Our post-sailing time in Croatia was filled with so many awesome experiences we just can’t hold back from sharing them. Almost all of them. Enough of them that I’d recommend pouring yourself a glass of wine and finding a nice shady spot to unwind while you read.

If you don’t have the time, here’s the TL;DR (Too Long Didn’t Read / synopsis) version:
Walking the Dubrovnik walls was jaw dropping, and the non-touristy beach coves are where we could be found the rest of the time. Split = Roman palace ruins of fantastic proportion. Plitvice was wonderful hiking and waterfall mania. Rovinj, our favorite place, provided scootering to truffles, indulging our tastebuds, sauntering down winding old streets, and kayaking on rough seas.

And now for the extended version:

Dubrovnik

We have to offer a big thanks to Coreen Callister for setting us on the right path to truly enjoying our time in Dubrovnik. You see, the beauty of the old city, fully pedestrian and surrounded by massive stone walls, is surpassed only by the craziness of the tourist mob scene that descends on it each day. Thanks to Coreen’s advice and list of must-dos, we were able to plan around the mob and love our time in Dubrovnik. More specifically, we walked the city walls early in the day, getting lots of beautiful views and pictures mostly to ourselves before having to throw elbows to make it fully around through the other tourists. We took a couple to the ribs ourselves by the end. Fair’s fair, of course. One fascinating piece of walking the walls (aside from the simple fact that you’re walking along ancient architectural amazingness) is the views of the rooftops of the old city. The color of the tiles on the different roofs (varying from yellow to bright red) is a telltale sign of whether or not the building was hit during the 1991-1992 attack on Dubrovnik. Newer, bright red tiles were typically used to repair damaged roofs.

 

We also spent a wonderful evening wandering the streets of the old city, sticking largely to less populated streets and enjoying the magic of the ancient evening. We enjoyed just a few ice cream cones, our favorite being Dolce Vita. And finally, we spent the early afternoons, the height of tourist mob madness, reading our books and sipping beers in the shade of a couple of the less populated coves. We hadn’t realized we needed further unwinding after the week of sailing, but we took it on gladly anyway!

Split

Where Dubrovnik feels designed for tourists, Split is still a real city. There’s lots to appreciate for a tourist, but one could also plunk down here for awhile and easily avoid the tourism. We spent just a day and an evening here, hanging out with a couple of German girls at an “American” bar (owned by a guy from Detroit/Baltimore) and enjoying a long stroll through the old town center and along the harbor. The old town consists of Diocletian’s roman palace as well as the newer, but still really old, city that built up around it. The roman ruins are awe inspiring and still well enough intact that we easily got the sense of the immensity and grandeur of the place. And to top off the experience, Diocletian made an appearance through the main palace entryway following a slew of ceremonial dressed roman soldiers. He does a funny routine of welcoming his “guests” and demanding obedience. Far funnier now than it was in third century.

After his appearance, we passed through the entryway and were greeted by an amazing a cappella group doing a few traditional Croatian songs. We stayed for awhile getting lost in their beautiful harmonizing before heading on our last excursion for the day, climbing the mound just north of downtown. We were really craving a bit of exercise and had less than an hour before our bus left, so we charged out of old town and up through lovely old neighborhoods into a beautiful park. We enjoyed a few brief views of the city and the sea then literally ran back down to make sure we caught our bus. And thus after our short time in Split, we split lickety split!

Plitvice

Croatia’s waterfall wonderland instills as many emotions as it does amazing views. One moment you are standing in awe and tranquility as yet another waterfall you were certain only existed in fairytales splashes before you. And the next you’re jerked back to socially awkward reality as thirty tourists at once squeeze around you to snap photos and experience their own, awed, tranquil moment.

Thanks to our guidebook and a couple friends’ advice, we spent fairly little time in the tourist maze… just enough, in fact, to fully appreciate every other moment we spent with more than 6 inches of personal space around us.

First, we got there early (and if we went again, I’d try to get there even earlier). This is Disneyland Croatia style, and you’re either first in the gate, or you’re spending hours watching people from the line. We were there early enough to fully enjoy most of the waterfalls without a ton of other people around.

