Goodbye to Stromowce Nizne, a small but attractive town on the Polish - Slovakia border,popular as a holiday destination and the home of rafting it seems. Across the river is the township of Cerveny Klastor where a monastery museum is famous but we gave that a miss and decided to stick to the river.
The Pieniny National Park is part of both countries,one you pay to go in to in the other is free entry.
Stromowce is also close to the Pieniny Mountains and the Dunajec Gorge which the Dunajec River runs through on its way to the spa town of Szczawnica where we will stay tonight.
The limestone gorge is a World Natural Heritage site and marks the boundary between Slovakia and Poland known as the Pieniny Way.The choice is to walk it or take a raft down the river for two hours.
Not a difficult decision really.We hiked across the river and headed up the road to the ticket office on the Slovakia side as our tour manager said they spoke English and were reputable.We arrived in time for the first run of the day so sat and watched them get the rafts ready.
The rafts are like four wooden open burial caskets lashed together by rope and a couple of cross bars.They bail out the water manually and attack some greenery to the front of the raft, then they put three rows of seating in and we are ready to sail. No life jackets or safety instructions in this part of the world.Just in and off down the river.
Our boaties were wearing traditional hats and patterned jerkins with white shirts and on the bank a collection of other men stand around and offer advice perhaps,gossip and fill in their day.
On our raft we had a young boy called Sebastian at the back of the raft fishing,maybe his dad was the paddler but he gave us great entertainment by feeding the ducks and getting very excited when we went down rapids.
When you have no idea what is being said during the commentary you tend to try and second guess the content.There was a young Slovakian woman on board who struck up a conversation with us she said it was not very illuminating.She was with her parents and her mother gave Brad a shirt to wear as it had got cooler.
The trip was well worth while, two hours through a beautiful gorge, the autumn colors showing amongst the firs and leaves drifting down into the river. We saw some bird life, notably ducks as we passed by the small stony beaches.
Above us towered the limestone cliffs covered in firs,larch,rowan and beech trees.
The pace was leisurely and the flow varied from calm to small rapids.This is when the paddlers sprang into action pushing the paddles into the current or off the rocks.That was fun and there was a bit of competition between the rafts on the river as to who would get there first.We were the slower one but we still made good time and pulled into the landing bay two hours after setting off.
Brad and I then hiked on to the town of Szczawnica along the Pieniny Way for another fifteen minutes before turning along another river to look for our hotel.It took another half hour to find it but a lovely place set amongst trees quite high above the river.There is a big chairlift coming right down to the street so if fine tomorrow we might take a ride to the ski fields.xxx but not planning to walk far in the rain.
We have since had an exploration of the town and an ice cream.Very good ice creams here.We had a look in some of the shops until driven back by the approaching thunder storms and now we are relaxing in our very comfortable room with a balcony and a sitting room.Very spoilt we are.
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