The big mountain ridge is the border between the countries. We'd done a little scouting at the trailhead the day before, and were planning to do a 4-hour round trip hike. 

Unfortunately NOTHING in town was open! literally nothing! There was nowhere to get water for our hike. We didn't want to climb too far up the mountain with only the small water bottles we had already. So we picked a much shorter loop.

This hike was crazy. We were not mentally prepared for how strenuous it would be. Apparently the Polish don't believe in switchbacks because it was basically 30 minutes of climbing a steep rock staircase straight up the mountain. 

Then we got to a point where the entire trail was coated in ice. We had to tramp through the mud and hold on to tree branches to make our way up. It was also quite windy and at one point we thought one of the tall pines was going to break and fall on us. There were many fallen trees on the trail. 

It was very nice and peaceful. We really miss hiking. We are thinking we may train to do a 3-4 day hike sometime in the fall. Jillian wants to climb Denali one day, which is a 21-day trek. Not exactly something we can train for in super-flat Louisiana. 

We had planned to spend the afternoon shopping but again nothing was open - except the spa. Josh took a beer bath, which is literally sitting in a hot tub filled with beer...while drinking beer. 

Today is another travel day. Our flight from Kraków to Warsaw is on a a prop plane which Jillian is freaked out about.  If you're reading this post it means we survived!

Also, they didn't have our reservation for our flight to Lisbon when we got to the airport. LOT airlines was pretty chill about it, but we have to go deal with the Portuguese airlines (TAP) when we land. We definitely have not had the greatest luck with our air travel this trip, but it's been worth it! 

Now on to Part II of our adventure: Portugal!