Taking An Overnight Bus from Prague, Czech to Zakopane, Poland

Zakopane is basically a winter-resort town that is quite famous among Europeans (at least for Poland and Czech). If someone mention Zakopane, these are few things that will come out in people's head who know about this beautiful town.

Winter sports (snowboarding / skiing / sledding), Tatras Mountain, Morskie Oko, Rysy peak. 

Well, they sound just similar to what Czech can serve. But, for sure different countries have different culture. Even though Czech and Poland are neighbors - they even share similar language (again)! but we can expect different experiences :)

Ala, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapura tu kan serumpun tapi untuk orang yang dah jejak ketiga-tiga ni faham rasanya perbezaan tu. Hehe

Turn right to Zakopane

Wait, did not I say that I went hiking to Morskie Oko, Poland? 

Yep, you are correct. 

Prague - Krakow - Zakopane - Morskie Oko

1. How was the journey?

If we refer to the map above, to get to Morskie Oko by bus from Prague is not a direct journey. It will be like this:

• Prague - Krakow (7h 30m by Polskibus)
• Krakow - Zakopane (2h by Mejarbus)
• Zakopane - Morskie Oko (20m by local minibus)

The total of 10 hours on road! Hehe.

My bus to Krakow, Poland

2. How to choose bus options?

There are few choices of bus / train to get to Krakow - here are few of them that I can list out (Flixbus, Student Agency, Polskibus, Ecolines). You can search it online I guess. Things to consider when booking a ticket are:

• Duration of journey (some may takes up to 15hours, with 1/2 transits)
• Prices (some with shorter duration but more expensive!)
• Time of journey (if you want to cut cost for accommodation, overnight bus is what you need)
• Comfort (so far, I've tried Flixbus, SA, Polskibus - they are awesome. I personally prefer SA more!)

Krakow train station is just next to bus station, you will not get lost. 

3. How to survive an overnight bus ride?

Since that was not my first time to Krakow and uncountable times on overnight bus ride, I can say I prepared myself well for the trip. I've posted a post on this topic, click to check it out. :)

I reached Krakow at about 4.30am and I was very glad that the bus station was already opened. Seriously this is one of the thing you should think about overnight bus, especially for solo-traveler. Search around if:

• Will you be safe to stay outside? (most countries have polices walking around)
• Is there any place we can warm ourselves? (you don't want to imagine staying outside during winter)
• When is the next connecting bus? (take the earliest connecting bus unless you want to stroll around the city you transit)

Bus to Zakopane from Krakow

emilysguidetokrakow.com

I found this website to be very helpful for guides between Krakow - Zakopane - Morskie Oko. Most of the facts mentioned are quite up to date. Just, I think the price of bus Krakow - Zakopane has raised from 15 zloty to 17 zloty. 

The best part is most buses for these routes provide free WiFi on board :)

Sunrise from the bus.

4. How to pray during the journey?

This is a quite famous question I received. I would love to make a separate post on this, insyAllah - about kiblat (direction to pray), khuf, praying on moving transportations etc... but I need to do a simple, proper post to prevent misunderstanding. Unfortunately I don't have any soft copy or hard copy of the knowledge I received about this when I came to Czech for the first time.

For now, you can read more about that on these links:

• Solat dalam kenderaan - Utusan
• Praying in a moving vehicle
• Salah when on a plane, train or bus
• Fiqh Solat Luar Negara - Azam Russia

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Dworzec = station. It is a Polish word for any train / bus station. In Czech, station is nadrazi. 

A very simple bus station. This one is for buses arriving to or leaving from Zakopane. Buses within Zakopane are located in the other station / stops (just around this area).

If you desperately need to change money, there are few of exchanges around the bus station. After walking around, I found one exchange office in Krupowki street that offer good exchange rate. 

I will take you around Zakopane & Morskie Oko in the next posts. :)

Till then.

HK, Czech

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