Slovakia is famous for ice hockey, beautiful women, mountain hiking and folk traditions. The language is different from Czech as well and it is difficult to read anything as it doesn't resemble any words we know.
Once we arrived in the mountain area it was noticeable how many Slovakians were out and about hiking the trails. They were loaded up with backpacks, sleeping pads, and walking poles and many joined us on the bus as they were returning from their hikes while we were headed to our pension.
We managed to find a website that listed pensions in Zdiar so booked a double room. The pension is owned by a local couple who speak a little German and no English. The son who appeared about 25ish could speak a little English as well.
The family home was three stories high and we were on the second floor. There were 5 huge bedrooms and ours had a balcony overlooking the village. We could cook in the kitchen and had a 10 seater dining table for the two of us. No one else arrived while we were there so we didn't have to share the facilities at all.
It was wonderful to have so much space after some of the pokey hostels we have been in.
In the winter Zdiar is a popular place for snow skiing, and snow boarding. There are numerous pensions that have accommodation, saunas, tows, ski schools, restaurants, and bars. In the summer these same pensions cater to the hikers.
The hills are covered in pine forest with several sawmills around the village. Many people were splitting logs and storing the firewood for winter, age old traditions for these places!
We watched the local farmers with their horses cutting hay, turning hay and making hay stacks. We saw the occasional cow and a few sheep but most animals seemed to be in huge barns attached to the back of the houses.
We did several walks around the village between the cloud bursts and had one day of fantastic weather and managed a full day walk through the forest and around the village hills. We only met two other groups of walkers so it was very quiet. The trails were well marked in the forest but we had to cross lots of fields of wildfowers and hay stacks and potato patches before we connected with them.
