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** SLOVAKIA 2008 - Weeks 7~9 ** |
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 SLOVAKIA 2008 - the NORTHERN HILLS, VAH VALLEY and WESTERN SLOVAKIA: The morning we left the High Tatras, rain clouds filled the entire valley. The road wound through mile after mile of pine-forested landscape, steadily losing height down into the upper Vah Valley and the town of Liptovský Mikulaš where we re-stocked our provisions at one of the ubiquitous Tesco supermarkets. Had the weather been clear, the view from the car park would have presented a spectacular mountainous panorama with the snow-covered Western Tatras and to the south, the Low Tatras. But today, it was an ugly and ominously threatening sky.
Villa Betula's free wi-fi internet
access enabled us to consult the weather forecast which at last
promised a change. The following morning was still cold with autumn
mist covering the hills and chill wind bringing down showers of
leaves; autumn had arrived with a vengeance
(Photo 2 - Morning mist and autumn leaves at Camping Villa Betula).
The sun
So comfortably relaxing had Villa Betula been after 2 weeks of wretched weather in the High Tatras, we faced the next 2 weeks of indifferent and uncertain campsites and dismal weather outlook without enthusiasm.
We followed the River Vah to
Ružomberok, an industrial town pervaded by the smell of its giant
paper-making factory and
In continuing rain, we headed north, crossing wooded hills into the Orava valley and the small town of Dolný Kubín, to visit what must be Slovakia's most spectacularly sited castles, Oravský Hrad. The pencil-thin fortification is perched aloft like an eyrie on its 100m high craggy pinnacle. The original citadel built on the narrow crest of the rocky outcrop, dates back to the 13th century, but later Hungarian aristocratic families enlarged the lower parts into grand palaces. The unimaginably audacious military architecture of Oravský Hrad clearly had been a powerful feudal presence dominating the Orava river valley and trade routes north into Poland, but in wind-driven rain, the climb up the narrow external steps which wind around the face of the crag to the upper citadel was not for the faint-hearted (Photo 6 - The citadel of Oravský Hrad).
T
Our onward journey entailed
negotiating the over- and under-passes of Žilina's notorious traffic
system. This unattractive industrial city has the even more
unattractive reputation as the focal point of Slovak chauvinistic
nationalist extremism. Its former major was Ján Slota, government
coalition partner of the current Prime Minister Robert Fico and
extremist right-wing politician whose provocative racist remarks
against Slovakia's minorities causes such offence. The city has
attracted much foreign investment such as the giant Kia-Hyundai car
assembly plant; the presumptuous arrogance brought on by this
industrial affluence expresses itself in the notoriously aggressive
driving standards of today's Žilina citizens. Against this
background, we by-passed Žilina, but still had to face the infamous
drive along Route 18 through the Domašinsky gorge; this stretch of
road, with its maniacally aggressive speeding, tail-gating and
overtaking, was the most terrifying driving experience of all our
years of travelling; the yobbish behaviour of Žilina's drivers is an
outright disgrace to the Slovak people. Thankfully we reached the town of Martin where Autocamp Turinec was to be our next stop. Martin is another industrial town where the major employer had been the ZTS heavy engineering plant and former monopolistic centre of Warsaw Pact tank production. In the post Cold War market economy however, the company now struggles to survive and has halved its huge workforce. After a walk up Gaderska Dolina in the Vel'ka Fatra hills with the trees glowing golden in the autumn sunlight, we made a brief visit to Martin. It was here that in 1861 Slovak nationalists had proclaimed the Martin Memorandum demanding greater recognition of Slovak rights; the expectations were contemptuously ignored by the ruling Hungarians who imposed a brutal regime of Magyarisation. Slovak nationalism finally triumphed in 1918 with the signing of the Martin Declaration to combine with the Czechs in the new state of Czechoslovakia. Somehow, on a gloomy wet afternoon, the modern centre of Martin seemed a far flung cry from this illustrious past. Continuing westwards, we were to experience yet more vicious and stressful driving harassment. Driving standards in Slovakia are without doubt some of the worst in Europe, with compulsive speeding, complete indifference to other road users, aggressive tail-gating, and homicidal overtaking and cutting-in. It is more than just Slavic machismo, more a case of Slovaks in particular having something to prove. Perhaps Slovakia's history of 1,000 years of Hungarian subjugation and then playing second fiddle to the Czechs in 80 years of combined Czechoslovakia has inflicted an innate inferiority complex, causing the need to prove their manhood by driving everyone else off the road. Whatever the cause, this constant intolerance makes driving in Slovakia a stressful experience.
