Today is the third day of my three-day hiking trip. After the milestones of two days ago (2000-kilometer mark) and of yesterday (arriving is Slovakia) I will have my first Slovakian stage today. The taxi takes me from the hotel back to the monument.

I have bought myself a map of Bratislava which enables me to find my way out of the city, and up the hill Kamzik. There is a huge broadcast tower on top of this hill, directly above the city.

Kamzik (439m)

Unfortunately the whole world is covered in extremely dense fog that leaves hardly any visibilty of the surroundings. After leaving the city I pick up the Trail signs again easily. Going uphill at Kamzik, and further up in the hills, the signs are of a impressively high quality; the signs are clear, well situated and there are many of them. I pass a section in the forrest where, on a distance of approx. 100 meters there are 8 trees on the right side of the road, and each single one of them has a white-red-white Trail-sign. Due to the very dense fog I am not at all distracted today by any nice views or so. I only see the trees that are directly next to the road.

road sign in the fog at Biely Kriz

It is also very chilly. Combining these two circumstances explaines perhaps why there are no other people on their way. The altitude differences are not so bad; the first uphill section on the Kamzik is steep, perhaps even very steep, but afterwards the Trail does not lead through big altitude differences. At the end of the afternoon I arrive at Sedlo Baba, a pass (sedlo) in the hills where the regular road crosses the hills, going from one vally to the other.

There are some big advertising signs near the one building that I see that point out wintersport facilities to passerbys. According to my map there should be here a pension or inn kind of place to sleep. I knock on the door of this one building/house. The lady informs me, standing on the balcony on the first floor, that there is another building , a hotel!, some 50 meters further down the road. Even during “daylight” it can not be seen through the fog. First I find a building (it is still extremely foggy) with a sign “hotel” but it turns out to be completely booked. There are apears to be another one, another 50 meters further down the road. Finally, there I am welcome, and I enjoy a nice and complete Slovakian dinner. I do hope that the next stages in Slovakia, during my next trip, will be more interesting. It seems that there is a whole country hidden behind all this fog!