Second, we found other hiking trails away from the waterfalls that were truly tranquil. Yes, the waterfalls are amazing and the reason we, and everyone else, went to the park. But, we had also hoped for a day of hiking, and Plitvice is not really set up for that. The park has one, main, fairly short path (and a couple higher cliffside paths) that winds you along a boardwalk (literally wide enough for one line of people heading up single file and another line heading down single file… all snapping pictures) past most of the best views. After a couple hours of slow walking and picture-taking, you’ve gawked at just about all of it – not the place to go for a hike.

So we asked the tourist information office about other hikes, and they were completely unhelpful, telling us there were no other trails. But just outside their office is a large map with around 20 miles of trails that reach out into the forests around the park. Clearly they are not encouraging tourists to take these paths… maybe because there are no waterfalls along them? Maybe because they don’t want to encourage the masses to crowd these trails too? We’re not sure, but we’re really glad they don’t, because we saw only four other people in 5-6 miles of walking through beautiful forest, past stones that made us think of the Marble Mountains, through a meadow and past a herd of sheep grazing, and finally past a beautiful picnic area set up next to a functioning waterwheel in a brook. (I’m calling it a brook because it’s the only word that conjures up the level of adorable countryside this scene deserved.) This hike also ends at one of the higher tourist trails where there are more lookouts galore to get some beautiful views of the falls from above.

It was glorious and invigorating, and by the time we descended back to the main path to then return to the bus stop, we caught the full force of the tourist mob scene, just to make us even more appreciative of our early morning waterfall and afternoon forest hiking experiences.

Rovinj

This was our favorite. Seriously, we plan to go back here. For maybe a full couple weeks. Or a month. Or all of retirement. Rovinj sits on Croatia’s northern coast in the region of Istria. Istria is known for three things: wine, olive oil, and truffles (the mushrooms, not the chocolate). Have you booked your flights here yet? No? I’ll wait while you go do that.

Oh good, your back. Allow me to elaborate so you can get even more excited about going to Rovinj.

First, simply wandering through old town is delightful and romantic. The polished cobblestone streets wind in the way of urban planners’ nightmares, begging you to explore each alley and every corner. And usually you’ll find beautiful old apartments, small art galleries, quaint wine shops, or a perfectly positioned cafe or restaurant serving delectable Istrian delights. We enjoyed an evening of wine tasting at one of these cafes, sitting outside on a quaint square while being serenaded by a street musician and dining on olives and bread.

Second, visiting the inland areas, the seat of truffle heaven, is a must. Doing so by motor scooter makes it all the more exciting. This marked Brian’s first ever experience on a two-wheeled motorized vehicle as well as driving in another country (a great first combo…), and I think he liked it. Of course it took a little getting used to, and I can’t say he was exactly smiling the whole time as I couldn’t see his face from my back seat position… though I am fairly certain that once the sun went down and we weren’t yet safely parked back at home he was definitely not smiling. But overall he was pretty thrilled with it all, and so was I.

Motor scooter is a really fun way to explore the countryside, and it was nice to stop where and when we wanted. We visited a lovely off the beaten path restaurant for a lunch of truffle madness and the best prosciutto either of us has ever had (maybe even more revelational than the truffles). We stopped in at a fully on the beaten path truffle shop where we sampled and then bought some truffled cheese and a couple truffled chocolate truffles, both absolutely delicious. And we made our last stop for the day a beautiful hilltop town for a walk, a drink, and a bit more truffle tasting, picking up a bottle of honeyed brandy with truffles for a later treat.

Kayaking around the archipelago just off Rovinj was our last big adventure in Istria. We hadn’t signed up for the kayaking tour with the intent of having an adventure so much as just wanting to see the area in a different way and get a bit of exercise in the process. I mean, we signed up for a tour. We didn’t just rent kayaks and throw them in the water (though next time we might do just that). But mother nature and culture had other intentions.

We waited at the tour office for our guides. Around the appointed time, a van showed up. No greetings were exchanged, but someone said, “Get in the van.” In we went where we met another couple of equally gullible tourists hoping as we were that this van would take us to kayaking. We drove briefly and silently through the town before plunging into the forest…. and thankfully emerging next to a small cove where the kayaks were stored.

Instruction(s) were given: Put everything in the dry bag and close it properly. Warnings were given: The sea is very rough since a storm is coming tomorrow. It will get worse as we paddle out. Also, there is a very strong current that will pull your boat (towards the rocks, it turns out). And then we were off! Thankfully Brian and I are expert kayakers. Oh wait, no we’re not. The sea was rough. The current was strong. And we definitely got stuck in it all to the point that Bobo (our guide who was way ahead of us) had to come back to help us. Help consisted of him calling out the strokes as we paddled and responding when Brian mentioned how strongly our boat was being pulled with, “Yes. I told you that.”