We had reference to one last open campsite option 12 kms into the hills near to Nové Mesto beyond the less-then-1-horse town of Stará Turá. In failing light and weary after a long day, we found what had once been Camping Dubnik, now totally deserted, But the gate was open and we found a flat area strewn with autumn leaves; the evening was mild and we settled in for a perfect wild camp in this lovely spot. After a totally underwhelming visit to the spa town of Piešťany, we travelled along the Small Carpathians Wine Road; the grape harvest was just beginning and tractors pulling cartloads of freshly picked grapes trundled along the lane. Close to the wine-town of Modra, we found one of the local producers, the JM Vinárska at Dol'any, to taste and buy Mr Lubomír Zubaj's red wines, some of the best we had tried in Slovakia. Visit the JM Vinárska web site Although all in Slovak, the site gives an idea of their products. We also stopped at roadside stalls to buy the local delightfully refreshing semi-fermented grape must, Burčiak (similar to the Loire Valley Bernache) (Photo 14 - Wine tasting at the JM Vinárska Dol'any). Our trip was coming full circle as we reached Senec where we had begun 9 long weeks and many experiences ago. But open campsites were there none, and we had to return up the motorway for a second night at our wild-camp in the hills. It was a dark and dank misty evening with moisture dripping from the trees. With campsite options now fully exhausted, our time in Slovakia had reached its natural conclusion; tomorrow we should make our final visit to Trnava, then cross the border for a night's camp in Austria before starting the cross-continent journey home.
Slovakia has been a very different travelling experience: driving standards have at times been stressful especially close to cities like Žilina, and the Slovak people have often seemed less than gracious in manner. But as always, despite unsympathetic weather, we had learnt much. Never before had we seen so many trees, and this has been one of the most glorious autumns ever remembered. Our lasting sensual recollections will always be:
Like so many of the new East European countries, Slovakia is westernising fast, as EU development funds improve their previously poor infrastructure. Traditional culture, values, courtesies and way of life are in danger of getting pushed aside in the rush towards modernism, but that's perhaps a presumptuous Western European view. Slovakia adopts the Euro in 2009, and it remains to be seen to what degree this will fuel inflation. It is certainly a country to visit, sooner rather than later, and certainly not by mass tourism but by searching out remote rural back-waters. As further encouragement to fellow travellers, we shall be publishing a postscript web edition in a couple of weeks with our now customary Review of Slovak Campsites and Travel Tips for Slovakia, sharing our hard-won experiences of the last 9 weeks.
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It was still raining as we
approached Autocamp Bystrina in the Demänovska Dolina. Everywhere
looked bleakly dismal, just like the uninviting take-it-or-leave-it
attitude at reception and lack of hospitality we were with
difficulty coming to terms with at so many Slovak campsites. On a
wretchedly cheerless and wet night, we settled in, hoping for a
change in the weather for our time in the Low Tatras. The following
morning, wet mist filled the narrow wooded valley as we drove to
find the much-publicised Demänovska Ice Cave. Glaciation in the
cave's depths had only begun to form some 500 years ago, and the
accumulation of ice was much less than at Dobšina visited by us
earlier. The result was significant annual variation in ice levels,
melting during the summer with little remaining by September. With
this disappointment, we hesitated at the cost of visiting the Cave
of Liberation further up the valley, all part of the same 35 km long
Demänovska cave system. In fact, descending into the depths of the
cave to the underground river, we walked through the most impressive
arrays of calcite formations ever seen, forests of stalactites and
stalagmites reflected in water pools (Photo 1 - Calcite
reflections in Demänovska Liberation Cave). 
