I've been a bit lax in updating this blog - I hope someone noticed. Anyone out there?
We've made a couple of interesting trips that I'll try to post here - the Aggtelek caves in Hungary, more gorges in the Slovak Paradise. So check back again.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Riding in the Rain
On Sunday, I went on the big Herl'any bike tour sponsored by the local branches of the Klub of Slovak Tourists (i.e., hikers and bikers). 'Big' turned out to be a dozen people, and once we got out of town it broke down into smaller groups. Eventually it was just me and three strong Slovak guys - they were all on mountain bikes (but with skinnier-than-normal tires) and I was on my cross bike.
In Herl'any (where the geyser was not geysing), we met up with the slower group (who had taken a much shorter route)
and we all moved up the road to the bar. I thought everyone was ordering dark beer on tap, but it turned out to be Kofola, the favorite soft drink around here. According to Wikipedia, "Kofola originated in the Czechoslovak pharmaceutical company Galena in the early 1960s during research targeted at finding a possible use for surplus caffeine produced in the process of coffee roasting. The resulting dark-coloured, sweet-and-sour syrup Kofo became the main ingredient of a new soft drink named Kofola introduced in 1962." So I had one - I'm not a connosewer of soft drinks, but I think this is kind of like Dr. Pepper (which I don't like).
After the lengthy rest stop, our little band of 4 (and a couple of others) headed back north to go over the road to Zlata Bana. This is the same road that I got 'lost' on back in March, but there are a lot more people out there on a Sunday in April. It rained long and hard enough on the way up to the dirt section to make it pretty messy. Back down in Zlata Bana, I noticed that I had a flat rear tire (defective tube) and had to replace the tube while my companions sat inside a warm bar drinking either beer or more Kofola (I couldn't tell which). Then it was all downhill into Presov. Total distance: 60 miles. Total time: about 7 hours. Bike condition afterwards: filthy
In Herl'any (where the geyser was not geysing), we met up with the slower group (who had taken a much shorter route)
and we all moved up the road to the bar. I thought everyone was ordering dark beer on tap, but it turned out to be Kofola, the favorite soft drink around here. According to Wikipedia, "Kofola originated in the Czechoslovak pharmaceutical company Galena in the early 1960s during research targeted at finding a possible use for surplus caffeine produced in the process of coffee roasting. The resulting dark-coloured, sweet-and-sour syrup Kofo became the main ingredient of a new soft drink named Kofola introduced in 1962." So I had one - I'm not a connosewer of soft drinks, but I think this is kind of like Dr. Pepper (which I don't like).
After the lengthy rest stop, our little band of 4 (and a couple of others) headed back north to go over the road to Zlata Bana. This is the same road that I got 'lost' on back in March, but there are a lot more people out there on a Sunday in April. It rained long and hard enough on the way up to the dirt section to make it pretty messy. Back down in Zlata Bana, I noticed that I had a flat rear tire (defective tube) and had to replace the tube while my companions sat inside a warm bar drinking either beer or more Kofola (I couldn't tell which). Then it was all downhill into Presov. Total distance: 60 miles. Total time: about 7 hours. Bike condition afterwards: filthy
Saturday, April 19, 2008
A Day at the Races
It's been about 6 months since I've run a race, so I decided to try the 'Lesny Beh' (forest run) at Bankov, just outside Kosice. Bankov sits in the middle of a large hilly forest, and is a popular (so they tell me) place for the locals to train. I guess the rain kept most of the locals away, but 30 or 40 people showed up, mostly, it seemed, orienteers and skiers. The course was a 2.4km loop through the woods, sometimes on clay trails, sometimes just running on some overgrown roads with rocks, holes, sticks, etc.
The young bucks got to do 5 laps, but us old geezers did only 2. (And speaking of old, I was the oldest one in the race.) At registration, they gave me a couple of green tickets with the letter 'P' on them. About the time the gun went off, it started raining in earnest - good thing I bought my contacts. The legs felt pretty good at first, but about halfway through the second lap I could tell I was getting tired. The guy I was running with dropped me right before the finish, but he was a youngster in his 40s, so I didn't worry about it. Within seconds of finishing, a volunteer pressed a cup of hot herbal
tee into my hand, but then one of the race officials kept telling me to come get a cup of tea he was holding. I knew something was up, and that something was slivovitz (plum brandy). Sure warms you up after a wet run in the woods!
After I dried off, they had the awards ceremony, and much to my surprise, I won the 50+ division (but only by 12 seconds - good thing I didn't slow down any more).
We then adjourned inside the 'bistro' for the 'P and P' which is 'parky' and 'pivo' or sausages and beer. We spent a long time talking to some friendly folks from the Kosice Orienteering Klub - they've invited us to come to their training sessions on Tuesday evenings. Sounds like it might be fun.
