Middle-aged flash packers

Woke up to rain this morning. Apparently there had been a big thunderstorm earlier. I had slept through it, probably because I’d been kept up by partygoers coming back at 3 in the morning, banging on hotel doors because the person they were sharing with had fallen asleep and locked them out. This is one of those universal things, like wheelie bins or white plastic chairs – it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, hotels on a Saturday night are best avoided.(unless you’re the partygoer of course.)

Oredea was a ghost town today and it didn’t take long to get to the border crossing into Hungary. Expecting at the very least a full search of the car after our last few experiences, we were waved through without so much as a second glance.

And so into Hungary. It was a cloudy morning which lent an unfair feeling of gloom to the area we drove through. As Budapest is one of my favourite cities, Hungary is on my list for a more in depth explore. But not this time.

We motored through a very flat area, famous for its grapes, and I think the famous Tokay wines. Again, very little traffic meant it wasn’t long before we crossed into Slovakia.

The temperature by this time had dropped to 15 degrees. My flimsy skirt, tshirt and flipflops were inadequate for the weather, time to dig out the trousers and fleeces again.

Slovakia has an air of industriousness about it. A massive motorway is currently under construction and the bridges are fantastic. Men were working on the motorway even though it was Sunday. And no they weren’t drinking tea, they were actually doing stuff.

I’m over driving through villages at 30 miles an hour – it takes forever – so it was great to have some stretches of road where we could make some headway.

We Are staying in a place called strbske Pleso in the High Tatras mountain area. It is very spectacular with lakes and jagged peaks. As it was Sunday, there were lots of locals out, strolling around the lake with their children. Nice to see.

We decided to have a saunter around ourselves, but to avoid the crowds, and also make sure we don’t do the same walk tomorrow, we took a diversion.

Three hours later we arrived back in the town. Our route was, as usual, off the beaten path. It was so unexplored that old wooden bridges crossing streams had collapsed and we had to carefully negotiate our way across. Still, it was a nice walk and good preparation for “the big one” tomorrow. A climb up to Ryst, over 2900m, along and down to another town (forgotten the name) where we catch the train home. Should take around 8/9 hours. Exciting!

Slovakia is a very cheap place to explore the mountains from. A beer in a restaurant is about £1. We shared a starter, had 2 main courses and 3 pints of beer for about £20 between us. And the food was great. So far so good.