A couple hours and about 8 km of arm and shoulder burning paddling later, we arrived at our rest stop. We – especially Brian, because if we’re really honest, he was the engine of our tiny craft – were immensely relieved to not only be resting, but also to learn that our rest stop was just a 15 minute paddle from the end of our tour. Being given no plan at the beginning of the tour, we had no idea when our breaks would come, how many we would get, or how long we still had left to paddle until that moment. I think we did a touchdown victory dance when we learned we might make it through the entire day without needing hospitalization for our arms and backs. Our guides, who had been pretty much silent until then, gave us a tour of the small island. Lunch and snorkeling off a small beach followed before we jumped stumbled back into the kayaks and rowed home, sticking close to our guides to avoid the fishing boats crossing through the final channel. So maybe we won’t be signing up for many more kayaking tours (and we’d advise against it in all but very calm water). But some of it was in fact fun. And, on a calm day, I can see how we may have even thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our last day was spent mostly inside due to stormy weather. We grazed through our Istrian snacks and found ourselves already reminiscing about the wonderful days we spent in Croatia. But we head to the Julian Alps next for a bit more hut to hut hiking!

*For those of you who like leaving comments, we want you to know that we read every one, and we love them. Please feel no obligation to leave a comment if that’s not your thing, but know that, even as we are not responding to comments, we do read them. If you would like a response to specific a question or comment, please email us privately.

Before our trip, whenever we spoke with people about visiting Croatia, we almost always heard the same thing: “You’ll love it! Are you going sailing?” Clearly, visiting the islands off the Croatian coast is one of the major attractions of this tourism-focused country, and one we didn’t want to miss out on. However, given our goal of not planning too much of our world travel adventure in advance, we only started researching possible options about a week before arriving in Croatia. And we can honestly say that we were incredibly lucky to find Get Away Sailing (highly recommend), and incredibly lucky that they had one final cabin available in their flotilla of five boats. Most of the other folks on the trip had booked at least a couple months in advance. We should also note for any consistent readers of our blog that our unfortunate bout of “travelers tummy” in Budapest and Zagreb had fully left us when we came to the beautiful waters of the Adriatic.

We made our way down to the marina in the city of Dubrovnik, which sits at the southern end of the Croatian coast. We met our team, one other couple from Great Britain and one from Scotland, and chatted lightly while awaiting instructions. Our first “team-building” task was buying food for breakfasts and lunches. We passed this test with flying colors as everyone agreed on similar, healthy food options. Again it felt like we had lucked out, this time with the awesome group of people on our boat. It seems this sailing company has a knack for attracting friendly people, and we seemed to hit it off well with virtually everyone on the flotilla. Besides our “couples” boat, there were three other boats of friendly Aussies and Brits, and one boat of hysterical, party-animal Norwegians. The Norwegians drank everyone else under the table, partied til the wee hours of the morning, and still seemed to be raring to go when we sailed off each morning. Oh, and they were all at least 10-30 years older then us.

In my mind, the top highlight from this trip was our daily routine. We’d wake up on the earlier side, follow the amazing Captain Jack in a casual yoga routine, then maybe go for a morning dip in the Adriatic. We’d follow this with a delicious breakfast of coffee/tea, yogurt, fruit, granola and honey, sail or motor to a quiet island cove, and take our first or second swim of the day, swimming to the shore to relax there or relaxing on the boat. Lunch was sandwiches and salads along with an afternoon beer, and we’d play cards or read books while continuing to sail toward a late afternoon swimming spot or into the next Harbor. After a beautiful sunset, evening brought an exceptional dinner at a local restaurant with the rest of our flotilla, drinks into the night, and then passing out in our bed on the boat. Rinse and repeat.

Beyond this “normal” routine, there were a number of stand-out moments that even surpassed this base-level of awesome. We started the week off with a full moon, and this led to some amazing moon rises including one that rose bright red while we sipped cocktails on the beautiful island of Korcula. The experience was only enhanced by our location at Bar Massimo which sits at the top of a centuries-old rampart tower and is only accessible by climbing a ladder.

