Europe Summer Series: Tatra Mountains, Slovakia (Part 2)

The last post ended with me entering a tiny single-cabin cable car for the ascent to Lomnický Štít, a high peak in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. Here's what happened next...

Then a miracle happens.

The dense cloud cover starts to dissipate under the sunlight's warmth, splitting apart to reveal a stark rocky peak way above us.

Set within it is the cable car station, an improbable construction wedged into the rock, like the lair of a James Bond villain.

As we reach it, I suddenly remember that there’s nothing beneath our feet for a very long way; and then we gently ease into place, 2634 metres above sea level.

Ascending stairs, we find ourselves in an unexpectedly classy cafe, though most of us continue through onto a viewing platform in front of the building, partly built into the rock and jutting out into thin air.

We can see far down into the valley; this time the towns are minute. Neighbouring rocky peaks are visible, and it’s stimulating to just stand and look, while breathing the crisp air.

Eventually I go inside, wondering what drink is most suitable to celebrate such an experience (Whisky? Beer?), and end up with a frosted glass of demanovka, a traditional Slovak liqueur.

Back outside, there’s an odd mood of exhilaration in the air.

I think, like me, everyone is thinking how improbable this all is, that human beings shouldn’t be this high up from the earth, and certainly not sipping alcoholic beverages while doing so.

We’re all delighted at somehow being part of this impossible thing, and braced by the strange mix of material comforts and an underlying sense of danger.

I want at the same time to shout out “Aren’t we clever?” and “Aren’t we crazy?”

But such atypical periods of one’s life - removed from the concerns of the mortals below us - have to come to an end.

After 50 minutes our return car arrives and we make our descent.

I have lunch at the restaurant at Skalnaté Pleso, enjoying a decent Hungarian goulash.

Then it’s out onto the rocks for a hike along the mountainside west to Hrebienok, from where a funicular railway leads back down to Starý Smokovec, terminating just above the hotel.

After all this physical effort, the sight of the Grand is a relief, and its wellness centre a godsend.

Wrapped in a sheet, I take a well-earned dose of relaxation, moving between the sauna, the steam room, the infrared sauna with its weird colour-changing globe, the ice-cold pool and the heated ceramic beds in the tepidarium.

There’s nothing like some physical effort to make you really feel you’ve earned this sort of pampering, and I appreciate every moment.

Then, on my way back to my room, I bump into Joan and Joan, the two women I’d noticed in the cafe earlier, and join them for tea.

It turns out they’re British widows who travel together once a year, usually to Western Europe, but a trip to Austria fell through so they ended up here.

They’ve been going off every day on tours around the countryside; tomorrow they’re rafting down the Dunajec River on the border with Poland.

Since we’re getting along like a house on fire, I mention the hotel’s resemblance to a Christie plot item, and they agree.

Daringly, I suggest they’d fit right in to the story, and they laugh. “Like Miss Marple?” says one.

Still on a high from my ascent of the mountain, I can only smile. The only mystery surrounding the attractions of the Tatra Mountains, is why they aren’t better known outside Slovakia.

Europe Summer Series: Tatra Mountains, Slovakia (Part 1)

Over December and January, I'll be running a series of my previously published print articles on Central and Eastern Europe. First up, Slovakia...

“Everywhere there is evil under the sun.”

I have Hercule Poirot’s words on my mind as I stroll through the foyer of the Grand Hotel.

It’s a building that appears to have sprung straight from the pages of an Agatha Christie novel; built in 1904, it’s a high-ceilinged structure decorated with sweeping, elegant art nouveau curves.

It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine the hotel being packed with foreign spies, American shipping magnates and exiled Russian countesses with secret sorrows.

But as I step into the cafe lounge, there is little evil to be seen - only two silver-haired ladies, sipping tea next to a bay window that offers a spectacular view over the slopes below.

The only thing that doesn't quite fit with my glamorous detective fantasy is the name of the lounge: the Castro Cafe.

And that’s because I’m in central Slovakia, and the hotel’s most famous guest ever was Fidel Castro, who visited in the 1970s when this was part of communist Czechoslovakia.

It’s a reminder that not all is as you expect when you venture east of the long-vanished Iron Curtain.

To be fair, other rooms in the hotel have had the same star guest treatment: the Sinatra Bar (Nancy), the Wilson Bar (after the British prime minister) and the Lefevre Restaurant (after the interwar French actor).

There’s even the Sailer Wellness Centre (after Austrian skier Toni Sailer), an impressive modern take on of Central Europe’s long obsession with spa treatments and health-related holidays.

When the Grand Hotel was built, Slovakia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A few wars and revolutions have passed by since then, and it’s now at the hub of a thriving tourist zone centred on the Tatra Mountains, the northernmost end of the mighty Carpathians.

