![](https://s.inyourpocket.com/img/text/poland/krakow/zakopane-tatras_ms16_photo_adobestock.jpeg)
The gateway to this landscape for most visitors is Zakopane, a small sheep-herding village at the foothills of the High Tatras which blew up into a popular mountain resort in the late 19th/early 20th century. Today the town is more popular than ever, not only for its clean air, beautiful views, thermal spas, skiing and mountaineering opportunities, but also as the centre of Polish highlander culture, with its vibrant folk music and costumes, unique wooden architecture, delicious regional cuisine (including the famous oscypek) and strange mountain dialect of the Polish language. For better or worse (the latter if you ask us), Krupówki - Zakopane’s high street - has become a major tourist destination for food, shopping, nightlife and entertainment, and the town has been dubbed PL’s ‘holiday capital’ due to the influx of tourists it sees nearly year-round, but particularly in the winter (for skiing) and summer (for hiking). As such, the autumn and early spring ‘off-seasons’ are an especially good time to visit, when the crowds are more manageable.