To travel on a lean wallet is really to perform a mental landgrab with a shoestring. It is a necessary corollary to having both limited time and money. The further one goes from home (and by extension the higher the original transport expenses), the more frenzied becomes this scramble to cover ground. Decisions become key - which places to include, how much time to spend there, what are the back-ups, when to change the plan. And then - have we made the right call? Because we've come so far, and we're not coming back again.
Below: Snilovske Sedlo (Snowy Pass in Slovak) in the Mala Fatra Mountains, where Plan C landed us. Zilina is a really useful base, though there's little to see in it.
Our plans for Zilina, where we spent two days between Poprad and Bratislava, underwent two iterations. These demonstrated how options were legion in this unprepossessing hub of a city. Originally we had intended to visit the Sulov Rocks southwest of town. The rock spires in these low hills have come to be known locally as the Slovak Dolomites. Having seen the High Tatras, we thought better of it. Plan B was to visit the castles of Strecno (just 7 kilometres east of town along the Vah, Slovakia's longest river and historically an important east-west conduit of communications and trade) and Orava (an hour and a half by bus northeast). Plan B withered when, on the train from Poprad, we saw the ridges of the Mala Fatra Mountains pulse on the northern horizon. Mountains > Castles.
Plan C was to take the cable-car to Snilovske Sedlo (Snowy Pass in Slovak) in the Mala Fatras. Having learnt the bus schedule, we later contrived to screw it up by first dallying over breakfast and then trusting to local contingencies which didn't exist. Having missed the direct bus to the cable-car station from Zilina, we really should have waited for the next one. But that didn't leave for another three hours and I thought we could shave at least an hour off by looking for alternatives along the way.
So we boarded the next bus for Terchova (which was en route, and the closest thing in the Mala Fatras to a ski resort town), tried looking for a taxi to the cable-car station (there was none), settled for another bus that only took us halfway and tried to hitch the rest of the way. Thank God for a kind Slovakian skier who stopped for us. We saved 15 minutes. The unfortunate sequence of events neatly encapsulated our contrasting approaches to travel - Mary likes to take her time, I like to take my chances. As with all polar disagreements, the truth lies in between, under molten layers of conflicting conviction where nobody cared to look.
Below (top to bottom): Terchova, gateway for visitors to the Mala Fatra National Park; walking towards the cable-car station, after the bus alighted us halfway and many hundreds of metres before we got a hitch.
The cable-car station looked closed. The cashier at the ticket booths looked like she didn't expect anybody. Emblazoned with decals showing a capped leprechaun-like figure grinning over heaps of gold, the cabins looked like Scrooge McDuck's famous treasure-filled pool. The figure depicted had a nobler place in Slovak folklore though. He was none other than Juraj Janosik, an eighteenth-century Robin Hood-type character who hid in these parts and who today is hailed as a national hero for fighting oppression on behalf of the downtrodden Slovaks.
We shared our cabin with another family of three. Papa had a DSLR slung around his neck, Mama their 3-year-old daughter. They used to go on photography excursions into the Slovakian mountains, but confessed that their daughter's arrival consigned those trips firmly to the past. This brief, clairvoyant glimpse of our own future was burned out of my head by a sudden brightening of the cabin. We had been lifted above the tree line, and the weather was clear. I kept a tight lid on my excitement, determined to not embarrass the child by beating her in the enthusiasm stakes.
Below: The upper station on a beautiful day - worth all the trouble getting there.
Set between the two highest peaks in the Mala Fatras, Snilovske Sedlo thoroughly deserves its name. We observed that the snow on its northern and southern slopes was textured differently. The south-facing slopes looked almost pristine, with only the faintest of furrows betraying the intrepid folk who trekked up on skis and snowshoes, pressing doggedly on to either Velky Krivan (highest peak) or Chleb (second highest). The north-facing slope, where the upper cable-car station stood, resembled a field torn up by giant gophers - here a track of potholes which heavier footfalls expanded and deepened, there a series of white bumps which were the unmistakable signs of clumsy tumbles down the slope. No prizes for guessing which crowd we better belonged to.
Above (top to bottom): Seasoned cross-country skiers hike up the southern slopes leading up to Snilovske Sedlo, with lithe lines in the snow the only sign of their toil; Meanwhile, ordinary folk plod up the northern slopes, showing the world the only way a snowfield can be scarred.
Below (top to bottom): Panoramas atop the saddle - first to the south where the Velka Fatra Range can be seen (the tallest hump-backed ridge to the right is Velky Krivan, the tallest peak in the Mala Fatra; Chleb is the other hump close to the leftmost margins of the photograph) ; and then to the rest of the Mala Fatra Mountains to the north.
Below (top to bottom): Respective close-ups of the Velka Fatras and the Mala Fatras. While Velka means Greater in Slovak and Mala means Lesser, the Mala Fatras are actually, interestingly, the taller range.
When we got back to Zilina, we spent more time on cake and coffee in the mall (the unusually named Mirage) than the two hours it took us to explore the Old Town on foot. Mary remembers little from our time in the city itself except the first night when the hot water ran out in the middle of her shower. It took nearly an hour before the technician came to have a look at the boiler, and even then the water remained close to freezing.
Below (top to bottom): Andrej Hlinka Square in Zilina (named after a Roman Catholic priest who was in the public face of Slovak autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the fin de siècle period) presided over by the Holy Trinity Cathedral; the Jesuit Church of the Conversion of St Paul the Apostle on Marian Square; the Old Town Hall; a panorama showing (left to right) the facade of the New Synagogue, the Gymnasium of St Francis of Assisi (where minds, not muscles, are worked) and the Rosenfeld Palace.
The kind receptionist on duty waited with me at the porch for the technician to arrive. I learnt that he had read philosophy in university, that he loves the Tatras as much as I did and finally that he didn't enjoy his present job very much.
Nine in the evening, under driving snow, waiting to fix up an overworked boiler - it wasn't hard to figure out why.
Logistics
Terchova (pronounced Ter-ho-va) is the gateway for visitors to the Mala Fatra National Park. For the Snilovske Sedlo cable-car, take the bus from Zilina for Vratna Vytah (the name of the very last stop). From Zilina there are many other options. Strecno is easily reached by either buses and trains. For Orava Castle, take the bus to Oravsky Podzamok.
Moving on, Bratislava is two and a half hours south by train. Poprad, Kosice and the Tatras are two hours east by train. One could also get to Prague, some five hours away, by bus or train. Head to the helpful tourist information office on Andrej Hlinka Square in the town centre for maps and brochures listing options in both Zilina and its wider region.
No comments:
Post a Comment