Weekend in the mountains . . .

Last weekend, the Chronicle staff decided to get out of town and head for the hills, errr, I mean mountains. "Poland has mountains? I did not know that." Yes, dear readers, this country does contain some topographical features but unfortunately it is necessary to take a six hour train ride to see them. So charge up your iPod, buy the latest issue of the Economist, and take along a beautiful blonde traveling companion. We are headed to Zakopane (zah-ko-PAH-nee).

When you talk about this famous mountain resort town, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the legendary Oscypek. This is a cheese made out of salted sheep's milk and sold only in the Tatra Mountains of Poland. The process in making this highly-addictive dairy product sounds relatively simple. You grab the nearest sheep,whisper sweet nothings in its ear, milk it, make some cottage cheese, throw it in a fancy little wooden form for a night or two, and finally smoke it in a hut for a couple weeks. Okay, maybe it's not so simple but the result is absolutely mouth-watering and worth all the effort.

As you walk through the city, there are carts everywhere selling Oscypek. It costs about forty cents for a golf ball sized chunk. Double that price if you want it cooked over an open flame and served just above the melting point. Excuse me, I need to wipe the drool off my keyboard.

After devouring about twenty pieces of smoked cheese, it was out to dinner for some lamb smothered in more cheese. It felt like Thanksgiving in September as we waddled back up the street to our hotel. Fate had also smiled on us upon checking in. We were informed that a tour group had take over the whole 2nd floor so we were upgraded to a suite.

I had to chuckle upon learning that our fellow guests were all retirees from upstate New York. One couple was even decked out head to toe in Buffalo Bills gear on Sunday morning. Hey, whatever works for ya I guess, since the Bills are 4-0 so far this season.

The next morning we spent a couple hours waiting in line for the gondola to take us up to the top of the 6,500 ft Kasprowy Wierch. I think we could've climbed to the top in that amount of time, but there was so much snow near the summit, some skiers were getting lots of early season turns.

After coming down from the peak, we had just enough time to quaff a couple pints, and of course more cheese, before jumping back on the rails. It had been a beautiful but quick weekend getaway . . . Next week, we will report from Prague, site of this weekend's Capital's Cup Rugby tournament. Do widzenia!