After lunch in Kosice, we headed east to Herl'any to see the slightly famous geyser. I'd always heard that geysers occur only in Yellowstone, Iceland and New Zealand, but Slovakia has its own geyser. The difference is that this is a cold geyser, powered by carbon dioxide (rather than a proper hot-water geyser). It erupts for about 30 minutes every 34-36 hours, so we'd checked the website and arrived just as the eruption was starting. It's not Old Faithful, but it's one of those things that should be seen if you're spending four months in eastern Slovakia.
The young bucks got to do 5 laps, but us old geezers did only 2. (And speaking of old, I was the oldest one in the race.) At registration, they gave me a couple of green tickets with the letter 'P' on them. About the time the gun went off, it started raining in earnest - good thing I bought my contacts. The legs felt pretty good at first, but about halfway through the second lap I could tell I was getting tired. The guy I was running with dropped me right before the finish, but he was a youngster in his 40s, so I didn't worry about it. Within seconds of finishing, a volunteer pressed a cup of hot herbal
tee into my hand, but then one of the race officials kept telling me to come get a cup of tea he was holding. I knew something was up, and that something was slivovitz (plum brandy). Sure warms you up after a wet run in the woods!
After I dried off, they had the awards ceremony, and much to my surprise, I won the 50+ division (but only by 12 seconds - good thing I didn't slow down any more).
We then adjourned inside the 'bistro' for the 'P and P' which is 'parky' and 'pivo' or sausages and beer. We spent a long time talking to some friendly folks from the Kosice Orienteering Klub - they've invited us to come to their training sessions on Tuesday evenings. Sounds like it might be fun.
After lunch in Kosice, we headed east to Herl'any to see the slightly famous geyser. I'd always heard that geysers occur only in Yellowstone, Iceland and New Zealand, but Slovakia has its own geyser. The difference is that this is a cold geyser, powered by carbon dioxide (rather than a proper hot-water geyser). It erupts for about 30 minutes every 34-36 hours, so we'd checked the website and arrived just as the eruption was starting. It's not Old Faithful, but it's one of those things that should be seen if you're spending four months in eastern Slovakia.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Back in the Sedlo Again...
Here in Eastern Slovakia, the mountains aren't high enough to have real passes, but we have saddles, or 'sedlo's. My cycling map suggested that Sedlo Priehyby ('sagging saddle'?) north of Sabinov might be a good destination, so I put the bike in the car and started riding from downtown Sabinov. After a couple of miles on the highway, I turned up a nice side valley past some small villages and a couple of squalorous Roma settlements. As the route description indicated, the road got pretty bad after Majdan
where I passed an old woman with a chain saw, the last person I'd see for the next hour or so. The road climbed up a narrow valley, eventually doing a long switchback to reach the saddle. There were too many trees for a good view. If you have a couple of hours to burn, you can hike from here to a place called 'Lazy',
which apparently means 'remote mountain settlement' in Slovak. I started down the north side of the saddle and soon found some of the newest cleanest smoothest pavement I've seen in Slovakia, out there in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, it only lasted about half a mile and the road went back to dirt, so I turned around (if I'd gone to the bottom of the other side it would have been a 35 mile trip back to Sabinov). The descent from the top would have been better on a mountain bike - a very rough road with sharp-looking stones. I had to stop three times to get the feeling back in my hands. Back in one of the villages lower down, I stopped at some place that advertised itself as an 'espresso shop'. Personally, I don't consider anything made from instant Nescafe to be espresso, but it was warm.
Some more nice backroads
took me back to Sabinov, where I saw The Shop on Main Street where the film of the same name (Oscar winner, 1966) was made.
I'll have to get it from Netflix again to see if I recognize anything.
where I passed an old woman with a chain saw, the last person I'd see for the next hour or so. The road climbed up a narrow valley, eventually doing a long switchback to reach the saddle. There were too many trees for a good view. If you have a couple of hours to burn, you can hike from here to a place called 'Lazy',
which apparently means 'remote mountain settlement' in Slovak. I started down the north side of the saddle and soon found some of the newest cleanest smoothest pavement I've seen in Slovakia, out there in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, it only lasted about half a mile and the road went back to dirt, so I turned around (if I'd gone to the bottom of the other side it would have been a 35 mile trip back to Sabinov). The descent from the top would have been better on a mountain bike - a very rough road with sharp-looking stones. I had to stop three times to get the feeling back in my hands. Back in one of the villages lower down, I stopped at some place that advertised itself as an 'espresso shop'. Personally, I don't consider anything made from instant Nescafe to be espresso, but it was warm.
