Gorgeous Gorge, Bizarre Bike Bridges 🌉 Cycling the Vrátna Valley to Žilina

Day 252. 54km (92,418kms 8yrs)

Though I’ve descended somewhat, the brief cold snap is also over so I was snug in my tent beneath the cloudy sky. I began the day by completing the climb up the Vrátna Valley into a sizeable headwind, but at the end of the road found only closed buildings, and a few hardy hikers.

The descent though was gorgeous; I’d missed a lot of it on the climb between searching for a camp last night and head down into the wind this morning. The sun came out too for a short time, making the contrast between colourful trees and pale rock face more brilliant.

Almost all the way from Terchová to Žilina a purpose-built bike road guided me along the Varínka stream, criss-crossing over some very new and 17% steep bridges. Why so high? Does something need to pass beneath these bizarrely tall bridges through a couple of feet of water?! Apart from having to hop off and push periodically (and I wasn’t the only one) a very enjoyable traffic free ride.

In Žilina I cruised around the cobbled old town built on two levels connected with a cobbled flight of shallow stairs, and waited to the agreed time to meet my hosts 10km further on in Svederník. Here I was greeted by three enthusiastic children and their parents, plus cat, dog, ducks, and chickens. Ready for a rest and with rain forecast the following day Michel and Zuzuana and generously agreed to host me for two nights.

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Morning. [screaming] I slept late. The sun was almost up by the time I woke up. Um, this morning I'm continuing up the valley to see what's at the end of the road here before I turn around and go 50 km to Zelina where I have a warm showers host. And I think I'm going to have a rest day there. So, I better make sure the tent is nice and dry when I pack up today. Is this rhubarb? Oh, I could murder rhubarb crumble right now. Left more of a mark than I usually do in my campsites. Yay, sunshine. It's been a couple of days. Battling a bit of a headwind up this valley, but there's only a kilometer or so to go now. It never occurs to me in time when I come up these dead end mountain roads that I could have left my luggage at the bottom and my campsite this morning. Oh well. This is the road I came down yesterday turning into the valley here to Trava. And then I camped somewhere just off this road on this little road here in the forest. And then I continued up here this morning. And now I'm here at the end of the line contemplating what to do next cuz there's nobody here. says it's €24 if you want to go up in the chair lift and back down again, but that's clearly not running right now. These guys are off somewhere. No time or motivation for a big hike today. So, it's 40 km downhill into Zelina. 17. Okay. Nope. [laughter] There's much less variety in the color now. It's all descending into brown. Slovakia is superb for these purpose-built bike roads. I love it. Bike station. Got a lovely tailwind here. It's basically flat, but I am not pedaling at all. Can't complain. No cyclist has addressed me all the way across Slovakia, but here in Zelina, I've just had two different aoys from two different cyclists. A hoy is the superb way to say hello in Slovakian. talk to people about God and we help them know better >> right now we're inviting people Well, I don't know what that means. Um, a flood maybe. See how far I can get. Oh, okay. The sun's about to set. The heavens are about to open. But that's okay cuz I'm almost at my host's village. Thank goodness for a rest day. It's rainy. Chickens, can you have a bit more chill? I was very lucky to dodge what would have been a very rainy ride with a rest day with a lovely Slovakian family who introduced me to a Czechoslovakian animation called Patamax.