Anyone done The Tatra Mountains please thank you?

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  • jc4lab
    jc4lab Posts: 554
    Did this with Explore in July..(you can download their trip Dossier )They do two trips one based in Zakopane.. another crossing the Tatras from there mountains and heading towards Budapest..Cycling along the river River Gorge on the Poland Slovakia Border was the highlight...
    jc
  • cpeachey
    cpeachey Posts: 1,057
    http://www.bird.pl/cycling/
    Birds tours do a fairly gentle tour from Krakow (coach to Zakopane) through the foothills.
    Probably not demanding enough for you but others may be interested.
    Chris
  • number9
    number9 Posts: 440
    many thanks, that looks good!
  • shawn
    shawn Posts: 62
    I did kindof do something similar with my girlfriend last August. Went from Krakow, Zakopane, east around Tatra, down to Liptovsky Mikulas, through the Fatra mountains via Banska Bystrica, Banska Stiavnika then on a lovely long descent down south to the Hungarian border at Esztergam.
    Did this all on very quiet side roads, was amazing and a fantastic campsite in the valleys to the south of Liptovsky Mikulas.
    I have a google map of the route we took and the maps all highlighted with the route. mail me if you are interested in photocopies.
    Really easy to do this yourself. We flew BA to Krakow (cheaper than ryanair and didn't charge for the bikes), then flew out of Zadar in Croatia going through Slovenia and down the Istrian peninsular. Don't bother trying to cycle coastal Croatia.

    Great trip.
  • cycladelic
    cycladelic Posts: 641
    Shawn

    I plan to tour Poland - and the Czech Rep - this summer. I'm thinking of heading to the Polish coast and back again to Prague.

    How long were you in Poland - and the Tatra Mountains?

    .
    It's an uphill climb to the bottom
  • number9
    number9 Posts: 440
    Good stuff Shawn, love to see the route.
  • shawn
    shawn Posts: 62
    We were in Poland for about a week, spent 2 days in Krakow sightseeing. It took 2 days to cycle to Zakopane, important to stay off the direct route as it is very busy.
    Once in Zakopane you can do a lot of hikes and rides in the mountains surrounding the village. We spent 3 days there doing stuff out of the village. There is a lot of camping there to. There were cyclists we met who were heading further east in the easterncorner of the Poland is supposed to be some very amazing wilderness, the German couple's words - "some of the last true European wilderness". There is also a national European cycle route that actually runs from the east of the Tatra north to the Baltic coast of Poland (it goes south down through Slovakia into Hungary), that could be worth looking at.
    The coastal lakes (according to a Polish colleague) are supposed to be very impressive indeed. We obviously never went that route so can't comment. We did head east into Slovakia and then south. Really quiet roads round this area and very rural.
    From Zakopane to Liptovsky was a day's ride.
    The route from Zakopane to Krakow is quite rolling with some long hills before you hit a very steady deceivingly flat rise into Zakopane (it isn;t flat but gentle rising gradient). We did kindof an s curve round the main round.
    Going to dig the google map out, should be able to work it out from there......
  • shawn
    shawn Posts: 62
    Oh yes, may be better to go from the Polish coast, to Zakopane, then through Slovakia onto Czech by taking part of the Danube trail.
    End to end otherwise there could be doubling back on yourself.
  • shawn
    shawn Posts: 62
    ok, never finished the map off, I placeholded once we got to Slovenia, if particular interest I have very good route as given by a cycle guide we met on the way.
    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF ... 6&z=6&om=1
  • cycladelic
    cycladelic Posts: 641
    Great stuff, Shawn. Lots of food for thought there... Who knows where I'll end up.
    It's an uphill climb to the bottom

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