Some more nice backroads
took me back to Sabinov, where I saw The Shop on Main Street where the film of the same name (Oscar winner, 1966) was made.
I'll have to get it from Netflix again to see if I recognize anything.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Another Day in Paradise...
...the Slovak Paradise, that is. My brother and I came out to the Slovensky Raj last month, but Cindi hadn't been there yet, so we headed to Dedinky on the southern side of the park to do the Zejmarska Roklina (gorge), supposedly the shortest canyon climb in the park. I could tell that things were going to be different from Sucha Bela as soon as we turned into the gorge - there didn't appear to be any trail at all, just a rushing stream. At drier times,
you can walk up the stream bed, but a couple of days of rain had increased the stream flow and we had to pick our way along the edge of the stream, occasionally having to jump to the other side. After passing some small waterfalls, we found the first ladder
which led to a bridge reaching two-thirds of the way across the stream, which by this point was quite wide. We could see that the people ahead of us had had to come back across the stream farther up, so we just stayed on our side. This turned out to be a good idea, since the final bridge had apparently been completely destroyed. At this point we were at the base of a hundred-foot almost-vertical limestone cliff with a large waterfall
rushing down it. A series of ladders
led up next to the waterfall - the last ladder was almost in the stream itself,
and Cindi got quite wet from the spray. At the top of the cliff, the slope of the gorge got quite gentle, but we still had a couple of hundred meters of boulder hopping before we finally got onto dry land. Dry quickly turned into snow
since we were up over 1000m above sea level in mid-April in a thick forest. Shortly after we found the trail leading back down, it started to rain, so we had a wet and slippery descent back down to Dedinky. My GoreTex jacket and boots kept me pretty dry, but Cindi's feet were completely soaked. After changing into our dry clothes, we had a late lunch at a hotel in Dedinky, and then drove back around the western end of the park through some very scenic valleys. I'm going to bring my bike up here someday.
If you were thinking of doing anything in the National Park, stop thinking of it now - it's forbidden!
Near Spisska Nova Ves we drove through a torrential downpour, and now it's just settling into a steady drizzle - tomorrow may be an indoor day.
you can walk up the stream bed, but a couple of days of rain had increased the stream flow and we had to pick our way along the edge of the stream, occasionally having to jump to the other side. After passing some small waterfalls, we found the first ladder
which led to a bridge reaching two-thirds of the way across the stream, which by this point was quite wide. We could see that the people ahead of us had had to come back across the stream farther up, so we just stayed on our side. This turned out to be a good idea, since the final bridge had apparently been completely destroyed. At this point we were at the base of a hundred-foot almost-vertical limestone cliff with a large waterfall
rushing down it. A series of ladders
led up next to the waterfall - the last ladder was almost in the stream itself,
and Cindi got quite wet from the spray. At the top of the cliff, the slope of the gorge got quite gentle, but we still had a couple of hundred meters of boulder hopping before we finally got onto dry land. Dry quickly turned into snow
since we were up over 1000m above sea level in mid-April in a thick forest. Shortly after we found the trail leading back down, it started to rain, so we had a wet and slippery descent back down to Dedinky. My GoreTex jacket and boots kept me pretty dry, but Cindi's feet were completely soaked. After changing into our dry clothes, we had a late lunch at a hotel in Dedinky, and then drove back around the western end of the park through some very scenic valleys. I'm going to bring my bike up here someday.
If you were thinking of doing anything in the National Park, stop thinking of it now - it's forbidden!
Near Spisska Nova Ves we drove through a torrential downpour, and now it's just settling into a steady drizzle - tomorrow may be an indoor day.
More bike riding
A couple of good rides recently: Wednesday was a nice 35 miles through the hills to Kysak and back, and today I did 41 miles in the wind to Margecany and back. On the way back, I tried a new variation on one of the 'marked cycle routes', but it wasn't well marked and I ended up in the middle of the woods pushing my bike around mudholes. Eventually I came out onto my usual running trails and was
able to find my way home. This is why I keep the 700x32 knobbies on the bike....
able to find my way home. This is why I keep the 700x32 knobbies on the bike....
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Dem bones...
On our way home from Prague, we stopped in Sedlec (near Kutna Hora) to see the famous ossuary. Back in medieval times, a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land scattered a handful of earth that he'd brought back in the churchyard, which made the cemetery a very desirable place to be buried. Eventually there were so many graves there that they had to start digging up the bones and piling them up to make room for new tenants. In 1870, the family that owned the church gave a local craftsman free rein to decorate the chapel with the raw materials at hand. The results are spectacular (and bizarre). A must-see if you're into Twisted Tourist Attractions.
The chandelier is supposed to contain all the different bones in the human body.