The town it’s in, Starý Smokovec, is neatly placed in the foothills, with towering peaks above and a view down the slopes to the regional city of Poprad and the surrounding plain.

As glamorous as the hotel is, I have to get out among those amazing, lofty mountains. So I catch an electric train to the nearby town of Tatranská Lomnica, the starting point of a cable car that heads up to Skalnaté Pleso, 1751m above sea level. From there I can catch a second cable car right up to the peak of Lomnický Štít, one of the highest points of the range.

This first stage of the journey is undertaken in a small four-person cabin, which sways in the breeze as it’s hauled up the cable. Until this point I’ve conveniently forgotten my mild fear of heights, which is reawakened now as we lurch upward out of the base station.

It’s both a terrifying and exhilarating feeling to be dangling high in the air, held only by a moving cable. The scenery is brilliant: beneath us I can see rocky outcrops covered by a strange grey-green moss, interspersed with hardy trees and the odd surviving winter snowdrift sheltered from the sunshine by rocks.

When we reach Skalnaté Pleso I have to wait an hour for my assigned car up to Lomnický Štít, so I wander out of the station onto the rocky slope outside. It’s fairly level at this point, with a fenced-off viewing area that allows visitors to stand beneath the incoming cars.

Around me people are milling, and taking photos of each other and the town far below. Also smoking – which seems an odd affront to the beautifully clear cold mountain air, but each to their own.

As I'm taking in the view, someone points up, and I see a cable car ascending the second stage to Lomnický Štít, another 900m higher.

This car is different, basically a large red box which ascends solo. There are no supports to its cable; it arcs up until it disappears into the cloud cover just above our heads, seemingly on its way to heaven.

So at 10.10am a dozen of us cram into a small red metal box, the operator starts it up, and we swing out into nothingness.

Strangely, it’s less scary than the previous ride. Although the ground is soon far beneath us, and the landscape becoming progressively more craggy and forbidding, the ascent has a surprisingly smooth motion, like riding in a lift.

Then a miracle happens...

[Next: The miracle!]

The Unicycle Diaries 3: Slovak Mountain High

From my travel diaries written in Slovakia last year, wherein I wander through the mountainous mist and learn about nudity etiquette in spas...

Wed 18 June 2008

- Got up to find the mountains completely vanished, covered in heavy mist that begins just above town. Clearly not a great day to go up major peak in cable car as planned, as no views.

- Plan B: Take train trip along the local mountain railway to Štrbské Pleso, at other end of Tatra mountains; lots of snowsports etc. Also more forest, as it was less damaged by the windstorms a few years ago.

- Starý Smokovec train station is a quaint part-timbered, pocket-sized place, with tourists milling about waiting for the next trains heading in all directions. There’s something both soothing and artificial about a purely holiday town. Staff at station even speak some German, and there’s English used extensively.

- Train is red and sparkling new, winds its way west , twisting along slopes, sometimes below roads and townsites, sometimes above. Very green and misty but you can still see a lot of damage from the storms. Occasionally rocky streams pass below us.

- Štrbské Pleso is bigger than expected, lots of accommodation under construction, and yes lots of trees. I have a hiking map so grab a coffee near station and work it out. These colour-coded paths are good, easy to follow. It’s misty still and a bit cold, threatening rain, so I decide a short walk along the red trail into the forest would be good. It is pleasant, though I’m walking into the clouds and vision is short... creates a magical kind of fairy tale forest look, all those dark greens and the rocky trail.

- After a while I turn back and take a turn around the lake. Starts raining but I encounter timber cafe overlooking water. Opens at 12 noon so an old lady and I sit just undercover on deck, me reading my book, her loudly answering mobile calls. But the lake is fascinating – mist shrouds other side, fading slowly across water, dark green trees fading out in distance. Cool but not freezing.

- In cafe, order grilled sheep’s cheese on a garlic baguette, comes with sour cream and is very good. Have beer with it.

- Eventually wend way through construction to station, then back to my hotel and its wellness centre. Despite the weather – maybe because of it – it’s been a pleasant day. It’s good to get out in nature after all my urban adventures, just take it slow, take a breather.

- At wellness centre, get talking to a Croatian guy staying at the hotel for a railway conference. I’d been wondering about spa etiquette, as men wander around naked or near-naked, even though it’s a unisex space. He says it’s like this all over Europe; chalk the puzzlement up to Anglo-Saxon prudery. I think the basic rule is: if you don’t flaunt it, it’s OK to be naked occasionally and briefly, ie heading into the spa, shower, cold pool. Seems a healthy attitude. There, I've learned something today.