TATRAS - SLOVAKIA

The High Tatras are part of the Capathian mountains and are the border between Slovakia and Poland. We drove to Poprad to find that the apartment we'd booked online actually was as good as the featured photo. It was close to the train station and the city centre and was big enough that we could have stayed comfortably for months.

From Poprad we took a train up to a small village on the slopes of the Tatras, Stary Smokovec - not much happening at present but as soon as the snow arrives I imagine it will be a busy ski village. We have generally agreed with the Lonely Planet descriptions, but today was not so successful. On advice from the guide book we took a bus to the small town of Zdiar to look at the painted log cabins. We should have known something was up when the woman in the tourist centre said there was no particular bus stop for the centre of town, the bus route stretched 6km with several bus stops in Zdiar. We checked with the very unfriendly bus driver who sold us tickets to Zdiar then drove straight through without stopping for us. There only seemed to be a few painted houses along the 6km  - glad we didn't get off and walk! We got off at the end of the line in a deserted village, snacked on bread rolls which we filled with salami and some very orange lookinng cheese, then caught the return bus back to where we had started.

Our communication problems continued back in Stary Smokovec when we thought we were ordering a goulash-type lunch and ended up with a huge goose drum-stick served on purple cabbage and partially cooked flat bread. Later that evening we discovered that unless you specify otherwise, the standard beer here is 700ml which costs around AU$1.80. It was a day of lovely sights but terrible indigestion.

The next day we drove back to Bratislava via Banska Bystricia which turned out to be one of those great unexpected finds that make your day on the road, and then on to Banska Stiavnica, a pretty town in a valley which has been mined for gold and silver for over 200 years. The whole town is Unesco-listed.

Banska Stiavnica



Banska Bystrica