Trip po chatáchTrip po chatách

Trip po chatách (roughly, "Cabin-to-Cabin Trip") came about as a brilliant idea, riding on the success of last year's COVID bike trip. As the name suggests, every night on this trip we slept at one of our own family cabins.

In the famous lineup of Katka, Peťo, Kika, Fero, Ľudmila, Kubo, Juro and Janči, we set off from the Sliač train station toward the picturesque village of Sampor. A bed was waiting for us in Sampor at one of the aforementioned cabins, and the next day we were already burning up the miles on our bikes along the southern side of Poľana, through the area around Detva and Hriňová, all the way to Janči's cabin near Kokava nad Rimavicou.

This part of Slovakia is genuinely beautiful. Small, rolling hills that feel straight out of Tolkien's books -- you keep half-expecting a hobbit to pop out from behind the next one.

From Kokava nad Rimavicou we found a great road through Poľana that ended in Čierny Balog. We admired the local narrow-gauge railway there, but didn't linger long and carried on through Podpoľanie, the Zbojská pass and along the edge of the Muránska planina all the way to Závadka nad Hronom. From there the now-familiar road through Heľpa, Červená Skala, Pohorelská Maša and Vaľkovňa brought us to Zlatno.

This year we actually managed to get a shower at Zlatno, something the girls appreciated a lot more than the year before. On the other hand, this time there was a proper swarm of horseflies waiting for us there, as tends to happen in May.

The next morning we headed toward the Tatras. Originally we thought we'd cross the Vernár pass, but in the end we found a much better alternative right next to it, just a touch further east -- just as paved, but with far less traffic. It brought us right up to the Tatras themselves, where we stopped for ice cream in Poprad and then spent the night at my uncle's flat in Dolný Smokovec.

The trip's finale was straight out of a catalogue -- gorgeous weather and the Tatras right in front of us. We took some beautiful photos and, before the end, stopped by Štrbské pleso. From there a downhill run into Štrba awaited us, where we caught the train home.

We managed to cycle almost the entire trip on minor roads, which turned out to be surprisingly good quality despite our expectations, and largely even paved. It showed us that you really can find beautiful cycling routes right here in Slovakia that are worth doing. You don't even need to travel halfway across Europe for it -- just get on a bike and follow the route on the map below.