One of our exceptional dinners, this one on the island of Mljet, included fresh red snapper that had been spear-fished by the free-diving chef the day before. Adding a surprisingly graphic special touch was a large flat screen TV displaying video of the spearing in the background of our meal.

While each swim in the perfectly clear, 80 degree Adriatic was refreshing and wonderful, our swim into “Odysseus’ blue cave” was extra special. When looking back out from inside the cave, the water seemed to glow blue from underneath. It felt like a place ancient people might have come to be healed of illnesses due to its magical qualities, and we felt lucky to experience it and its peaceful solitude.

Two other events require special note: (1) the regatta that wasn’t, and (2) the stealing of skipper Marco’s USA speedos. First, we were told at the beginning our trip that we’d have a race of the five boats toward the end of the week. In theory, we should have been practicing setting our sails and tacking all week. However, the wind didn’t cooperate much during the week, and besides, everyone was too busy relaxing to take the upcoming race very seriously. But, when the race did come around, our boat was jazzed up… only to have our spirits deflated when all the boats crawled away from the starting line at less then one knot. We literally took off like a herd of turtles. Then, during the race there were some hilarious arguments over the VHF radio (hilarious to us at least) about where the finish line really was. At the end, each boat claimed to have won, and I can honestly say, I have no idea who was right… Though I can say that our meal that night did not taste especially victorious.

The second event of special note involved a 22 year old, vivacious, Croatian skipper named Marco. Marco skippered the boat with all single women, and he seemed to enjoy prancing about his boat (and often dancing in the bow) in his skimpy speedo bathing suit, much to the joy of his passengers. The speedos were emblazoned with the stars and stripes and a big “USA,” and sometime in our first few days, our boat made it our mission to steal the sacred, patriotic suit and string it up on our mast as a fun prank. The suit proved elusive despite a late-night, Watergate-style search on Marco’s boat by Meghan and other guests with requisite flashlights. But thanks to the help from a high ranking official in the company, we were finally successful on the last day of the cruise and proudly sailed from the marina with the undies flapping in the breeze. We all had a good laugh when Marco and others saw the suit strung up on our boat. However, the female passengers on Marco’s boat quickly asked for them back, so they could enjoy their skipper “in style” for their last day.

We pulled back into the Dubrovnik marina after seven days of relaxation, exploration, and fun. It was a truly great “vacation from our vacation.” And we’d built great friendships in the tight quarters of our small boat with the other two couples who we hope to see again either in England, Scotland, or California. Now, we’ll explore more of what Croatia offers on dry land with time in Dubrovnik, Split, Plitvice Lakes, and Istria. Off we go again!

Many of you have probably heard that Brian and I just returned from a sailing trip along Croatia’s southern coast. Rest assured that delightful update is coming. But for now, enjoy this little nugget of stopovers and… well… travel experience. I’ve presented the gentle version here. For the full, unadulterated account (not for the easily grossed out), click here.

Most people don’t treat Budapest as a stopover city. There’s so much to see and do that you could spend weeks exploring and experiencing. But Brian had been to Budapest before, and we had a bit of planning to do if we were even going to attempt to do right by Croatia, a place we were planning to explore much more in depth.

So we got just a few nights in Budapest, a couple days for planning and a couple for exploring. Of course we could spend longer if we felt like it – the beauty of not planning too much in advance. But, as luck would have it, our planning led us to catch the last available cabin on a sailboat heading along the Croatian coast much earlier than we thought we would. So we were to spend exactly four days in Budapest before beginning the long trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia.

We had several, wonderful and memorable experiences including the sights of the magnificent buildings lit up at night, a day relaxing at the thermal baths, and a night of beers with some locals and other travelers… And of course our first foray into Hungarian eats!  

   

  

  

 
Unfortunately, a case of traveller’s tummy turned Budapest into even more of a stopover experience as our last day was spent largely laid up in a bathroom.

We caught the train to Zagreb, Croatia (the first leg of our journey to Dubrovnik) early the next morning. 6am to be exact. Far earlier than we will ever attempt to do again as we couldn’t make it to bed before 2am the night before. I’m sure we weren’t the only zombies wandering Zagreb that afternoon. But we were certainly truest to form.

