Brush with Slovak Polici

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Geo: 48.8606, 20.3728

so a lot has happened since Prague. We headed out towards Slovakia, easily crossed the border and luckily found an AutoCamp. It would seem that the benefit of travelling just before the holiday season starts means thereis no need to book but also means not too much infrastructure is open. The place was run by a chap called Victor who spoke very good English and had a very good sense of humour. Spent the evening watching clouds move in over the top of the mountains in the National Park. By early morning it was raining, vertical rain with no wind and it was cold. So we packed up a wet tent was packed and headed off to our planned destination of the High Tantra's in Slovakia northern areas. The area is famous for its high altitude rocky mountains and trees. Both sounding beautiful.

The rain got heavier and heavier… and strangely no wind. On the highway we also got pulled over by the Slovak Police and fined for not having a Vignette… apparently you need one to travel on their Highways… silly us (I had previously investigated and came to the conclusion we did not need one),… so I had to present all my documents in the rain and then they had to find someone to translate…. Put simply we got a $50 EUR fine for not having a $10 EUR sticker on our windscreen to say we had paid the highway fees… dam.

What was even funnier was watching Lisa have a stand up with the Police man, who had a gun, demanding a receipt… brave or silly…not sure. In my defence we have one golden rule, when you are not sure if the police are scamming you the sure fire way to sort it out is to ask for a receipt. If they are willing to write one in some book and give you a piece of paper then you can pretty well assume we have broken some law and we can prove we will not be pulled over 10 kms down the road and fined again. This is common practice in some countries also. Anyway needless to say I received an official receipt and did not get shot. Bonus!!!

Anyway so we got one at the next servo… yeah so there ya grumpy copper..

By the time we arrived at our destination we were exhausted,wet and totally uninspired because of the rain and low clouds…. Not a dam mountain to be seen… the only open AutoCamp was very lack lustre, understatement, so we decided to head further south towards Hungary.

Decided to visit one of Slovak's ice caves. Now this was a good activity to wait out the
rain as the cave was dry, very cool, well freezing to be more accurate. We joined a tour, and got the lowdown in Slovak, translated to Russian, then to German, and finally one of the other
tourists translated to English for us.
It was like Chinese whispers in multiple languages. It is fair to say we did not learn much about
the cave but took some interesting pics.

The next place on the tourist brochures advertising
Kemping, was a very scary village. We started following the rusty old signs into a very run down part at the top of town and the back streets were all dug up and the housing…. Well…. Scary. Eventually we did find the place however it was up a track and then the track stopped at a very rusted gate with the words Camping on it…. Be buggered… we locked the car doors, put the queen mary into reverse and off we went.

So we were becoming desperate. Normally we would just find somewhere to hall
up but Slovakia is very unfriendly and fine you for wild camping, and one fine
was enough for the day so we pushed on. It was getting late in the day when we drove into a town called Betliar an saw a sign with the word Camping, and arrived at a nice looking gate… only thing was it was locked…. Hum so off I go to find someone. Lisa stayed with the vehicle
whilst I did find a few people no English except for a young girl with words of English who was very keen to help… so the shenanigans went on for a while then Lisa appeared with the vehicle. Apparently someone appeared from the trees and opened the gate. The rain had stopped finally.

So long story short is Betliar is a very special place, we camped in the grounds of the old 16th century Manor house that happened to have UNESCO heritage listed gardens. We had fallen on our feet nicely and even had an evening fire.

So next day up we go and went for a walk around the gardens of the Manor and it was fantastic (check photo's) a couple of sad points was we found a very old building up the back that looked like it was a private Zoo with 3 caged areas and probably housed animals from Africa. I say this because the Manor house also had furniture made in Africa. Just shows how silly we can be really.. those with means do silly things…. Like drive across the planet.

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Comments

[David NEE///]

Respect! What an experience!

[Rachel]

Now THAT is authentic traveling! Contiki Tourers eat your hearts out! Glad you found some well-earned respite after your trying day.

[Juliet]

Oh dear Lisa!! Wait til you get to Hungary!! The police are pretty hard there! Be good! Still you seem to be having fun which is important.

[harryabroad]

Hi Rachael, I was feeling a little horse sick the other day and so wondered how Raya was going. I should not go out of my way to get that horse smell up my nose as it does cause the horse sickness.

[Brett nelson]

Hi guys great to see your having a blast stay safe enjoy the world speak soon

[Treno]

Great stuff Harry. Love reading your blog.From an old builders...what beautiful stonework in the zoo shot. bring it home.