The lake in Zakopane.

Our hostel was, by far, the coolest hostel of the trip. An old farmhouse, decked out with wood, tucked away in the woods no more than 5 minutes away form the Tatras National Park.

The hiking routes were much more accessible than in the Ukrainian Carpathians. So on the first day we decided to got for the 'must-do' hike of Zakopane which is a 9km hike up to a lake. It was a busy trail, but no so busy that it was ruined. And the 9km walk was well worth it in the end. The lakeside was packed, to be honest, but the surrounding area was incredible. Huge mountains ridges encircled the clear lake. it was so clean that you could see the rocky bottom and the fish for 5m out.

We cheated on the way down by getting a horse and cart. We still had to get dinner and stuff after all! We ended up getting pretty drunk that same night, with some new British arrivals and some Polish guys from Gdansk. We drank a lot of vodka, delicious, dizzy making vodka.