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| Svätý Jur vines |
Leaving Bratislava, we headed through Svätý Jur, a wine region at the foot of the Little Carpathian Mountains. The local village by the same name, dates back to around 3000 BC.
The vineyards seemed to cling to the sides of every hill in this
area. The grapes that are grown here, contribute to Müller Thurgau, Rizling rýnsky,
and Pesecká leánka wines (Riesling style), and Frankovka modrá a
Svätovavrinecké wines (pinot noir style).
Our next stop was Nitra which is one of the oldest town settlements
in Slovakia and an important economic centre of this western region.
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| Nitra Castle |
There we saw the Nitra Castle, and the Upper Town, which had lovely
well-preserved historical buildings.
Driving on, we reached Banská Bystrica. We had the address of a camping ground there.
However, we decided not to stay, as it had a very sloping site which does not go well with big campervans like ours.
Moving on, we found our way to a delightful camping site in the very little village of Rohozna.
The campsite, called Kemping Sedliacky Dvor, is set in open rolling
meadow-land surrounded by the foothills of the Low Tatra Mountains
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| Leigh outside Kemping Sedliacky Dvor |
This is a small and lovely site kept by ex-patriot Dutch couple,
Dion and Monique Suppers. We parked in an orchard behind their house.
We are their first guests of the season, and it is incredibly
peaceful with just some sheep with bells around their necks, hens, 2 cats
(whose antics we enjoyed) and 2 dogs to keep us company.
The first thing we saw each morning was the mist rising from the Low
Tatra mountains through the multitude of trees, all about to break out into
blossom.
We had a very restful day yesterday relaxing and catching up with
the mundane things like washing. And, we have just bought fresh farm eggs –
yum!
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| Low Tatra Mountains |
The internet is strong here, which is great as we’ve been out of
touch for quite a few days.
It was very
exciting to make contact with son Mike on Skype, and to talk to grandsons,
Callum and Luke. We are so missing them. It's lovely to catch up, and also show
them our new campervan via the computer camera.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of rain last night, and today is wet and
a bit cooler. Apparently, it get very cold here – we were told that the
temperature can drop to minus 30 degrees! We can’t imagine being so cold.
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| Local produce bought from the campsite |
The snow and cold plays havoc with local roads – they are the
roughest we have been on so far. We just cannot avoid all those holes. Poor
van!
We made some purchases from Monique at the campsite before we left for the next part of our journey - Monique’s home-made
cherry-plum liqueur to help warm us up as we drove around the mountains of
Slovakia (very yummy), some delicious home-made berry jam, and home-made
slippers knitted by one of her neighbours (perfect for the chilly nights).
The next morning, we moved on toward the High Tatras.
The above describes part of our 7 month campervan trip around central and southern Europe, which began in Germany.
The above describes part of our 7 month campervan trip around central and southern Europe, which began in Germany.