Merry Christmas From Slovakia!

Today was Christmas and we returned to Lomnica minus the gale force winds. The snow was pretty bare in the morning, but heavy snow throughout the day saw conditions improve. By the time we returned to Stary Smokevic the whole village was transformed. A white christmas is certainly much better than a slushy brown one! 

Time to ski

Belinda's asthma was playing up so the skiing crew was down a member. Lomnica is a small resort and only 2/3 of the runs were open, but that didn't stop us from having fun. The slow starters had regained their mojo and were now unhealthily overconfident so I had more work to do, but of a different kind. The non skiers would be looked after by our new guide, Martin. Peter left to be with his family on Christmas Eve and had arranged for Martin to join us on Christmas morning. Martin has young twins at home and was happy to have an excuse to get away - even if it was to look after us. 

Down one member :(

The set up at Lomnica was better for group cohesion. The bus could drive right up to the base of the chairlift which could accomodate nonskiers to a restaurant at the top of the mountain. We actually took two cable cars, an older communist style one, then a fancy new one. At the top we found a playground and a restaurant that served similar food to most of the ski buffet places in the Tatras that we have encountered to date. Wholesome, large meals for under 10 Euros. I was in trouble for not ordering the sweet dumpling, but we enjoyed lunch nontheless.

We decided to let the kids have one more run after lunch before heading back to rest up before christmas dinner. "One more run" seems to be the start of a few tales of woe on this trip to date. A quick zip down on the skis would've been fine. Tobogganing down the blue run from the top of the chairlift was, perhaps, a tad well... add your own adjective. To maintain direction and to avoid a complete lack of control we (Elliot and Wayne had more sense) dug our heels into the snow and lay backwards. Despite this we still overtook half the skiers on the straights who looked on curiously at the masses of snow that flew up behind us. I should mention that the "toboggans" were actually of the plastic shovel design so half the journey was spent facing backwards as our feet turned into anchors. Luckily, we knew the run very well so we took an elective crash landing before each corner, walked around it then started again. It ended up taking longer than advertised and left every pocket and crevice filled with ice so I think we'll call it a once off.

The second gondola to the peak

Yay mum is here!

Very close to the peak!

Modern and cosy restaurant at the top

What an alpine playground looks like

Not sure how this is in any way comfortable

Merry Christmas!

Let it snow!

It has been lovely staying in the same place for a few days. Everyone quickly settled into their favourite downtime activity before dinner at the Grand Smokevec Hotel. Given that we were all tired, and that Christmas Eve is the main event here we all ended up slightly more casual and ordered the buffet so that we could have more control over the length of the evening. 

For a Christmas hotel buffet, $AUD30 was not too bad and the food was good without being brilliant. The fresh salad bar and pastas were very popular. The hotel had that oldy worldy charm complete with leather chaired cigar bars, fancy table settings and a bow tied pianist. There was a very peaceful atmosphere as the whole room seemed to be full of people who were tired, but happy. It was a lovely end to Christmas.

Buffet time!

Happy kids :)