Sodden and Soaked, Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia

Zagan the motorhome’s doing a fine job keeping us warm and dry. As long as we stay inside that is, the weather’s gone all grim on us. We’ve shifted east, and are sat in a car park in Liptovský Mikuláš, feeling a little depressed (N49.07988, E19.61193). According to our Lonely Planet guide, we should be jealously eyeballing the peaks of the various Tatras mountain ranges which surround us. Instead we’ve been unable to see anything but flapping wiper blades and the green ankles of mountains before they disappear prudishly into low cloud skirts.

Not the most inspiring of places, Liptovský Mikuláš

The guide also relates the story of Slovakia’s version of Robin Hood, a chap named Juraj Jánošík (George to us Brits!) who joined the fight against the ruling Habsburgs (whose museum we wandered a few days ago in Vienna). The story goes that while he was away his mum died, and his father was beaten to death by his landlord for taking time off for a funeral. This understandably drove Juraj nuts, and he went on a general killing and thieving spree. At this point reality and fiction seem to merge to build a ‘stole from the rich, gave to the poor’ legend or a character. Slovakia, like much of central and eastern Europe, has been overrun by various foreign powers in its time, and anyone standing up to them would have been adopted as a hero. Anyway, the chap was finally caught and hung on a hook by the ribs to die somewhere in the town we’re parked up in. Or maybe he was hung. No-one knows.

Last night in Trenčín the football match at the stadium next to us ended 5-2, the home side winning – not surprising as AS Trenčín are top of the Slovak Super Liga. As we lay tucked up in bed in our roadside apartment, the roars of the fans seemed endless as goals after goal went in. The fans leaving were quiet though, and we nodded off with just the occasional side-waft of a passing car or periodic wash of rain to shake us awake.

This morning we showered and breakfasted (cardboard flakes we’re on at the moment – a too-cheap version of cornflakes which are thankfully nearly gone) and left. A short run on the A roads and we were on the motorway, rolling along though green fields as the hills to each side gradually huddled in towards us. Even before the rain came the clouds lay low, jealously guarding any spirit-uplifting sights above the humdrum towns and villages.

3D adverts alongside the Solavak motorway

As the miles passed, Ju realised something didn’t look right. The satnav had us turning off the motorway and onto an A road. Huh? Slovakia only has the one motorway (other than a bit north of Bratislava which just heads straight into the Czech Republic), running east-west across the country, and we were planning on using it almost all the way here. A closer look at the map revealed the numbers ‘2018’ across a long motorway section, including a mile long tunnel. Okey dokey, no wonder the vignette’s only €10, there’s not that much road you can use it on… Off onto the A road, squeezed up against the Váh river by a cliff face, but still an easy run, with us halted just the once on a long section where the surface was being hacked away by a monster machine.

A new section of Slovakia’s motorway being born

Off into the forested countryside. 40% of Slovakia remains forest, compared with 7% in England. Source: Wikipedia 

Slovak village spied from the road. We discussed how we should go see some of the places with no stars or underlines on the map – the non-tourist places – just to see what they’re like close up

As we rode into Liptovský Mikuláš, the rain hammered it down. We came to this town to have a look at the 2016 ECA European Canoe Slalom Championship which is taking place this weekend, and headed straight for it, stopping with a shudder as we crossed the bridge into the site. Ooooeee, hang on, the car park’s on grass, or at least it was, it’s now a sea of mud. Chances of Zagan sinking up to his armpits? Too high. A three point turn in among the traffic and we headed back a way to here, parking up and waiting for the rain to back off.

Once it had, we donned our winter coats (Croatia, come back!) and had a walk over to the event to check out times and prices for the finals tomorrow. It’s a mere €5 each to get in, but we have a dilemma. The weather forecast predicts more dire wet stuff and cold for all days ahead except tomorrow. We want to see the mountains more than we want to see canoeing. Which do we do? At the moment, mountains are winning out, as neither of us are big watersports fans.

The end of the course: the closest we got to the action

Racked canoes waiting for competition

Joe Clarke’s canoe 

The lottery’s funded a transit van and trailer. Canoeing doesn’t look glamorous!

Checking the town out on the way back, it’s dead, dead, dead. Saturday afternoon, and everything but a burger bar is shut. No-one is around. No music, no people, no life, just clouds and damp in the air. Back to the canoeing maybe? Nah. We were in a joint huff by this point. It’s probably more the weather and a bit of travel fatigue than anything else, but Slovakia’s not doing it for me. As far as I can tell, this country’s main draw is the mountain landscapes in the area around us, which we’ve yet to sample. Gimme a few days of decent weather and, if we haven’t already decamped to Poland just above us, I may have another opinion!

Saturday afternoon in Liptovský Mikuláš

Sheep’s cheese is big in Slovakia

Fancy a house for £38,000?

Liptovský Mikuláš

STOP PRESS: after writing this post we looked at each other as we sat in the pouring rain and agreed, sod it, we’d head into the hills, another hour on the motorway. Sorry Team GB, we got rained out and headed up to Vysoké Tatry for the night. After checking most of the car parks, we decided they were all charging, so picked the flattest, if not the quietest, one (N49.14035, E20.22503)!

Our eventual kipping spot in Vysoké Tatry. The attendants arrived about 7:30am, just before we left (dammit! :-)) so it cost us €1.80 to stay the night

Cheers, Jay