 

 It turns out many people do treat Zagreb as a stopover city, spending only one night as they travel through. Croatia is known for its coast, and Zagreb is far from the blue waters of the Adriatic. We largely did so as well, spending only two nights. But there were a few things we wanted to see. The early train allowed us to explore a couple museums our first afternoon: The Croatian Museum of Naive Art, and The Museum of Broken Relationships. That is, after we hit up our first and possibly most important stop, The Cookie Factory. Nothing beats a homemade chocolate chip cookie when you’re eating an international diet.

The museums were also a wonderful experience – made even more so by our delusional state? The Croatian Museum of Naive Art exhibits art pieces from largely rural Croatians who’ve had no formal training. The pieces were magnificent. Many were paintings on glass as glass was a cheap surface to use. Glass allowed the colors to appear incredibly vivid and the overall painting to look smooth and clean. Both Brian and I were spellbound by several pieces. One of our favorite pieces is “Solar Eclipse” by Ivan Generalic.

The Museum of Broken Relationships displays artifacts and stories sent from people around the world about their failed relationships. These were everything one would expect: touching, funny, heartwrenching. But most of all, the museum created an atmosphere of collective empathy. Every person who walks through will find themselves in some piece of a story, making the whole experiences truly personal to each visitor.

Our plan for day two was to head to a national park for some promised amazing hiking. Unfortuantely, traveller’s tummy prevented that, and we resigned ourselves to a more relaxing and hopefully recuperating day in Zagreb. We walked, slowly, post-dinner European style, to a manmade lake and relaxed by its shore with lemonade. The lake had rigged a pulley system to allow people to wake board around in circles, and we had fun watching them and quietly wishing we felt good enough to try it. We then took the tram back into the old town and spent the rest of our time snacking through The Cookie Factory’s delights. I love having a regular spot. The verdict: good cookies, great brownies, terrible ice cream. (Outside of that we were both on a diet of white bread, bananas, and ramen.)

We hop a noontime bus for an 8.5 hour trip to Dubrovnik tomorrow, setting sail the next day. Fingers crossed for a nice ride and feeling better!

The last rays of direct sunlight we saw were from the top of Rysy before hiking down into Slovakia six days ago. Since then, our motto has been “It’s not a day in Slovakia if it doesn’t rain!” So we looked at each other completely perplexed when the clouds finally broke on the second day of our bike trip into wine country. Why so bright? Are we still in Slovakia? Finally realizing how long it had been since we’d seen the sun, we bowed our heads slightly in gratitude and slathered on more sunscreen.

And gratitude is perhaps the best theme for recounting our biking experience through the Slovakian wine country. While we truly enjoyed the trip, so many elements defied our expectations. It sounded like our kind of adventure… rent bikes for a few days, plan a loop through a wine region, and taste along the way. But we are not in Napa. We are in Slovakia.

 

 First, we were grateful we spent the day in Bratislava exploring and planning before we headed out to the countryside. Bratislava’s old town is so wonderfully quaint with a maze of winding streets and beautifully restored buildings filled with cafes and history (and an especially delicious sweets shop serving an endless list of delectable cakes and flavored sipping chocolates). 

 Second, we were grateful the tourist information office had a couple maps that actually showed bike routes out to at least some of the wine country…. despite them not knowing a lick of information beyond that (about either biking or the wine country), and despite the company we wanted to rent bikes from telling us we should not bike out that way and why don’t we just do a nice day trip instead?

Third, we were grateful to find at least one person in Bratislava who looked at our potential routes and confirmed that they were in fact possible. They weren’t.

Fourth, we were grateful when we finally reached what seemed to be the highest point in Bratislava on day one, walking our bikes most of the way, and began descending toward a lovely, cruiseable trail. And we were super grateful that the multitude of trained-to-kill german shepherds* guarding every house on a particularly wealthy block of this descent (that was not on the recommended bike route but was necessary to take) were behind closed gates.

  Fifth, we were so grateful for the kindness of the woman (I’ll call her Mary) at the first winery we visited towards the end of our first day. Having no information on wine tasting and customs in this region, despite our efforts to figure them out, Mary informed us that the wineries only do tastings on reservations made ahead of time, but she invited us in to try one of their wines as she happened to have a bottle open. It was sensational, and that isn’t simply because it was our first and we’d just ridden several miles through the rain to arrive there. It was really delicious. And Mary gave us quite a bit more information on touring the area and helped us get oriented. 

