Gifts & Souvenirs

The good people of Zakopane have adapted to free market commerce perhaps better than any others in Poland. The town’s attractive streets and gingerbread houses have been all but totally obscured by an army of grinning locals selling everything from spindle-shaped cheese to ersatz bearskin rugs. The pull is so intense in fact that very few people, no matter what they say about the tackiness of the place, find themselves leaving Zakopane without at least one górale-related souvenir stuffed in their luggage. As well as running the gauntlet of ul. Krupówki, it’s worth having a look around the large market at the northern end of the above-mentioned street (Open 08:00 - 14:00). The mega-tacky version of Kraków’s Cloth Hall immediately in front of the Tatra Museum on ul. Krupówki is also worth having a poke around.