Hotel Bellevue Vysoke Tatry

We made a short stop in Brezno, Slovakia. We were planning on staying at a campsite about 30 minutes outside the small town of Brezno. Now when you get 30 minutes OUTSIDE of a small town...your pretty much in the middle of nowhere! We drove down a country road up to the campsite. Well after driving around the chickens and the goat we realized the campsite was really just a guys backyard. We were tempted to stay for the goats sake ...

The Tatra Mountains are the natural border between Poland and Slovakia, and there has always been this question of which part is more beautiful. The secret is as follows: they are too different to compare. The Polish part is full of people, noise, activities, shops and festivals. The Slovakian part is quiet, peaceful and almost virgin-like, despite its well-developed infrastructure. It's simply because it's much ...

Medzi Delavou a Hnilcom je to snad este krajsie. Rieka Hnilec, cyklocesta, luky a jednokolajka. Sem tam okolo nas prebehne jednovagonka. Je naozaj prijemne, mame stastie na pocasie. Dufajme, ze nam to takto vydrzi, dnes malo povodne cely den prsat .

Hnilec ma velmi prekvapil. Cakal som doslova nejaku cigansku dedinu no aj ked tu zjavne ziju, je tu cisto, klud. Atmosferu umocnuje krasne pocasie, je prijemne teplo. Spravili sme si tu malu prestavku a ...

... alas, it wasn't to be. It was the last day of the season for the campsite and I was politely booted out.

With great annoyance I overloaded my motion maker and headed for the nearest suitable place to sleep. It turned out to be a smelly crumbling hotel....booked in at 3p.m and was sleeping by 3.30.

... with jacuzzi but, nonetheless, it still has the atmosphere of a small hamlet nestled at the foot of the mountains.

So as not to come out too biased, let me describe briefly the biggest drawback of Bukowina Tatrzańska, which is its location. It is situated on the hills, and thus no street is horizontal. If you want to go anywhere, you should take into account that at least one way you'll be climbing up. It's a problem if ...

... knew we needed a big of a rest before we attempted it!) off we went spurred by the knowledge that that night we were going to hook into one the locals pizzas and eat one to ourselves without feeling guilty ( no we didn't do the XXL but the pizzas are large enough anyway!) Trekking the High Tatras, although bloody exhausting, was simply amazing and truly worth it... Mount Warning has nothing on this baby! Check out the pictures, words ...

... ludi a ako casto sa v rieke uz utopilo. :-) Cestou naspat od prielomu Dunajca do Cerveneho Klastora sme si mohli vybrat ci sa zvezieme autobusom, bicyklom alebo si tych 10 km preslapeme peso. Nakoniec sme sa rozhodli pre pesi presun a za odmenu sme dostali moznost vyskusat si nase novej nepremokave bundy. Obstali najednotku a preto odkazujeme ich vyrobcom HIP-HIP-HURAAA.

... soon after midday. From here on the scenery was utterly spectacular. A huge dump of snow left the trail, trees and stream completely covered in ice, and with the bright blue sky above it made for some excellent photos. We stopped for a while at the frozen waterfall known as Razcestle Vodopady before continuing on through the forest. The suns rays filtered through for the most part, meaning we found it difficult to maintain a constant temperature. Coats ...

... to a few of them for awhile while I waited for my meat and potato dumplings with sauerkraut. The food was great! I got called back over to the other table, so stayed and chatted with them for a while longer. They were all working in Czech Republic and were in the Tatras for a convention. After a few funny comments made to embarrass their younger coworker, and a few warnings about some of the countries to come, they took off to catch the cable car back to ...

... doesn't do them justice. Located pretty much in the centre of the country, and it being a lovely clear day, we could see as far as the boundaries with Hungary, Ukraine and Poland, and would probably have been able to see the Czech and Austrian borders had it not been for the Velky Fatra and Mala Fatra ranges in the way. It was a shame to hit the highlight of the day so early on; it was all downhill from there, both literally and metaphorically. The next few hours were ...