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Poland’s Tatra mountains could soon rival Alps as a tourist draw: gov’t minister

22.06.2020 07:15
With a planned new network of roads and rail lines, Poland’s Tatra mountains may soon be able to draw as many tourists as the Italian and Austrian Alps, a government minister has said.
Polands Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk talks to reporters on Saturday.
Poland's Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk talks to reporters on Saturday.Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Momot

Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk said a newly approved government plan for developing the area’s transportation system by 2030 aimed to help the Polish mountain region become as attractive to sightseers as popular Italian and Austrian resorts in Europe’s highest mountains.

“We must do everything to make sure that tourists choose to come to our mountains rather than bypass them on the way to the Alps and further afield," he said.

Adamczyk was speaking on Saturday as he visited Skawa in the southern Tatra region, a village through which a new 35-kilometre divided highway, known as Route No. 7, will run in the future to connect the spa town of Rabka with Chyżne on the country’s border with Slovakia.

The program is designed to help improve access to the Tatra region while maintaining its cultural and environmental values, he also said.

Adamczyk said earlier this month that Poland was moving full steam ahead with road building projects despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking during a visit to a construction site in the east of the country, Adamczyk said that more than 2,400 projects were in progress throughout the country to build and modernise roads, helping save some 1.5 million jobs amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week that a raft of new road projects would help create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Poland amid the coronavirus crisis.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP