Hiking in Tisovec

Last week's drizzle continued until Wednesday, when we had a nice day to go biking along a new section of the bike trail along the Vah River after school.  Then Thursday after our evening lessons, Marian, Tim and I met his wife, Susan. for pizza as a late celebration for Marian's birthday.  Fun! 

Thursday at school there was a lot of excitement.  Edita (in the jacket at right) had her names day, and she is the Class Teacher for the Septima class, who surprised her with cake and champagne after they sang to her during our long break.  :-)  

Our wonderful 5.BP class also surprised us by presenting us our own personalized invitation to their Stužková party.  They are such a sweet bunch of students!!  :-)

This is our Stužková invitation!!    :-)   We are looking forward to attending!  

Last year it was a bumper crop of apples, and this year it's pears and plums.  Delicious!  Several people have shared with us! 

Friday right after school, we hopped on a bus to Hybe, and there were tons of our students riding with us, so they helped us with our connection to Bus #2 to Brezno.  We figured out the next connection ourselves, and finally arrived in Tisovec to visit our American teachers at the Lutheran school there.  It was awesome to see their three smiling faces waiting for us at the bus stop.  We were fortunate that they arranged for us to stay in an extra apartment at the school, and we ended up eating at a pizza place for supper.  Since their apartment connects directly into the school, we got a tour of the facilities - it's gorgeous!!  The nicest school we've seen anywhere in the country!!  WOW!!  Back at their apartment, we stayed up late talking and planning for Saturday.  

This was the view from our bedroom window - of the Lutheran Church on the square, with mountains behind.

This beauty is outside the girls' apartment door.  

The gals invited us to a breakfast of American pancakes, complete with Aunt Jemima syrup - yum!!  Courtney was the pancake chef!  

After breakfast, we walked to the grocery store to get provisions for our hike.

There are many informational posters around Tisovec, and this year the new ones have English translations that Courtney checked over and re-wrote to sound better!  

With Emily, Courtney and Nina heading through the main square to start our hike in the mountains.  I'm pretty sure that's City Hall in the background. 

Memorial statue on the main square, and hint of changing autumn leaves in the background.  

Tisovec has several sister cities, including Shenandoah, Iowa!! (Shout-out to Sharon Davis!)  Ironically, the school principal, town mayor, and some other school representatives were actually in Shenandoah for a visit at the exact same time as we Iowans were in Tisovec!!  And a pastor friend of Nina's told her that this Sunday was the designated day for all ELCA congregations in the U.S. to be praying especially for the school in Tisovec.  Cool!

At last, we started our hike up through the forested areas at the bottom of Hradova.  (Which means there's a castle up there --- the word 'hrad' is castle.)  I don't know if it qualifies as a mountain or just a big hill, but after climbing up and down, WE all think it's definitely a mountain!!  

The hiking wasn't too difficult at first, but our leader was definitely a highly successful Big Ten Cross Country runner, (yes, Emily, we Googled your XC career and saw all the amazing athletic and academic accolades from both H.S. and Michigan State - Wow!!!), so the pace was a little faster than we usually go.  I did discover that 'photo ops' helped, since everyone at least stopped for a moment to pose!!  ;-)  

We always love to see the flora and fauna on our hikes, and these fungi were definitely uniquely shaped - like plates and bells!

We finally made it to this flagpole, where there are beautiful views of Tisovec and the valleys surrounding Hradova.  

The town of Tisovec below in the valley.

Looking out the other direction from the flagpole viewpoint.

There is a big strip-mining operation right next to Tisovec. 

Just above the flagpole, there is a clearing (and as we discovered later, the last flat area for a LONG time) with benches, where we ate our snacks and rested a bit.  The posted information told us that this was also the site of a Bronze Age settlement, but we can't figure out why they settled so high up on the mountain!!  The castle at the top was just minimal ruins - a few stony walls.  

O.K., so be sure to notice the yellow arrow trail marker.  It's unlike any we have seen before.  Normally the arrows point left or right, or they're just a strip of horizontal color.  Well this one points straight up.  Yes, straight up.  Otherwise we NEVER would have known this was really the trail, because it went, well, straight up the rocks!!  

We basically just headed directly up on top of this rocky ridge to that top point up there.  

The views from the top of the ridge were spectacular, and we tried to look confident instead of looking down --- it was a long ways down!!  Emily, Courtney and Nina were all smiles at this point in the hike!!  

Facebook cover pic pose!!  It was such a beautiful spot!!  

This was one of those places with 360 degree views around and below - Wow!

I didn't bring my hiking stick along on the bus from L.M., but Tim and I both found a new walking stick in the woods to use along this hike as well - and we needed them!  

The girls after they 'hugged' the rock to walk around it on that little ledge at the bottom right.  "Just don't look down, Nina!!"  

Quote from Emily:  "You may not want to bring your walking sticks along on this part of the hike because you'll need both hands to climb up and down the rocks."   We handed them or tossed them down, so we'd have the sticks for later!!  But she was right - we definitely needed both hands!

I'm pretty sure the quote from Nina at this point is fairly accurate:  "NO, I can't do that.  I'm going to die.  Send a helicopter.  I can't do it!!!"  Or something like that!!  Can you see Emily's head below, climbing down a rock face using a chain bolted into the rock??  And after that, we had to go along that rocky ridge beyond in the center.  I couldn't even take pictures when we got there!!  Too scary straight down on both sides.  (It doesn't look that steep maybe, but those are tree TOPS on both sides!!) 

Emily and Courtney were so patient with us, telling us where to put our feet on the way down.  It was just like at Twin Lakes on the rock climbing wall, except with no belay and a much longer drop-off!!  

Tim on his way down the rock climbing wall section!!  Yikes!!  

Seriously, both sides of this rock ridge had steep drop-offs, straight down!!  Here is some sample conversation from this point in the hike..............
Emily:  "Just keep low, keep your center of gravity low."
Courtney:  "You can do it, just don't look down."
Nina:  "I'm going to die.  I'm going to fall to my death.  I should never have come.  Courtney, I will never believe anything you say ever again."
Michelle & Tim:  "I can't believe this is really a trail.  If we were doing this trail alone, we would have turned back long ago!"

We saw this sign after we finally climbed down from the end of the rocky ridge, looking back up towards where we had just come from.  I was typing it into Google Translate, and after the first few letters, it said 'hazard', then I typed a few more letters, and it said 'danger', and finally with the whole word 'nebezpečny' it said 'unsafe' section   ----   yep!  

We finally reached the safety of this beautiful mountain meadow about halfway down, and we were really thankful that we triumphed on our journey of invigorating experiences!    

There was still a long, steep descent, but it was very safe and peaceful walking through the stillness of the woods.  Much safer!!!  :-)

The meadows we crossed on the lower part of the trail were all covered with these beautiful spring-like purple blossoms.  It was magical!!  

The total loop up the mountain, over the ridge and back down on the other end took longer than we expected, so we ate a very quick lunch on the square at a kebab and baguette sandwich shop.  It tasted delicious after our hike!  

We hurried back to the school to grab our suitcases, then waited for our bus in front of the Lutheran church in Tisovec with Courtney (The Navigator), Nina (The Rock Star) and Emily (The Scout).  We had such a wonderful time with these three!!  They are all doing a terrific job teaching at the school there, and during our time in Tisovec they really blessed us with their positive outlooks and flexibility, their steadfast faith in our loving God, and their fun-loving 'go-for-it' attitudes!!  It was such a fun day with them!!  Thanks for helping us to feel young, gals!!  

We had an hour layover between buses in the tiny town of Muran on the way home!  

We actually got back to our flat by about 7:30 Saturday night, so got a good night's sleep to be rested for our Sunday adventures, which will have to wait for the next post!!   God bless!!