Winter in the Carpathians
When you are going on vacation, you always have the feeling that there will be something new, unusual and interesting. But what feelings to experience if you go to a place where you seem to have been more than once, what new sensations can you experience? To be honest, I didn’t even think about it when I went with my husband for the third, happy time, to our favorite hotel “Carpathian meadows”, since we never had a feeling of dissatisfaction from the rest!
It's not just a vacation, it's a fairy tale! I fell in love with this place from the first time we stayed there with the children, and when I return there again, it feels like I am visiting good friends. The places are extraordinarily beautiful, the air is so clean that in the mornings, there are no impurities of exhaust gases or another discharge from the factory. You just take more of it into your lungs, and you want to keep it in yourself without releasing it. In the evening, there is a romantic smell of burning firewood, and after visiting dinner in a cafe, one just wants to quickly set fire to the house and fall into a rocking chair to meditate near the fire.
As I wrote above, it would seem what to expect from a place where I have already been more than once. I'll tell you what: in every season of the year - this place cannot be called the same and predictable. This year we were lucky to see winter there. Visiting such places, you understand how rich the nature of our country is. This snow-white snow, which has been lying for more than one day, and it is not covered with a layer of dirt or dust, as we have in the Donetsk region - after a couple of hours it is scary to look at it, and even more so to make snowballs out of it. The snow shimmers there and blinds with its purity, you want to fall into it and fool around like in childhood. On this trip, our first alpine skiing in our life was waiting for us - it was indescribable!
I haven’t been so funny and fun for a very long time (I don’t take into account the tenderness from my children). On the first day of training downhill, I literally hung on the instructor for at least an hour, and thought that skiing was not my sport at all. But when the instructor said: “It’s time for me to do business, ” I fell into a trance. How to continue to be... And how to be? I got on skis and went. And, lo and behold, it worked! P. S. The husband spent only half an hour with the instructor, and mastered this wonderful entertainment on his own. When I previously looked at people who were rolling down the mountain, it seemed to me so simple, why did the instructor, everything was clear, got on the skis, and went. As it turned out, in principle, nothing complicated, but until you master your body on skis, the stress of never learning how to do it did not leave a piece of my brain. In short, discarding all the little things, on the first day we were already skiing! On the second day, we even drove off our mountain, which I could not even dream of by the end of the holiday, but we did it!
Since during the two days of our hard training the body made itself felt (to put it mildly, we were all broken, and it felt like we were beaten with bats all over our body for at least an hour), and we rode more than all the hotel guests combined, then on the third We needed a day's rest. But relaxing on the couch in this beautiful place is simply unthinkable, and as by a miraculous coincidence, only the third time we stayed at the hotel, we found out that there is a place Tustan nearby, which is worth visiting. We did not think for a long time, although we were warned that we would go far, but it was hard for my husband and I to be intimidated by long walks, and after breakfast we set off.
On the way we met oil rigs, as if nothing interesting, but we saw them for the first time in our lives, so we walked and looked at them like savages, probably the workers on these derricks looked at us with the same surprise.
The road turned out to be interesting, it was full of animal tracks, and my husband and I tried to guess where whose. And when the road had already gone down the next mountain, we decided that if nothing
If we find it, we will have to return, as the time for lunch was approaching, and such a lunch as in the Carpathian meadows cannot be missed. Their cuisine is something that can probably be easily put into a separate story, since everything seems to be simple, but it is so tasty and beautifully served that you want to savor every bite longer. True, then it’s very difficult to walk, because they put portions there that don’t seem to be large, but I want to try and eat a little bit from each dish, and then it’s problematic to get up from the table. (As for me, there would still be a gym to drive a million calories gained during the rest).
Something got carried away by the kitchen... So, when we almost went down the mountain, through the trees, such an awesome view of the rock suddenly appeared. So cool among the mountains as they say from the earth to see the rocks. If it were at least spring and there were sneakers, we would only spend an hour there, examining every pebble, but you can’t climb much in winter boots and slippery snow, although we couldn’t deprive ourselves of this opportunity. It would seem that they climbed everything, but went out into the clearing to bask in the sun. And the sun was not at all February, but rather April, we saw the ruined fortress. The view was simply mesmerizing: huge hills of a spruce forest, as dense forests used to be drawn in cartoons, and a ruined fortress on the edge.
How amazed I am at the same time these people who live there! This place Tustan was made for tourists: and tables under a canopy (all made of wood), and a fence, and grills, and a statue of the Virgin Mary next to a beating source, well, everything, everything, everything is in perfect order, nothing is broken, not stolen, everything is clean, and calls for rest in this place. I won’t describe what we would have in our region, but I think that tourists would be the last thing we would think about, since the mentality of our people is somehow wrong or something...
I don’t know how to describe the whole train, because every day brought us fun, happiness, joy, so many epithets just won’t fit on the page from what we got there. Skating was so romantic, just class: silence, late evening, a frozen lake and burning lanterns around it, and we, from childhood, remember how to skate. My happiness knew no bounds when I realized that nothing was forgotten, and we never fell! Even a simple ping-pong with my husband after dinner made us childishly amused. Did the air act like that, or food, or just a renunciation of all problems?
We celebrated my husband's birthday wonderfully: we went skiing in the rain. And in the evening they warmed their frozen bones in a magnificent bath, which I cannot but admire. There, well, every step, every movement, and every breath was a pleasure. Good people, there was not a single guest with a gloomy face, as usual in our city you go, look into faces, and there, in your eyes, there are a lot of worries, sadness and something else. Everything is different here! Our sighs were sad only when the day of sending home came, but without feeling joy, you won’t understand how you want to come back here, and we will definitely come back here!