In search of a more hospitable
campsite, we drove around the Liptovská Mora lake and with
serendipitous good fortune, found the Penzion Villa Betula. The
small campsite in gardens behind the penzion was a stark contrast with the 3rd
rate facilities and indifferent attitudes we had recently faced; although
charges were slightly higher, we were received with bountiful hospitality and
helpfulness by the family, and the facilities were some of the best ever
experienced with spotlessly clean, centrally-heated showers, so welcome on such
bleakly cold mornings, and even a washing machine for a much-needed catch
up on laundry. We happily settled in, and having planned to stay 1
night, finished up staying for 5, enjoying the restful luxury of
such excellent standards and warm welcome; this was one of the
finest campsites ever used. Visit Penzion Villa
Betula's web site to see more of this excellent Slovak campsite:
soon burnt off the mist giving a clear sky for our day in
the Low Tatras mountains. The air was crisply chill and sky misty
blue as we took the Demänovska Dolina chair-lift up to 1,300m to
begin our climb of the 2000m peak of Chopok. A well-constructed path
gained height steadily across the face of the mountain above the
tree-line with distant snow-covered peaks gracing the misty horizon.
We zigzagged upwards, reaching the precipitous rim of the deep
dolina on Chopok's northern side. The path headed up to an
intermediate peak with the main peak clearly visible beyond; in
clear conditions, this was at most a half-hour climb, but we now faced increasing amounts of snow, not fresh and treadable but
hard-packed frozen snow on which it was impossible to get a foothold severely
slowing our progress. We called a
halt at 1,850m to take stock: it would be foolhardy to advance
further in such hazardous conditions, so frustrating when we could
see our objective with just another 150m of height to gain. Taking
photos from our high-point of this glorious mountain scenery, we
reluctantly began the descent
(Photo 3 - Climbing on Chopok in the Low Tatras). Back at
camp, autumn leaves glowed golden in the late afternoon sun and as
the sun set, temperatures fell dramatically.
the still brooding presence of the Slovak
nationalist, Andrej Hlinka (1864~1938) who was Catholic priest here
for many years. Even Ružomberok's paneláki tower blocks were
dwarfed by the paper-making plant with the huge piles of timber
which feed it and towering chimneys whose sour-smelling effluent
engulfed the town. We managed to park close to the centre by the Hotel Kultúra, a distinctly uncultured retro-glimpse of Stalinist era
architecture, and walked up the hill to the church at which Hlinka
served as priest. His statue stood nearby. Hlinka defended his
people against brutal magyarisation enforced by the Hungarian
rulers. During his imprisonment for subversion in 1907, Hungarian
police opened fire on Slovak demonstrators at Černova killing many.
Hlinka initially supported union with the Czechs in 1918 but
increasingly campaigned for an autonomous Slovak state founding the
vehemently nationalist and allegedly anti-Semitic Slovak People's
Party. He died in 1938 to be succeeded by Jozef Tiso who formed a
quisling Nazi state during WW2 and was executed as a war criminal in
1947; had he lived, would Hlinka have followed the same course? He
was reviled under the Communists as a clerico-fascist, but despite
recent rehabilitation of his image and selection of his portrait for
the new 1,000 koruna banknote at independence in 1993, he remains a
controversial figure.
