The dinky red electric train to Stary Smokovec was almost full. Germans and Poles, Russians and Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians. There was little choice at the station but to follow the crowd, behind the Grand Hotel, up Hrebienok on the path through the woods that runs parallel to the funicular track, straight on at the bridge by the waterfall, then up, down, up to Skalnate Pleso (Rocky Tarn). Lomnický štít rose six-hundred metres above, dipped in the clouds, cable cars shuttling visitors back and forth to the safety-railinged, concrete top. The end of the hike, Tatranska Lomnica, nothing more than a splodge in the valley below, hooked to chairlift lines and tarmac roads. On the bench opposite two men were slugging plum brandy neat from a bottle. A girl in a green dress and canvas shoes picked her way across the ridge.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Skalnate Pleso: The Long Way Round
The dinky red electric train to Stary Smokovec was almost full. Germans and Poles, Russians and Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians. There was little choice at the station but to follow the crowd, behind the Grand Hotel, up Hrebienok on the path through the woods that runs parallel to the funicular track, straight on at the bridge by the waterfall, then up, down, up to Skalnate Pleso (Rocky Tarn). Lomnický štít rose six-hundred metres above, dipped in the clouds, cable cars shuttling visitors back and forth to the safety-railinged, concrete top. The end of the hike, Tatranska Lomnica, nothing more than a splodge in the valley below, hooked to chairlift lines and tarmac roads. On the bench opposite two men were slugging plum brandy neat from a bottle. A girl in a green dress and canvas shoes picked her way across the ridge.
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