Walking across Slovakia: Day 35

No tents, no sleeping rough, two teenagers and two adults, 900km, 4 rucksacks and some maps, a lot of maps: this is going to be fun.

(Source: John Nicholson)

Andrejová was closed again when we went back. Another village with nothing but people and churches – no shopping malls, no nightclubs, no nothing: a nice place to live. We had said goodbye to Bardejov sadly. Quite how such a pretty town has survived despite everything is amazing. There is at least one god.

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The day was boring. Can’t think of anything outstanding about it. Two forested hills separated by a nondescript valley. Not unpleasant but, nothing outstanding. I guess we were just eager to finish. There was a tower, which due to a healthy fear of heights I looked at from below and waved to the others. Eventually, they said that the view wasn’t worth the effort. But lied like, like … liars while they were up there.

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Luckily, everyone has forgotten how to spell diaroraya. No embarrassing squatting ‘looking for mushrooms’ in the woods today.

The highlight of the day was the shop in Kurimka. That’s how non-descript the day was. Sorry Kurimka. But there was a shop and a pub, and a nice looking wooden church at the far end of the village. Too far for us to go and investigate – anyway it looked new. It gets no mention in Wikipedia so I guess it didn’t really exist – just a Fatty Morgana. The locals were nice though. We asked some kids playing hide and seek for some water. Sort of ruined the little girls hiding place - sorry. We have never been served with water so thoroughly – it took time to fill the bottle and all four children helped, speeding things up immeasurably. But it was cold and tasted wonderful. Thanks guys.

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I had built Svidník up to be a place slightly worse than hell. But I was made to eat my words. It was an ordinary little town. It was clean and green. The hotel, still in the 1960’s, was perfect for us. The Prime Minister was in Svidník too – but we didn’t bump into each other. Surprising really, a small town and only one hotel to stay... In fact it was so nice that we stayed two nights. The Last Day would be a ‘lite’ day.

The Last Day…..

Distance walked: 26km (791km in total)
Meters climbed: 1,042m (30,359m in total)
Walking time: 9:07 (265:48 in total)

Start point: Andrejová
End point: Svidník

General comment:
Mr. Fico was there too. But we missed each other.
I hereby apologise to Svidník. Clearly a case of mistaken identity.
We have climbed over 30km – Usain Bolt would have run it in 48 minutes and 30 seconds?

By John Nicholson

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