We took the pups for their morning walk around Levoca, and it’s true many of the buildings have embraced both colour and patterns. Though we saw even more brightly coloured houses, in electric blues, lime greens and pinks dotted in little villages on our drive to Paradise National Park.
One thing that made me giggle in Levoca was the gossip cage. If you were thought to be spreading ill thoughts or gossip then you could be put in the central square’s gossip cage! This really sounds to daft to be true, but who knows, the past springs up strange traditions.
I’d read about Narodny National Park (translated means Paradise) and its amazing trails. In snowy conditions there are ice climbing opportunities, but the rest of the year you have to make do with vertical steel ladders next to waterfalls, rotting wooden traverses over rivers, single steps clinging to cliff faces and the occasional chain to hold on to. As an adrenaline junkie it was indeed paradise, for Mark who suffers vertigo there was no way in hell he was going to do it.
Going alone, Mark was worried I might get injured but I’d seen a large group was going to do the harder trail route of Sucha Bela (the easiest is Prielom Hornadu and it’s by no means easy!), so I thought I’d do that one and hopefully catch them up or be spotted if something went wrong. When you buy your €1.50 entry to the park they have details of air ambulance and emergency numbers to call – great for confidence lol.
Spotting a green dash mark in a river gorge lined with cliffs and trees isn’t the easiest thing and I did initially go wrong but retraced my steps and from 10mins into my trail was on the right path and absolutely loving it. I honestly felt like Cheryl Strayed from the brilliant book Wild. It was 45 minutes before I saw anyone else on the trail, and to be honest at the ladders I was glad others were close by.
The trek itself was not physically taxing but definitely mentally exhilarating and a bit scary. There is no way the UK would allow this without helmets and harnesses. In fairness any sensible place with basic health and safety wouldn’t allow people to do this…we can’t be trusted…despite all the danger warnings I saw people doing the trek in office shoes 🙈
I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and was so thankful for Mark looking after the pups so that I could go. He took the pups on a less hazardous incline red route through the trees but swapped onto the cycle way as even that was hairy with 3 dogs getting excited by all the new smells.
I was enjoying listening to podcasts and just taking in the beautiful scenery, so after finishing Sacha Bela, I did the yellow route heading west, then red route to Nad Podleskom before joining another yellow route to Pod Klastoriskom and meeting up with Mark several hours later on the green route back down to Podlestok. Having been in cities for so long, it felt amazing to be back in nature, and the trails are far less busy in Autumn.
We then had a spectacular drive, through the national park, with plenty of hair pins, glimpses of mountains and little villages. Slovakia seems like a hidden gem. I really knew nothing about it and am so excited to be discovering what it has to offer.
SofaWolves 