Winter sports

Until recently the almost exclusive preserve of skiers from Poland and a few neighbouring countries, Zakopane saw a massive influx of winter sports fans from further afield during the winter season of 2006-2007, giving the town a cosmopolitan flavour it’s never had before. Zakopane boasts a total of 34 runs and 33 lifts ranging from the kind you’d feel comfortable leaving your five-year-old alone on to the ones that gave the town the confidence to make the (failed) bid to host the 2006 Winter Olympics. There are mixed reports about the quality of skiing and snowboarding in Zakopane. Some complain about the chaos (what else would one expect in Eastern Europe?) and the fact that passes often need to be bought for individual runs, whilst others, particularly families and intermediate skiers, can’t say enough good things about the place. One thing that everyone agrees on is a lot has changed since the Norwegian road engineer Regnvald Husebye brought the first skis to Poland in the late 1880s. Zakopane’s race for position as the country’s top ski resort has been a steady downhill run for over a hundred years. The secret world of Zakopane, with its unique atmosphere and increasingly superb nightlife is not as surreptitious as it was.