An instant loving

Hungary has been beautiful, rewarding and relaxing, but is has been a little flat, not great for walking, perhaps Slovakia will provide more conducive landscapes.

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We head out of Miskolc, still unsure about the scale of this city. We get completely lost, one of the drawbacks of having no satnav. Eventually we head in a vaguely north direction and eventually find the road we are looking for. We head up a large flat river valley and cross a non-descript abandoned border. These are both EU countries and therefore we won’t be getting a passport stamp here.

Slovakia is a small country and we have allocated just five days to see it, but what really excites us about this place is the hills and mountains.

And soon as we cross the border the landscape begins to change; the undulations begin to increase, the hillsides get covered in pine trees and the air begins to freshen. It is strange that you can instantly know that you are really going to like a place.That is how we feel about Slovakia.

We have actually planned two visits to Slovakia. We are going to head for the hills and mountains first, with a couple of cultural stop offs of course.Then head up into the Czech Republic, before heading back towards the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava.  Anyway that is the plan, but plans can always change.

Our first stop is Roznava and to be honest the only reason we are here is to see how much the internet data packages are. If they are cheap OK, if not we will use free Wi-Fi.

The town is quite cute, except for the Tesco slap bang in the middle. I object to Tesco architecturally, they are just so ugly. Even the branding is an affront to good taste. But the car park is useful, as is the free Wi-Fi, but we rarely shop there. These stores we find have been a plague across Hungary, and now Slovakia. Of all the things we could export from the UK, all the good stuff and these poor emerging capitalists happen to get Tesco!

Beyond this blot on the landscape, the town square is quite beautiful.

The mobile operators seem to be the usual crew; Orange, T mobile and this time also O2.

T mobile is a dead loss. They don’t speak English and also I think the deals are rubbish. They seem to be the old national operator that has been bought out, but this does not mean the personnel has changed, nor the attitude. They still lack customer service are hopelessly inefficient  and the deals are brutally uncompetitive. Perhaps they only survive because of all the existing infrastructure they control, like BT in the UK. At BT it took two decades before they were economically viable and nimble!

O2 are across the road, this is more like it. Eventually we get to a prepaid deal of €15 for 5GB which lasts a month. Perfect. We will have one of those please.

But this is one of the advantages of capitalism and free market competition – when governments don’t intervene , but this is another story – . T Mobile will eventually catch up when customers go for more competitive deals and better service. T Mobile has a lot of work to do in these countries. SM

The whole of eastern Europe has been about this cost. Great value.

Teched up and ready to post, we, once again,head off into the hills.

They start quite small and cute, more hilly embankments.

But as time passes,

They start to grow in stature.

And soon, Dora is once again, reluctantly climbing through hills.

Until everything is below us…majestic.

It is getting late on in the day and we need to find somewhere to park. This lake seems a promising spot.

We traipse around the perimeter to the local village,

It is lovely here, but there area lot of people around. We can already see that the hills are really popular with the local Slovak people, everybody seems out, all clutching walking sticks and with backpacks on their backs.

We prefer the area around the dam. This seems quieter, although there is a station adjacent to it. Hopefully there won’t be too many night trains trundling past.

We vaguely remember a couple of trains passing in the night, or maybe that was a dream. The next morning is beautifully clear and warm. Time to explore and to work out what we are going to do for the next few days.

We need to find Poprad. A largish town where hopefully we can get all the information we need and some maps.

We pass many delightfully small villages nestles in the river valleys, shaded by the pin covered hills.

Some are really quite alpine in character, with their steep overhanging roofs.

But eventually, we pull into a larger valley, and there set out in front of us is the High Tatras, the main reason we are here, with its 2500m peaks.

In Poprad we buy some maps and pick up some pamphlets. We are really excited about the few days.

But what to do this afternoon.

We passed a cave on the way in, an ice cave. We have no idea what to expect so we back track to find out.

I suppose in hindsight  it could not have been more obvious. An ice cave is a cave full of ice!

The tour guides are obviously speaking Slovak and only have a little English, but is seems during winter the snow has got into the cave, but has nowhere to go. Gradually it has compacted to form an underground glacier.

This keeps the surrounding temperatures really stable and very little melts during the summer.

It was discovered over a hundred years ago and was opened to the public almost immediately and you can see why.

The patterns in the ice are truly stunning, although it is bloody chilly down here.

Especially when walking through the tunnels. We are so glad we bought our fleeces, although perhaps the shorts weren’t such a great idea!

The ice is up to 12m thick and when my mother gets to read this she will be really jealous due to a fascination with glaciers.

Well you can’t get much closer than that, although it isn’t really your traditional glacier.

It even creates its own ice stalactites and stalagmites as water drops through crevices in the ceiling and then freezes

Well that was a really special experience, and quite unexpected, back to the main valley…

but this time using the local roads, never take the same road twice unless you really can’t avoid it.

We reach our resting point for the night. This is the starting point for tomorrows walk and we are really excited about it. It seems many locals have been out enjoying the outdoors today, but gradually they start to gravitate back to their cars and leave, until there are just a few vehicles left.

It is such a lovely evening we decide to get the barbeque out. We have some trout in the fridge, what a great meal to end the day.

GDR