Weather: ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️ 🥵
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, home made sauerkraut soup and meatball/lentil stew at Hostinec U Ondreja)
Track: 🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰 (3 out of 5, tougher than expected trail through the forest and fields, passing through the town of Soblahov and into Trenčin)
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌🛌 (4 out of 5, modern, spacious appartment with good bed, a bath and washing machine)
Name of followed trail: E8, red markers.
A bit sore from yesterday’s challenging walk, we set out for the 20 km, mostly downhill to Trencin.
It sounds easy, but with our bodies still a bit sore and not fully regenerated after yesterday’s use and the high temperatures, it is quite tough going today 😅.
We start after a nice breakfast, first down hill, then (unexpected) slightly up. I feel my calves burning and am so glad that we did our up and over yesterday!
The trail continues down the hill. We’re glad that we’re in the forest , because the temperature rises quite a bit.
We looked at the map yesterday and both remembered that we’d get to Soblahov after 11 km. Somehow the village is another 4 kilometers…. That’s quite a disappointment, because we could use a break. It really is tougher than expected. It seems that hiking 280 km in the mountains in 10 days does something to your body 😅🤔.
In Soblahov, after 2 large Kofola, we enjoy a good Slovakian home made meal of soup and a lentil stew with meatballs. Mark especially likes the sauerkraut soup (kapustnica).
The waiter is very friendly and curious about our journey. He comments that he normally only reads about thru hikers on Instagram, and now he meets a live version 😅! He’s not the first to say this. In our perspective, we are just 2 ordinary humans investing a lot of time and energy in a journey we want to make. The hardest thing we did? actually go. From there, walking 25km a day is all it takes to go from reading about it to living it 🙂.
And I’ll be honest, it’s not always easy but it is definitely worth it.
From Soblahov it’s now only 6 kilometers to Trenčín. We try to stay in the shade as much as possible, but it’s still hot in the fields. We’re happy to get into the forest around the Trenčín castle. From there we walk through the medival old town into the 1950 newer part of town to our appartment. Our friendly host shows us our home for the next 2 days. It’s a lovely appartment with everything we need.
For now, that’s a lot of water to drink and a shower!
We also do our first laundry session before we go for dinner. After our good burger, it’s time to go home and relax.
We made it to Trenčín!