Apart from the Hlinka connection,
there was little else to detain us in Ružomberok, and braving the
chaotic traffic, we headed out to the nearby hill village of Vlkolínec which preserves some of the best examples of rural wooden
architecture in the Liptov region. The narrow approach lane climbs
steeply through alpine meadows filled with delicate autumn crocus (Photo
4 - Autumn Crocus / Meadow Saffron) to
the village. Brightly painted wooden cottages stand end-on to the one
street, and in the centre, a memorial plaque recalls yet another WW2
act of German barbarity: 7 Vlkolínec men (including 3 pairs of
father and son) murdered in reprisal for alleged involvement in the
1994 Slovak National Uprising (SNP)
(Photo 5 - Wooden cottages at Vlkolínec conserved village).
Continuing up the Orava Valley, we
reached the northerly towns of Tvrdošin and Trstená, and turned off
into the dark pine woods of the lower Western Tatras hills to find
Camping Oravice. We had little information about the campsite nor
even if it actually existed, but in this remote region there were no
other options. In gloomy failing light we reached a small
spa up in the hills, and nearby were relieved to find the campsite.
The lady owner greeted us in Slovak, but her reassuring welcome was
clear; perhaps that lady will never know the comfort her warm
welcoming manner brought us; we had a home for the next 2 days.
Gratefully we settled in on the flat camping area, and despite being
1 October, the small bar served us with welcome draught Slovak beer
after our long journey. Darkness fell quickly and we were so
grateful to have found such a hospitable campsite in this remote
location
(Photo 7 - Camp at Oravice in the Western Tatras hills).
With Oravice as a base, we were
blessed with a rare fine day to visit what was probably the most
impressive skanzen of the trip; the Oravian Village Skanzen-Museum
is set deep into the Western Tatras forests beyond Zuberec, an
uncomfortable combination of traditional farming community and
modern ski-resort. With the skyline graced by the elegant
snow-covered 2000m peak of Rohac, we reached a clearing in the
forest and found the
skanzen. 75 traditional wooden rural buildings
from around the Orava region, some dating back to the 16th century,
were reassembled here alongside the Studený stream
(Photo 8 - Traditional wooden buildings at the Orava Skanzen).
All the buildings - farmsteads, mill, school, shops, and church -
were constructed of heavy wooden logs with precisely jointed corners
and gaps between logs filled with moss. In an essentially
tree-covered terrain, timber is the natural building material even
today; never before had we seen so many wood-built houses. Later
that afternoon as small-holders were walking their one cow along village streets home for
milking, we drove to the nearby Polish border;
against the backdrop of the north face of the distant
snow-covered High Tatras mountains, we made our 4th crossing of the
open-border into Poland at the quaintly named village of Chochołow
(pronounced something like hohowov). As always, it felt like a
home-coming as we re-crossed to Slovakia and our remote camp in the
forested hills.
he wretchedly miserable wet weather
re-asserted itself as we resumed our journey, to follow the Orava's
westward course and to turn off over the Mala Fatra hills. Even in
poor light, the thickly wooded hills glowed with every shade of red,
yellow and gold autumn colours. The road descended to the small town
of Terchova, where the spectacular limestone gorge of Vratna Dolina
probes into the hills. But our anticipated day's walking in the
autumn glory of the Mala Fatras was again frustrated by rain and
persistently low cloud. We were thankful for the warm welcome at the
recently modernised Autocamp Nižne Kamence, to sit out the cheerless
weather and prepare our next web edition (Photo 9 - Web editor at
work on a cheerless wet day); never before has cuppa-soup been so welcome, as soaking
mist clung to the wooded slopes obscuring the glowing autumn
colours. But Sunday brought a day's respite from bad weather for a
walk from the Vah river valley up to the ruins of Starý Hrad perched
on a craggy outcrop in the golden leaved Mala Fatra hills high above
the river's meanders. (Photo 10 - Golden autumn colours in the
Mala Fatra Hills). When the sun did occasionally shine, 2008's
autumn colours were simply magical.
But to offset this less pleasant
aspect of life in contemporary Slovakia, we next visited two
remarkable pieces of Slovak rural artwork. At Rajecká Lesná, a
small village tucked into the wooded hills south of Žilina, the
Slovensky Betlehem is a huge, 3-dimensional carved wooded nativity
scene set amidst a tableau of traditional Slovak rural life, backed
by a frieze of famous buildings and hills covered with pine trees.
