February 13 in Snowy Sklarska Poreba

What a drive to Sklarska Poreba. Climbing up to this town at 1300 meters near the Czech border by the Kemienna River Valley on winding road through small towns, mostly picturesque with ruins of castles in some. Then through forest of snow-covered pines and what we think are larch trees - the snow looks feathery on the branches, like the snow flakes are resting. The town stretches over the mountain with a lower part that seems to be where regular life takes place and the upper part by the ski resort which is packed with visitors, esp now, a school break. Dave drove bravely, negotiating the sheet ice portions of road with aplomb. Staying in a penzione next to (by snow covered field) the training site, a former school now used as a social service site. The penzione is beautifully retrofitted with sleeping lofts and sponge painted (?) walls, paintings all around, apparently by the owner.

Dave says:
What a day - left Szczecin around nine, drove in circles trying to get the GPS to help...finally got ourselves found and drove off and quickly crossed the almost non-existent border with Germany - and zip! the road was brand new, smooth, snow swept clean, snowbanks scraped back to the widest spot and we zoomed along at 120 - 140 kph (I'm not sure how fast that is in fahrenheit). Had one coffee stop to spend euros and use my german. At the Polish border, the road turned pothole-ridden again quickly. An hour or so in, we turned up into the country, then - as Lindsay says - into a fantastical wonderland of snow on pines and birches. I kept saying "nobody would believe it". Pictures later.

Thinking about a blogpost about food. Would this lower us in your estimation? Would we seem shallow and touristic? A preview - among our favorites - the mushroom soup in the klezmer restaurant in Krakow and the zurek - a soup made with a sour rye flavor, with potatoes and white sausage in a waterfront cafe called Columbus (as in Christopher) in Szczecin. Strangest but still good - the horsemeat carpaccio with lemon and oil in the Lvov (Ukranian) restaurant in Warsaw. (The picture above is us outside the restaurant, post-horsemeat. Our hosts - the smart, tough young women and men from the Alliance of Local Leaders.

Let me know if we should do a "restaurants and dishes".