a bit and headed straight out for a bit of a warmup hike up Nosal. Our accommodation was perfectly placed just five minutes walk from the start of the walking trails. Nosal is a fantastic short route, it’s about ninety minutes of walking from the Bystra entrance to the national park, 4.5km long and ~300m of ascent. So in the context of circular routes in the Tatras it’s pretty short, but what it lacks in distance or height it makes up for in views. Here’s a link to the route
From the summit of Nosal you can see Giewont and the high peaks of the ridgeline running along the Polish-Slovakian border. This is certainly one of the easiest ways to get rewarding views, and if you have kids it’s a manageable distance (although care is needed around some of the areas with notable drops). Previously we did this route with the kids in carriers, which gave us a great way of getting a view with the kids without needing to head up to Kasprowy Wierch by cable car.
One other bonus with this route, is due to the quickly accessible nature of it, it allows early/late visiting without being on the trails at night (something not allowed). Originally we had planned on getting food first then heading out for sunset on Nosal, but we switched things round. I think after the early start, once we’d have sat down, we would probably have stayed that way!
Once we had taken in the views from Nosal, it was time to head down, ditch the bags and walk into Krupówki (the main road with shops/restaurants) where we sat down for a bite to eat and some regional beer to plan the next day.
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Filmed with an Insta360 X3 https://amzn.to/3P3GLpy
Still camera setup Fuji XT5 https://amzn.to/42uMMP1
16-55 f2.8 lens https://amzn.to/3oZTpuT
Peak design capture clip https://amzn.to/3WZq7cz
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