High Tetras – Stary Smokovec

If Carol had not given a paper at the Husse Conference when we first arrived, we would not have met Zsuzsa and if we not met Zsuzsa, we would never have had a desire to visit the High Tetras. She is from Slovakia and told us of the wonderful hiking and scenery in the mountains of the north eastern part of Slovakia. Carol and I decided to take a look for ourselves. Zsuzsa recommended a few hotels that we checked out on line and decided on the Grand Hotel. In its prime, it was certainly a “Grand Hotel.”

It is a little dated, but the staff is very helpful and friendly, and the building suggests the former grandeur. The rooms were spacious, with a balcony, very clean and comfortable. The hotel itself has an enormous bar area, a really formal dining room, a pool table, and a new wellness center.

The town of Stary Smokovec and the surrounding communities cater to the ski crowd in the winter and the hikers in the summer. We took a funicular up to the trailhead of a very rocky trail that led us to some waterfalls and then after about two hours of walking to a ski lift that gave us a ride down the mountain. There were a large number of hikers of all shapes, sizes, fitness levels, and all types of gear. There were families out for a day stroll and hard core backpackers who were going to go up into the mountains for a night or two.

A short tram ride back to our hotel, and we were ready to explore the wellness center. There was a soaking pool, whirlpool, cold dunk, dry sauna, wet sauna, and a room with tile covered lounge chairs and a starry night ceiling. All very nice and modern and obviously built to attract the after ski crowd. There were not many people taking advantage of the facilities and we enjoyed then immensely.

After two nights at the Grand, we got up to drive the three hours to Kosice to meet up with Zsuzsa and her boyfriend, Giovanni, who had come to visit her from his home in Sardenia. However, on the way, Carol found in the Lonely Planet that we would be going very close to Spis Castel. Since it had been a couple of days since our last castle visit, we naturally stopped to have a look. This is an enormous complex and it is tourist friendly with an informative audioguide and great views.

The really neat thing about our flexible itinerary is that we did not have a castle viewing planned for the day but took advantage of the sights on our route.

Anyway, in Kocise, we had a fun evening with Zsuzsa and Giovanni and left the next morning for our temporary home country, Hungary.