The custom is a bit different here. People do not generally go out to the wineries to taste (unless they’re on an organized tour and/or have scheduled ahead of time… not exactly our m.o., nor do we have any idea how we would have learned that ahead of time). Instead, they go to different wine shops in the towns to taste, and thus they do maybe one or two tastings over the course of a few days, rather than doing a few smaller tastings each day. This helped explain why, when we asked people where we should go to taste wine, they barely mentioned actually tasting the wine in their recommended sites of wine country. Instead we were told we should visit several historical sites and a couple castles in the area “and then maybe visit this shop and taste some wines, have some lunch” etc. Inevitably, we did exactly that, but we only really understood it all in retrospect.

Sixth, we were grateful for Robo and his girlfriend at VinoCentrum in Svaty Jur for allowing us to taste several wines from the local region, pouring us a few glasses of the ones we particularly liked, and serving us incredibly delicious cheese and bread. Robo also regaled us with a few stories of previous tourists and of the recent history of the region as it revives itself from its communist past and again seeks to make Slovakian wine unique to its location. 

 Seventh, we were grateful for the woman at the hostel for giving us our own room, even though it was a shared, four-bed dorm. Most (All?) other travelers on that floor smoked like it was their last day on earth. Thankfully, our room stayed relatively smoke free.

Eighth, surprisingly, I was grateful to be riding my ill fitting boy’s mountain bike (“lady bikes” were not available when we rented) when the paved trail we were hoping to take out and back to Pezinok for the day ended in a muddy road (it had rained all night). I was even more grateful for it when the muddy road ended in a single track of mud and grass that we eventually opted out of for the even muddier but wider flattened field below the track. Brian was also grateful I was on a mountain bike for that part. And perhaps I should say we were even grateful for the muddied, unpaved road as it made certain we limited our adventure to something we could actually do without too much stress. We were both grateful to find paved road again. And we were ecstatic to learn we could throw our bikes on the train to get back to our hostel rather than bike back along the crazy mud flat.

Ninth, we were grateful for the delightfulness of the countryside and towns we visited. Despite our bike trail being alongside a major road, a route chosen to fit our level of biking experience, the other side of the trail was lined with beautiful vineyards much of the way. And the vines were heavy with perfectly plump fruit.  

  

 We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Svaty Jur with its hostel almost a full mile straight uphill, its hidden castle ruins, and its interesting and friendly people serving both delicious wine and delicious treats! We also loved our day in Pezinok with its historical self guided walking tour and small town pride and preservation. We tasted some absolutely delicious wines as well as the local table wine that people bring their jugs to have filled. And we found another chocolate shop and indulged in another sipping chocolate as well as a small bit of fondue (served to us by Scarlett Johansson’s doppleganger).

And finally, tenth, we were grateful for a lovely, fairly event free and mostly sunny last day of riding in which we saw two castle ruins and biked down the Danube before returning our bikes and crashing early.  

 

 *Brian and I both love dogs. We are not bad-mouthing german shepherds as a breed. But these particular ones were guard dogs. They were scary.

In Krakow, sometime during the first week of our 2015 world travel adventure, Meghan asked, “What do you think about hiking from Poland, over the mountains, to Slovakia?” 

I’m sorry…what? Fortunately, Meghan had read this was actually possible (“somewhere on the internet,” she claimed). So we started doing our research. The Polish tourist haven of Zakopane, a two hour bus ride from Krakow, was our jumping off point. And when I say tourist haven, I truly mean it. The main walking drag in Zakopane resembles Main Street in Disneyland: tons of people and tons of street vendors selling chotzkies, fast food, and the local, salty mountain cheese. Zakopane sits on the north side of the Tatra Mountains that stretch east to west along the Poland-Slovakia border. And based on the number of people in Zakopane, and along the trail we started to hike on, half of Poland comes to the Tatra Mountains during the common holiday month of August. 

As we started off on our journey, we discovered that hiking in the High Tatras is very different from the Pacific Crest Trail. For all we know, these differences apply to hiking all over Europe. First off, our detailed map of the region and subsequent trail signs listed the distance between places in time, not length: e.g., 1 hour and 50 minutes to Schronisko PTTK Murowaniec. According to who? Certainly not us. During our first couple days, we discovered that the times listed were a bit shorter than we hike not including breaks. 

The second big difference from the PCT: the trails we were on tended to go straight up and straight down hillsides instead of gently contouring up and down. And they did so using giant stone steps rather than smoothed dirt paths. I think we left our knees somewhere near a creekbed on day 2. By the time we made it to Slovakia on day 3, we were popping ibuprofen like tic tacs.

