And so farewell, Dobra

Today Eddie and I drove home to Warsaw after 13 nights in wonderful Dobra. I would wholeheartedly recommend the place to anyone looking for a genuine Polish mountains (well, foothills) experience, staying with genuine people, eating genuine food, and a great place for starting long steep walks that don't involve crowds (as they do in Zakopane and the Tatras).

Above: Dobra's latest two inhabitants, Rysia and Maks. There's always new life arriving, but life is unsentimental. The previous brood of kittens was killed by a pine marten (finally chased out from under the eaves of the summer house where it lived by all-night radio played loud). Still, the new arrivals were a wow with the younger residents.

Right: Pan Tomek does his party piece - balancing a flaming cone made from rolled up newspaper on his nose. An incredibly fit man, Pan Tomek and his wife walk Poland's mountains from the German border to the Ukrainian one, and were in Dobra to take on some of the longer walks from here.

I look forward to my next stay here - autumn or winter, spring or summer, this is for me an ideal place to recharge the batteries.

And finally a big thanks to our hosts, Zofia and Staszek and their children, wonderful people.