Weather: ☀️🌤️🌤️☀️☀️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, wraps with peanut butter and Nutella)
Track: 🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰 (3 out of 5, nice forest trail into the Slovakian hills, with cool Ridgeline at the start of the day)
Milestone: 3250 km!
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌 (3 out of 5, clean basic room with shower for a more than reasonable price. Based on cost vs amenities: 4 out of 5)
Name of followed trail: SNP trail (heroes of the Slovak national uprising)
We leave slightly early, because we have a long day ahead. The start of the trail goes down, along the Ridgeline on a rocky path. From there we continue first down de hill and then on a more easy undulating trail towards Dobra Voda, where we want to have lunch. We get hungry before we’ve walked the 18 km to the village, so we have lunch with wraps.
In the village we drink a Radler at the pub and walk on to our destination, a pension in Brezova pod Bradlom.
4 kilometers before our finish, we celebrate 3250 kilometers! Hard to imagine we’re already this far. For us this marks the point of almost halfway the journey, and also close to hiking further than we’ve ever done before! Nothing much to be found around here, so we use the grass to mark this milestone. Making these markings is a mindful moment in time. We try to recall all the previous markings, from clovers, gravel, branches etc, to the 3000 km towels. Our journey in steps of 250 km memories.
We walk into the village around 17.00, quite pleased with our 31 km of hiking today!
At the pension we’re welcomed by our host. No English, but translation apps help us arrange everything. For 15 euro per person, this is a really good place to stay. Clean, with a private bathroom. Happy hikers!
After a shower and doing our laundry, we head to the supermarket for a resupply. At the Tesco the choice is limited, but in the end we find what we need.
We drop the groceries at the pension and go to the restaurant, only go find out that it’s closed the next few days… We’re disappointed, because it was the only option in town.
So we end up with a couscous meal instead, made more luxurious with a Frankfurter sausage, and a bottle of Kofola from the gas station .
After dinner, it’s almost bed time, since tomorrow is also a long day.