Archive for the 'trekking' Category

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hike to the Castle of Strecno (and mushrooms!)

Published on August 2, 2008 in trekking. 0 Comments

This was first of my trips around Slovakia – decide where to go on the spot, pack and go however possible.

This spot was one of those I was looking forward to go to, Strecno is now a small village few km away from Vrutky (my hometown). Before it was an important place because it is on the side of the river Vah which was followed by an important merchant road, that is also why two castles – and old and newer have been built to guard it.

I went to the Old castle, now just a ruin, but the path took me under the New castle which is now partly renovated and serves as a museum. On the way I stuffed myself with wild blackberries and found a bagfull of mushrooms.

See the pictures from the trip and also few of my hometown here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/klepo.slovakia/CastlesOfStrecnoAndPickingMushrooms

first trek – the mountains “Fat” and “Sharp”

Published on August 1, 2008 in trekking. 0 Comments

So here it is what I was looking for – trying to get damn tired hiking up a hill and taking deep breaths and long views of Slovakia…

Todays destination are two hills in the valley that I call home, the first one is called “Tlsta” (1373 m) which means “fat” and the second is “Ostra” (1247 m) which means Sharp. They are part of the same mountain range and are actually twins. Their names come from their shape – one having a flat and the other sharp peak.

The altitude might not look too impressive – in Pakistan even the holiday hills of Murree are more than 2000 m above sea level and I hiked to Kutwal Lake at 3260 m without any problems, but the important thing is the starting altitude of 500 m (thus we made 800 m ascend in like 3 hours) and the fact that the highest mountain of Slovakia (and whole Central Europe) is “only” 2655 m tall. Its a moderate difficulty hike for few hours…

On the way we also stopped and went into the cave of Mazarna – an around 50 m long opening in the face of the hill, the Castle of Blatnica is also very close but we didnt have time to stop there. Generally it was a very pretty hike and even though the “promise of a storm” in the sky was haunting us all the time it didnt rain until we have been down and safe.

See the pictures album from the trip here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/klepo.slovakia/TheCaveMazarnaAndHillsTlstaTheFatAndOstraTheSharp