Zakopane is a city which we have looked forward to as a bus group. It was finally time to actually explore Zakopane as a city and really enjoy its wonders. We started our day with breakfast: cereal, bacon, coffee etc... whatever you could have wanted, it was there. After breakfast, we started our day's trip.
We began with a long bus trip to a beautiful church nestled amongst the Tatra Mountains, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. It was a wooden structure and was considered extraordinary as it is able to stand without the aid of nails.
After our visit at this stunning chapel, we were taken across the road to engage in mass in a newer section of the complex.
Mass concluded, and we were ushered back on to our bus and began another long bus journey back to our hotel. There we ate lunch before boarding our bus again to go to a scenic walk not far from Zakopane amongst the mountains.
The walk was something that left each and every one of us awe inspired. There we were left to really think about what we had experienced a few days before in Kraków and contemplate how we were going to work the things we had gained into our daily lives.
We headed back to our hotel and engaged in our retreat program, both as a whole bus and in our smaller pilgrim groups. We all shared ideas about what quotes of Pope Francis from World Youth Day really meant to us as individuals, as well as heard from each of our PGLs and our Youth Ambassador on how Kraków had changed them. We ate dinner, had some free time and then gathered into a hall for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, where we sat and prayed for an hour before being sent to bed where we will now rest after a long day.
