One night in Slovakia after a border incident

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Sunday August 23rd
One night in Slovakia after a border incident
We have slept well despite our afternoon in the most horrendous place in history.
It rained overnight and the air is clear and feels quite cool after days in the 30’s.
Our destination today provides us with a stop before we get to Vienna and means we don’t have to travel too far in one day giving time to take in the countryside and sights on the way.
The plan is to spend one night in the other half of the old Czechoslovakia which was ‘divorced’ from the Czech Republic in 1993 and became a soverign state in its own right.
It is a relatively straightforward run to the border from Wadowice down route #69.
Poland gives the impression of being a deeply religious country on a Sunday and as we pass through small towns at the start of our journey we notice that the car parks and roads around the town church are overflowing with cars.At some of the churches,which look large enough to accommodate a lot of people,there are dozens of people outside listening at the door to the mass going on inside.
We have noticed public buses here in Poland as in other countries as we have headed east and the transport system seems well organised for those without cars or who don’t want to drive on the rough roads.Another feature that is apparent in Poland are large mini vans which operate as local busues picking patrons up from the side of the road on demand.They have a town name in the front window and travel between various points supplementing the public bus sytem.
We passed through Zywiec with about 20km to go to the border of Slovakia and the roads noticeably improved although the traffic volume also picked up.
Slovakia is part of the EU and since January 1st this year has become part of the Euro zone.Perhaps getting this close into bed with the big Euro countries of Germany,France etc has meant that money for roading has found its way here like in Ireland where the main roads were superior to non Euro currency countries we have passed through like Poland and to some extent the Czech Republic.
After a good run on a new road we came up against a diversion as we got closer to the border.The diversion took us on a winding route through small villages.In one we remarked how odd it was to see a police car on the side of the road,a sight to us that has just not been apparent.
A little further on a magnificent looking long curved bridge built well above a town came into view.We stopped to take photographs and noted that traffic was using the bridge and we assumed the road we were on would take us up to the bridge and probably onto the border.
We drove on and as expected the road did bend towards the bridge and climbed steadily up to it.As we were climbing we noticed what looked like another police vehicle up on the bridge and commented again to each other not realising what was ahead for us!!
As we rounded a U bend taking us onto the bridge a man dressed in army fatigues stepped out in front of us with a little red stop sign and indicated for us to pull over.What had we done to deserve this!! All our other border crossings had been a breeze!!
He was very pleasant and gave a salute as Gretchen wound down the window so he could speak to her.He said he was border patrol and wanted to check out ID,International driving licences and car ownership and insurance details.He stood beside RR taking in all the documents which we had at hand and then excused himself taking our passports back to the jeep parked on the other side of the road.
We felt a bit vunerable parked on the road side and partly on the road so Gretchen put the hazard lights on as she wasn’t sure how long we would be sitting here.
Traffic slowed to get past us as we waited for our fate!!
We sat there thinking and speculating on what had made us and RR a subject for inspection close to the border by Polish police.
Time ticked by and we watched in the wing mirror of RR what was going on in the police jeep.There was another policeman in the jeep and he appeared to be using a radio so guessed they were checking our passport etc with authorities somewhere.
As we continued to sit and wait we suddenly realised that we had probably been under surveillance since we passed that police car back at the start of the road diversion when we had noticed the police car on the side of the road.Had he noticed our red number plate,which does stand out where all others are white,and radioed ahead to have us checked out??!!
We couldn’t have avoided passing the border patrol car as there was only one road that we knew about to the border.
After what seemed like an age the policeman walked back to RR and saluted and said thank you and that all was in order.Here we had been sitting thinking what in the heck had we done to attract this attention yet of course we knew we had nothing to hide.
We drove on over the bridge and up a short hill to the border and into Slovakia.
The standard of the road surface improved considerably as we got into Slovakia following E75 down to Zilina.Here was a large town with a lot of industry although today being Sunday everything was not operating.All around were the old communist style multi story buildings and as yet,unlike in the Czech Republic,most had not had a repaint from the old grey colour to brighter yellows,greens etc.
At Fackov(yes the town is actually called that)we noticed vehicles coming towards us were flashing their lights and we guessed there was a camera patrol ahead.And sure enough there was a road side camera on a tripod,very old school but probably the latest thing hedre!!
Soon after we reached our destination of Bojnice,a small hillside town adjacent to the industrial city of Prievidza.
One certain thing going for Slovakia is that it doesn’t close down on a Sunday!!like the rest of Europe we had passed through so far and small town UK for that matter.There is even a mega Tesco store here doing a steady trade.Perhaps religion doesn’t play such a big part in Slovakia as in other parts of Europe.
We haven’t really had any problems finding the hotels we have booking on the various internets site we have been using although we had our doubts today.
Our directions from Google maps directed us up a hill where there didn’t appear to be any inhabitation and then suddenly ahead of us were a collection of pensions including the one we had booked.
So our one night stay in Slovakia would be up a hillside with a view over the valley!!
We had bought ourselves a salad for dinner from Tesco but first first took a walk along streets that ran along the hillside to a castle which we discovered was closed for the day.However there were plenty of cafes open and with the weather now fine and sunny we found one with a garden bar and sat down to enjoy a couple of cold local beers to bring our eventful day to a close!!

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Photos

Polish countryside
Notice the smoke coming from the chimney showing that is was a little cooler today BUT not that cold !!

Comments

[Christine]

Great Advise
Hi guys, I think Rin's advice is very sound. As I was reading your tale, I thought, OMG imagine if one had kept your passports and one had taken you away - that would have been that..... goodbye to that infamous budget - farewell to all the interesting tales for us back home!! Take Care, CB