Landscape of Slovakia
Even though breakfast was server as of 7 am, I asked for an earlier possibility and was stuffing my belly as of 6:30, so I was on the saddle by 7:15 (yes, I did not stop eating for 45 minutes, I knew I needed the energy). Taking a few pictures of the town and of the church – which was not allowed and I was loudly scolded at by a nun – I left the nice town, knowing well the road would not be an easy one…
…and it wasn’t. The day a real endurance test, being a sort of a roller-coaster ride the entire day. Close to Janovce, in Spissky Strvtok, I admired another church from afar, beautifully set in the landscape, then came the town of Poprad, where I filled up my supplies with some fruits at a market, talking German with the sales guy. He was an ice-hockey trainer in an earlier life somewhere in Northern Germany. The peaks of the High Tatras were just soaring above me, but while it was sunny weather, they were well hidden in a thick layer of cloud, the mountains holding the clouds captive. There was a German military cemetery just by the side of the road, it was hard to imagine people being slaughtered in this magnificent landscape. Then came the town of Liptosky Mikulas; as it was Saturday, the number of recreational cyclist, something I experienced just once in Romania, was getting higher and higher, it was nice to see some couples well into their sixties being so sportive.
Getting to the town of Ruzomberok, I contemplated for quite a while whether I should ride towards the south, towards Banska Bystrica or westwards, in the direction of Martin. During Pentecost of this year (Pfingsten), I rode from Bratislava to Krakow and knew the portion of the road, so decided to go that way (so I did not have to cross the mountain at Donovali). As I was about to start, I noticed my read tire was completely flat - hence I spent the next 30 minutes or so replacing the tube.
Even though I knew the road, it all appeared to be completely different, it was another time of the day, the weather was not the same (it turned ever more cloudy now); so I could not state I had déjà-vu feelings. The feeling I did have, close to Martin, was yet again regarding the lack of air in my rear tire, which is of course nothing good when you’re in sort of a hurry and you are fully loaded with stuff. As usual, it took quite a lot of time to get everything replaced – so it was around 8 pm I got to Martin (note: there is something wrong with my read wheel, as my latest tube also gut punctured). After replacing my last spare tube, I bought a spare tube – just to be sure – at an Intersport shop (they were already closed, but were nice to let me in) and then had a quick salad at the McDonalds’ I had stopped a few weeks back. Earlier, on my Krakow trip, I did not stop in the city center, so I decided it was time to do so; and it was really pretty; as it turns out, Martin is a cultural capital of the region. That evening, they had the open-air ballet of Romeo and Julia starting at 10 pm, I pondered long whether I wanted to stay, but I felt I lost time due to the tire change, so rode into the night. After all, I knew the area.
Some 10 km’s outside of Martin, the main road forked to a smaller one and that was my road and knew there would be quite a lot of hills and even a smaller summit to pass. The occasional cars were sort of puzzled by me, while I had ample of lights both in the front and the back, the flashed their head-lights at me, which of course is not pleasant when you get blinded. The downhill was tougher than I thought, as the painting on the pavement was close to absent, so I had to pay attention not to steer my bike into the ditches on the side of the road. It was also getting cold, so at midnight, I was happy to find a small B&B in the town of Nitrianske Pravno, waking up the poor owner. He was a bit grumpy that I had woken him up, but charged me just Eur 12 for the room. Having done yet another 190 km that day, I fell asleep as soon as I laid down.