And the tableau is animated: vintners press grapes and pour wine,
blacksmiths shoe horses, saw-mills saw timber, potters turn and fire
pots, musicians play, dancers dance, and singers sing; miners
trundle trucks out of a mine tunnel, peasants till fields, shepherds
tend flocks, ladies spin and weave in little cottages, worshippers
file into a wooden 3-domed church, and around the central nativity
scene, all aspects of Slovak society pay their respects to the
child. (Photo 11 - The Slovensky Betlehem carved wooden tableau).
This remarkable piece of artwork resulted from 15 years of
dedicated craftsmanship and was completed in 1994.
Further into the hills, we turned off
to Čičmaný, a village renowned for its unique tradition of painted
wooden houses. Each cottage is decorated with white geometric
patterns and abstract outlines of snowflakes, flowers and birds, and
the satellite dishes showed that this was not just an unoccupied
museum. It
is thought that 15th century Bulgarian refugees from the advancing
Turks settled in this region, bringing their Balkan traditions of
painted houses, the designs inspired by the embroidered patterns of
folk costumes. Not only is this rustic artwork impressively
decorative, it doubtless serves a practical purpose in enabling
residents to identify their own house when returning late from the
pub on dark winter nights (Photo 12 - Traditionally painted wooden
house at Čičmaný).
Our time in Slovakia was reaching its
natural conclusion as this late in October it was becoming
impossible to find campsites open. We managed to find one final
campsite at Nitranske Rudno which, although officially closed,
allowed us to stay. The evening sky cleared promising a fine day as
we headed for the towns of western Slovakia and the Mala Carpathian
Wine Road, and uncertain camping for the trip's final days. On a
beautiful autumn day with trees glowing golden in the welcome
warming sun, we headed for the wide valley of the River Vah. Our
first stop was at Trenčin, one of the most attractive and civilised
towns visited, with its fortress-like castle looming above the
charming old centre. The town was a comfortable mix of restored old
buildings and brash modern ones, and local people sat at street
cafés making the most of the warm autumn sunshine. The castle's
lofty donjon gave a panoramic view across the modern town at the
crossing point of the mighty River Vah which wound through the
suburbs (Photo 13 - Trenčin and the River Vah from the castle).
To our delight, we woke to a beautiful
bright and sunny autumn morning; belatedly we were enjoying the
Indian summer we had hoped for in the Tatras. In misty sunshine, we
approached Trnava, a walled medieval town which enjoyed its heyday
in the 16/17th centuries when the Primate of Hungary moved his See
from Esztergom fleeing the advancing Turks and the Jesuits founded
Trnava University. As the Turkish threat receded in the 18th
century, the Archbishop packed his mitre and returned to Esztergom
and the academics to Buda(pest); Trnava's glory days were over. But
the town retains its refined air, the arch-diocese is
re-established, and young university undergraduates still throng the
centre giving Trnava a vibrant and flourishing feel. The central
square of Trojičné námestie with its ornate plague column is
surrounded by elegant medieval buildings, the noble 17/18th century
university buildings and Cathedral of Sv Mikulás are worthy
testament to Trnava's ecclesiastical and academic heritage (Photo
15 - Trnava Cathedral of Sv Mikulás), and
kicking up golden autumn leaves in the park along the medieval town
walls was a lasting memory of this delightful town. But 4-00 pm came
all to soon; it was time to depart from both Trnava and Slovakia,
and we re-joined the motorway to pass through Bratislava and across
the Danube again, recalling our arrival there 9 weeks ago, and to
head for the Austrian border. And that evening, camped near to the
Neusiedler See, our little golden-leafed wild-camp in the hills of
west Slovakia seemed a million miles away (Photo 16 - Wild -camp
among autumn leaves in Western Slovakia).
