Stacja Narciarska Małe Ciche

Photo: J.Ciszak/skionline.pl. Of all the ski villages on the Polish side of the Tatras, Małe Ciche has kept the most of the charm of a traditional highland village. Thanks to its somewhat out-of-the-way location in a "dead-end" valley without streams of traffic, a moderate number of guesthouses and private rooms, and the surrounding forests, you can find real peace and quiet here, which suits the village's name perfectly (ciche means quiet). On the other hand, the local ski resort is by no means one of the smallest and has a well-deserved reputation as an ideal place for beginners and families with children. The resort was created a dozen or so years ago, and its centrepiece was a chairlift built in 2004. In 2012 it was dismantled and replaced by a modern Doppelmayr 4-seater detachable chairlift with a loading conveyor, which greatly shortened the ride up. The new lift has a capacity of 2,200 people per hour, is 1.2 km long and has a vertical drop of almost 215 metres (more than Kotelnica in Białka!). Two wide blue pistes run down either side of it, ideal for beginners but also good for dynamic skiing with long turns. A year later the old, dismantled chairlift was installed parallel to the new one, creating a second slope, also with two blue pistes either side of the lift. The lift system is completed by a T-bar parallel to the shorter chairlift and a children's training lift near the new chairlift's valley station. The new chairlift goes up to Polana Zgorzelisko, where there is a third, short T-bar with a blue piste. In total there are five lifts here (including two chairlifts and a children's lift) with a combined capacity of more than 6,400 people per hour, and the pistes add up to almost 3 km. There is also a small snow park. At the valley station there is a terraced car park, a restaurant, a rental shop and a ski service. A second car park is by the top station of that chairlift, on Polana Zgorzelisko, where there is also the sizeable Hotel Tatry with its own restaurant. A great asset of the resort is the beautiful landscape: the pistes and Zgorzelisko have superb views of the Tatras. A problem arises at the end of the season, when the pistes on the west-facing slopes quickly turn wet and piles of pushed-up snow make skiing harder. Even so, Małe Ciche is certainly one of the best places to ski in the whole of Podhale, especially for those who value peace and beautiful views over the number of lifts and pistes.