He had more bones than he could possibly use, so he piled the leftovers into a couple of large heaps.
Here's the coat of arms of the Schwartzenberg family (owners of the chapel). The raven in the lower right is pecking at the body of a dead Turk.
The chandelier is supposed to contain all the different bones in the human body.
He had more bones than he could possibly use, so he piled the leftovers into a couple of large heaps.
Here's the coat of arms of the Schwartzenberg family (owners of the chapel). The raven in the lower right is pecking at the body of a dead Turk.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Prague
The last time I was in Prague was 1968 and the Russian soldiers were in the streets (although they hadn't cracked down yet). The Russians are still here, but now it's a plague (according to the locals) of Russian tourists. Prague is overrun with tourists, and it's only April. On every street corner you see people puzzling over maps trying to figure out what to see next. We visited the Museum of Communism, and then did the standard tourist thing in the main square, watching the overrated 'astronomical' clock do its hourly parade of saints and sinners. After some more strolling through the Old Town, we took the Metro out to the southeast part of town to run with the Prague Hash House Harriers. After a good run through the woods, and a couple of cans of Staropramen, we adjourned to a local 'koliba' (traditional Czech restaurant) for dinner and more beers.
It rained most of Monday, so we put on the Gore-Tex and did our best to check off more tourist sights. It was free day at the National Museum, so we spent an hour looking at rare minerals, Emil Zatopek's track shoes and other Czech curiosities. After that, we made our way down to the Karlovy Most (Charles Bridge) and walked over to the west side of the river. After a quick visit to the John Lennon Wall and fortified by cakes and coffee, we went up to the Prague Castle.
The people of Prague have made a tradition out of defenestrating people (i.e., throwing them out of windows). This window at the Castle
was the scene of the 2nd Defenestration of Prague in 1618, an event which started the 30 Years War. (The defenestrees survived the drop, since there was a large dung heap under the window.)
In the evening, we went to a concert of the Guarneri Trio (two of the three play Guarneris) at the Rudolfinium, with music by Brahms, Mendelssohn and Dvorak.
It rained most of Monday, so we put on the Gore-Tex and did our best to check off more tourist sights. It was free day at the National Museum, so we spent an hour looking at rare minerals, Emil Zatopek's track shoes and other Czech curiosities. After that, we made our way down to the Karlovy Most (Charles Bridge) and walked over to the west side of the river. After a quick visit to the John Lennon Wall and fortified by cakes and coffee, we went up to the Prague Castle.
The people of Prague have made a tradition out of defenestrating people (i.e., throwing them out of windows). This window at the Castle
was the scene of the 2nd Defenestration of Prague in 1618, an event which started the 30 Years War. (The defenestrees survived the drop, since there was a large dung heap under the window.)
In the evening, we went to a concert of the Guarneri Trio (two of the three play Guarneris) at the Rudolfinium, with music by Brahms, Mendelssohn and Dvorak.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Back in Europe
Well, here I am, back on the east side of the pond again. I had a good whirlwind visit to Boulder last week - I got to ride the bike with the Swift club, ski at Eldora, go to my yoga class and spend a couple of hours cleaning mouse poop out of our laundry room. On my trip back to Europe, I barely missed another round of American Airlines flight cancellations and got through the infamous new Heathrow Terminal 5 one day before a snowstorm closed the place.
I took the bus from the Vienna airport over to Bratislava where Cindi picked me up and we headed up into the Czech Republic. The next morning we drove through the Moravian wine district, stopping in the small town of Mikulov. This would be a nice place to spend a couple of days riding the bike around the backroads and visiting vineyards. There is also an interesting cave on the edge of town, but it's still not tourist season, so it was closed.
Farther up the road, we stopped for lunch in Jihlava, which has a nice large medieval town square
with this unfortuate monstrosity in the middle of it.
Some post-Communist bureaucrat must have decided that this was the way to bring progress to Jihlava.
We got to our hotel in Prague in the late afternoon, and went out for some mediocre Czech-Mex food in the evening.
I took the bus from the Vienna airport over to Bratislava where Cindi picked me up and we headed up into the Czech Republic. The next morning we drove through the Moravian wine district, stopping in the small town of Mikulov. This would be a nice place to spend a couple of days riding the bike around the backroads and visiting vineyards. There is also an interesting cave on the edge of town, but it's still not tourist season, so it was closed.
Farther up the road, we stopped for lunch in Jihlava, which has a nice large medieval town square
with this unfortuate monstrosity in the middle of it.
Some post-Communist bureaucrat must have decided that this was the way to bring progress to Jihlava.
We got to our hotel in Prague in the late afternoon, and went out for some mediocre Czech-Mex food in the evening.
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