Metravel city quest
City Karpacz: free walking route “quest: in the Mountain Spirit’s realm” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 4 h. Quests and legends - straight from your
The Karkonosze Mountains have a master. Germans call him Rübezahl, Czechs Krakonoš, and Poles Liczyrzepa, or simply the Mountain Spirit. Shepherds and woodcutters told stories about him long before the first holidaymakers. He wanders the ridges as a bearded old man with a staff, a hunter or a monk, or even as mist or a storm. The local weather, changing ten times a day, is his mood.
His agreement with people is simple. He tests a kind traveller by pretending to be poor, then rewards them. He punishes the greedy and cruel with illusions and turns a cheat's gold into dry leaves. But there is one thing he never forgives: mockery. The name “Liczyrzepa”, “turnip-counter”, is itself a taunt. Once the Spirit abducted a beautiful princess. Pining for home, she tricked him by asking him to count all the turnips in a field. While the lovestruck mountain lord counted, the princess escaped to her fiancé. Ever since, shouting “Count your turnips!” in the mountains has been a sure way to learn what the Mountain Spirit is like in a rage.
You will walk through his realm from bottom to top: from the lower edge of town, past museums preserving his portraits, to a monument where he looks exactly as he does on a map of 1561. Then you will follow the River Łomnica, which he once unleashed, to a Norwegian church on the border of his upper kingdom.
The route is about six kilometres, gently uphill all the way, with an elevation gain of about 300 metres. We begin at the Municipal Toy Museum on Kolejowa Street.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
We begin with a building that remembers people with suitcases arriving in the Mountain Spirit's kingdom. Since 2012 it has housed the Municipal Toy Museum, a collection assembled by Henryk Tomaszewski, the famous mime and founder of Wrocław Pantomime Theatre.
Opening hours: Tue–Fri 09:00–16:30, Sat–Sun 10:00–17:30; closed Mondays · Ticket: Ticket 10 zł, concession 5 zł
Head downhill along the main street, Konstytucji 3 Maja, and turn into Kopernika Street. Here an old timber-framed house has housed the Karkonosze Museum of Sport and Tourism since 1974.
Opening hours: Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00; closed Mondays · Ticket: Ticket 15 zł, concession 10 zł, audio guide 5 zł
A large pale boulder lies in front of the municipal offices on the main street: Zimowy Kamień Everestu, the “Winter Everest Stone”. The mountain's name and height are carved on one side.
The next stop is a house whose doors conceal an entire “underground kingdom”: the interactive museum Karkonoskie Tajemnice, devoted to these mountains' legends.
Opening hours: Daily from 10:00 (seasonal closing time, usually 18:00–20:00), except 1 November · Ticket: Ticket 45 zł, concession 35 zł; cheaper online (36 / 29 zł); children under 4 free
Walk a little further to the square by the main street. An entirely different Mountain Spirit stands here, far older than his neighbour.
Just beyond the monument roars the Łomnica, beside a structure with which people answered the Mountain Spirit's most terrible whim. In July 1897, after heavy rains, the Łomnica, a river falling nine hundred metres over nineteen kilometres, became a monster.
After the dam begins a long climb along Konstytucji 3 Maja and Olimpijska streets towards the Wild Waterfall. If you wish, you can first visit the main entrance to the lower Kopa chairlift station: this detour adds about 250 metres to the walk.
Ticket: Ride up: adult 75–85 zł, children and young people under 18 55–60 zł (depending on season)
From the dam, the main route climbs about two kilometres along Konstytucji 3 Maja and Olimpijska streets to the Wild Waterfall. If you visited the lower chairlift station, continue from there to the waterfall along public paths.
The route ends at the most unexpected building in the Sudetes: a wooden church built in Norway, at the turn of the 13th century, above Lake Vangsmjøsa. When the dilapidated stave church in Vang village was to be demolished in 1841, Prussian King Frederick William IV bought it for 427 marks.
Opening hours: 15 April–31 October 09:00–18:00; 1 November–14 April 09:00–17:00; on Sundays and holidays, sightseeing after 11:30 (because of services) · Ticket: Adult 16 zł, children aged 6+ and students under 26 9 zł; courtyard-only admission 2 zł
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.