All You Need to Know About Tramping in Czechoslovakia

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ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRAMPING IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA Struan Little There's only one word you need to know when travelling begin to clear our table. After all, we're cutting into staff in Czechoslovakia. That word is 'pivo'. It means beer. pivo-drinking time. So we join the hordes and head for Breakfast is beer and rolls. Lunch is beer and the hotel bar. They turn the lights off half an hour before sandwiches. Dinner-time you head to a beer hall and advertised closing. Very subtle. drink until you forget about eating. I have adjusted to the Czech mountain way of life, so After a few days the pivo lifestyle becomes a bit tough next morning I drink my half-litre of pivo before racing for the antipodean tourist (although I think Aussies could to the track end. Of course its uphill, SO there's a adjust well). So we decided to go tramping in an obscure mountain railway to give you that flying early morning corner of the Slovakia bordering on Poland that has a start. The railway also ends at you guessed it - a pivo fantastic mountain range called the High Tatras. We selling place! hopped on our train in Prague and spent the next few hours trying to sleep while the rest of the occupants of We hurry on, eager to get up into the snow. But nestled our cabin knocked back a few late-night pivos. in the forest is another tiny chalet. Well, a litre of beer before 10am and my walking is getting a little arbitrary. Dawn saw us shivering in our pile jackets looking up at For the first time I realise why all the tracks are carefully magnificent mountain scenery. Eventually we bumbled levelled and covered with fitted stone. Drunk tramping around the resort town at the foot of the mountain to find really is a challenge. a place to stay. This is not an easy task in a holiday resort designed with Stalin in mind. With a lot of planning and We are heading for a high pass and I start to worry about enough concrete, you really can turn a scenic wonderland the amount of snow as we climb upward. But I am into the most vile replica of downtown Detroit (but with reassured by a steady procession of grandmothers in Bata worse service). Bullets traipsing past. On our first day we set off to do a long walk. Most of the After the obligatory stop for a you-know-what at a chalet, other travellers chose to adjourn to the bar, but we we continue climbing. I am amazed to see a young guy wandered upward through the delightful pine forest. The drinking from an alpine stream. I carefully note that he only jarring feature was the amazing capacity of the does not immediately seem to show any ill effects. Czech people to relieve their bowels on the track. For Obviously such folly will take time before his legs drop some time we actually thought the lines of toilet paper off or he wells up in sores. Maybe the skull and were track markers. But no track markers are so close crossbones signs in front of all the alpine tarns don't have together. I spent the next couple of days turning every the meaning they would at home? corner expecting to see a bare backside, but I was disappointed for over a day. I see the pass. It is a very steep snow gut, climbing about 800 feet. I watch in fascination and horror as little groups Well, almost an hour and a half had elapsed, so it was of tourists armed with their only piece of climbing gear time for a pivo. Luckily there was a chalet by a lovely (Bata Bullets) slip, slide and teeter their way up. You can lake selling beer and sausages. Then it is a slog several see that they are terrified and soon they move out onto thousand feet up, to saunter between alpine tarns and the rocky sides for some reasonably serious rock spectacular mountains. Being sO high during the climbing. I decide that we are going no further. However European autumn, we need to stop to readjust our the procession of grandparents totters past us and in the clothes. Off comes my cotton tee-shirt and we venture hour I spend there, I don'ts see a single person fall. forth with a few less beads of sweat. Humiliated, we return to the closest chalet for a pivo, Truly glorious. No wind. No chance of rain. And I am meeting some semi-drunk Czechs who cheerfully ask us carrying a pile jacket. The only gear the locals have is if we have just come over the pass. beer. There is only one thing missing from the glorious alpine environment. This is a view. Even way out here in We catch the next train to Hungary. If you're ever in the wilderness the air pollution is sO bad that you can Czechoslovakia, the High Tatras is truly worth a visit. only see a few kilometres. But remember: don't drink the water and don't worry, you'll easily be able to find something to drink en route. Back at the newly-named Hotel Stalinska, we head to a restaurant for a meal. While we are still eating, they