Finally, we were amazed at the average speed of the European hikers. We’ve never been the fastest hikers, but after spending a couple months hiking before we left for Europe, we felt in pretty good shape. Maybe it’s the walking culture over here, but we were passed by all types of different hikers including grandmas and families with 6 year old kids. This was all discovered on our first day of hiking.

 We arrived at our first Schronisko (Mountain Inn) about two hours after starting. We have no idea how far we hiked. The inn was bigger than we anticipated. There must have been 20-30 rooms. Each with a number of bunk beds. And the restaurant/beer hall was enormous with lots of picnic tables outside too. The culture there reminded us of “apres-ski” at a big ski lodge. But instead, this was apres-hike. Upon arrival, we dropped off our bigger bags, and took a loop hike that gave us our first real sense of the Tatras.   

  
The next day we tried to pick a route to our next mountain inn that would avoid any big climbs. We knew the following day’s climb up Rysy, the tallest mountain in Poland and the border between Poland and Slovakia, would be exhausting. However, relaxed hiking was not to be. We hiked a fairly forested route that still climbed and dropped on stone steps as if the trail designers just tried to make a straight line between two points.  

 Our final few miles that day were on a paved road packed with tourists walking up to Morskie Oko, a popular lake, and our second mountain inn. Our roommates that night were a lovely family from Warsaw who gave us delicious tea and recommendations for the Polish dinner menu at the inn.  

 We checked the weather report for our coming day’s climb over Rysy and discovered thunderstorms were forecasted for the afternoon. Of course, this came as no surprise to us since thunderstorms seem to be following us everywhere this summer. We set our alarm for 3am to get out early and avoid the predicted storms.  

The route to Rysy’s summit is only 2.5 miles, but is predicted to take 4 hours (we did it in 5). It climbs 900 meters: 100 meters in the first 1.5 miles, and 800 meters in the last mile. There are chains to help along the way when the path turns to rock scrambling. One section close to the top had you hold a chain as you edged along a wall with very narrow folds in the rock for foot holds and nothing but a huge drop off below. That part was short but terrifying. 

We were some of the first out in the morning, and we were passed by about 20 people, so the top was crowded, but not too bad. And an incredible victory! We took one picture and a short break for food, but we headed down shortly after as clouds were gathering for the promised storms.  

 The way down on the Slovakia side was much less steep. We made our way to a cool inn just below the top ridge in a barren rock field. We had a nice break there since we didn’t take any real breaks on the way up, and we watched a couple people trekking up supplies to the inn. It looked insane: a keg of beer, cases of soda, etc, all piled in a high tower on their backs. Then we decided to push on to get down to our hotel for the night. 

 
Heading down the rocky stepped path, we felt the first few drops of rain only 15-20 minutes below the inn, too late to turn back, but still 2 hours from the hotel. We donned our raincoats just as the skies opened and released a torrent of rain and hail. The hail came down heavy and painful, a mix of peas and garbanzo beans. At the same time, we reached a section of trail with chains again. We tried to take some shelter near a rock, but it was no good, so we pushed on to try the chains. The rocks weren’t too slippery, and we were able to make it down the chains despite climbing down through rivers of water and hail. Oh yes, and thunder. We were gripping metal holdings on exposed rock (the closest tree was still an hour or so away) in a pouring hail thunderstorm… with 500 of our closest friends (Thankfully most of them taller than us!). The hail finished but the rain continued, and we pushed on in the line of people, down and down, balancing from rock to rock, past a couple lakes at the base of the exposed bowl we were in. Unfortunately the storm didn’t move, it just dumped everything it had on top of us. We probably would have hiked more slowly in nice weather, but we wanted out of the storm. Despite our rapid (though slower than European) pace, we got down without slipping. The rain let up eventually, and we were able to pull our hoods off by the time we reached the trees, though anything not covered by raincoats was soaked through. We arrived at our hotel at last, 9.5 crazy hours after leaving the last one and literally grateful to have survived the day. We celebrated with beef goulash, bread, cabbage and beer after a short nap.  
 The next day only called for a 3 mile, fully downhill hike into the town of Strbske Pleso. Of course, we got caught in another thunderstorm, but luckily we could wait out most of this one amongst some trees. We made it into town and celebrated (again) having hiked from Poland to Slovakia. One more adventure in the books!