Magic New Year's Carpathians
The Carpathians are fabulous in winter, you must agree!
The decision to go there was made long before the trip - back in September 2010. In October, we started looking for the very place that would suit us in all the parameters we were looking for:
1. First of all, a detached wooden (! ) cottage, without the owners or other guests living in it. Only our company of 4 people was supposed to live there.
2. Separate rooms for each couple
3. Pictures of beautiful places from various sources inspired the idea of having a fireplace where you can sit and warm up after a frosty day on winter evenings.
4. The surrounding landscape must certainly be innocent and clean, i. e. no rattling restaurants in the middle of a forest or a noisy highway.
5. Proximity of the ski lift
Having imposed all these conditions on the search engine, we realized that it is not so easy to find all the required criteria in one place. It turned out to be especially difficult to find a cottage for 4 people - the minimum that the owners accepted was 6 people.
Not without difficulty, having spent a lot of time, we still managed to find what we were looking for: here it is, a detached cottage that belongs only to us (on a turn-key basis), with a fireplace room on the ground floor, a sauna (! ), two separate rooms on the second , a beautiful view from the balcony, surrounded by primeval forest, and 20 m from a small hill with a drag lift.
The cottage has the name "At Sofia" and is located in the village of Yablunytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk region.
So, a little more on the details:
1. How to get there (not for motorists).
By train from your city to Ivano-Frankivsk, exit the railway station, turn left and go straight to the bus station, which is located 200 meters from the railway station. Minibuses go from there directly to Yablunytsya, tickets are sold in a civilized way at the box office, they cost 18 UAH. with pennies. The first bus leaves at 7.20, then every 2 hours, as far as I know.
Arriving in Yablunitsa, the first stop will be "Central", you need to ask the driver to stop after the stop "Gorgany" after about 200 meters. The identification mark that you need to navigate is the so-called. "kaplichka" (this is a small prayer book in which the Mother of God stands, often placed along the road).
However, the owners will not leave you alone and will lead you by phone to the cottage itself, so keep in touch with them.
2. Cottage.
Having reached the chapel, you need to climb up the mountain road, so it is advisable to be light, otherwise you will slide down : )
And upstairs it is waiting for you - wooden, two-story, with a balcony on the second floor, a fireplace and a sauna - on the first, your cottage for 4 people.
The cottage has everything: bed linen, towels, dishes, of course a refrigerator, 2 TVs, a microwave, a hairdryer, an iron, an electric kettle, even kitchen towels and salt and pepper containers on the table.
So, you don’t need to take things like a hair dryer and an iron with you.
There is a shower in the bathroom, the bedrooms are very comfortable, each has a TV, in the living room there is a corner dining table, in general, everything is created for your comfort, so that you feel at home.
The owner of the cottage, Anya, is a wonderful, kind, sincere and open young woman. She does a lot to make you feel comfortable and at home. During the 5 days that we were in the cottage, she cleaned our house several times.
She prepares food herself, brings it herself and sets the table in the cottage.
Her husband, Vasily, is a noisy man, responsible for ski equipment, a sauna, and solves more masculine issues - what to fix, where to fix, etc.
4. Nutrition.
Meals are included in the payment for housing and consist of breakfast and dinner, but these concepts are relative: we sometimes had breakfast at 10.00 and 12.00, and dinner at 17.00 and 19.00.
Anya cooks the food herself, as I wrote above. The food is absolutely homemade, prepared from products that the owners grow themselves. Anya asks every day what she would like for breakfast or dinner, but absolutely everything cooks amazingly, so the second time we told her to cook at her discretion - we will all.
5. Ski equipment and slopes.
We took skis and boots for them in our own cottage. For guests of cottages (the owners have several of them), the cost of rent is two times cheaper than in the area - 60 UAH / couple / day. So we're lucky here.
The situation with renting clothes is a little worse, you had to stomp to the center in order to rent suits, their cost is also 60 UAH / day / person.
As for the slopes, there are several of them in Yablunitsa and they are all tows:
1 - from our cottage, 20 m, called "Cow", the cost of one lift is 5 UAH, there is no subscription. The hill on this descent is not very good because of the bumps and bumps encountered on the track, but for beginners it's the best, because it is absolutely low.
There is an instructor - 160 UAH per hour, newcomers - it is necessary to hire an instructor, because without this you simply cannot learn the minimum elements of skiing and as a result you may suffer.
The 2nd slope is located at a distance of about 2 km from our cottage, it has the name "Koza", already higher and more professional, there are ski equipment rentals and a hut. The rise costs 10 UAH/person, subscription - 150 UAH/day. The descent is quite steep, so be aware.
3 descent only passed by when we walked along the road for souvenirs, but its view impressed me, of course, it seemed to me quite vertical. It is also ropey and very high. It is located about 3 km from our cottage.
6. Entertainment.
As in any ski resort, the main entertainment for vacationers is skiing. In the evenings, there really isn't much to do. The entertainment center of Yablunytsy is the area near the Gorgana hotel - shops, many hotels, several restaurants, cafes and local establishments - kolyby are concentrated here.
These are the ones I recommend you visit: they are very authentic, interesting, and besides that, they have delicious homemade food.
In addition, you can ride a sleigh that is pulled by horses or ride horses on your own for a tour of the local mountains. All this pleasure costs 100 UAH per hour.
7. Bukovel.
Many vacationers choose Yablunytsya for the simple reason that it is only 12 km from the most famous Carpathian ski resort - Bukovel. From here it is easy to get to Bukovel both by car and by taxi.
It would be wrong if, in addition to all the advantages described here, I did not indicate a few disadvantages:
1. Sauna and fireplace room in the cottage. As it turned out, the sauna and fireplace, as well as the entire first floor, did not belong to us at all. Those. conditionally, it was ours, but the sauna was rented out daily, and the fireplace room, which was in front of it, was used by strangers every evening. This caused great displeasure, especially since the wooden walls let noise through very much and we could hear wonderfully how and with what they have fun in the sauna (( Fortunately, the sauna was always rented out no later than 23.00
2. Movement between the main necessary parts of recreation, such as lifts, shops, restaurants and equipment rental centers is very difficult, firstly, because of the distances (at least 3 km were wound every day exactly), and secondly, from - due to the lack of security, since I had to literally walk along the road to get from point A to point B. But this is not only due to the location of our cottage, but in any part of Yablunytsy, almost everyone walks along the highway.
3. Souvenirs, which we really wanted to buy for our friends and relatives, are located 4 (! ) Km from the place of residence, you can get there only by catching a ride, waiting for a minibus that runs every 3 hours, or on foot. We chose the last option: on the one hand, it was certainly cruel to walk 8 km with untrained legs, and on the other hand, we looked around the area, saw the third lift, enjoyed the Carpathian landscapes, etc.
So decide for yourself whether it's a plus or a minus : )
Small minuses did not overshadow my impression of being in this beautiful point of the Carpathians, the nature of which is unimaginable, people are open and sincere, and the air is simply divine.
Pleasant and you impressions!
