FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Štrbské Pleso

Today we awoke to snow! Well sort of. There was enough snow that we could see it falling and there were white patches around. There was not enough snow for us to go to Lomnica as we planned so we went to the tomorrow's venue. Strbske lacks enough vowels to roll off the tongue so we referred to it as the other place for the rest of the trip.

Logistics are always tiring on day 1 of a ski trip even at the slickest of resorts. Peter did his best to make it as smooth as possible. The ski rental shop at Stary Smokevic was great. The prices were quite reasonable and there was no waiting at all. The lift passes were a lot trickier. We could probably do it by ourselves now, but it would've been a nightmare to do it without assistance from a local. The GoPass system is convoluted and requires a knowledge of all the resorts to make sesnse of it. The prices are much better online, but the website is extremely clunky and when you finally get to the end all methods of payment require a double security check that is dependent upon receiving an SMS to a phone number linked to a Visa or MasterCard only. We were using local SIM cards, but Peter was kind enough to put it through his account.

The reason that Štrbské Pleso had better snow was simply the elevation. The big downside is the fact that our minivan was deemed too big for the regular carpark so we needed to get a shuttle to and from the ski fields - and it only ran every half hour. This made for a tiring day having to carry skis, boots, poles etc backwards and forwards.

It had been a while since we last skied so jumping straight onto the pommel proved to be a challenge for some who shall remain nameless. Others picked up where they left off like no time had passed...The children were so happy to simply be on the slopes. Lunch was a simple cafeteria meal at Slalom Restaurant. Our downfall was our decision to ski one last run before calling it quits. Conditions changed drastically, with winds picking up speed and blowing off the powdery snow. We were faced with going downhill on ice being pushed on by the winds with poor visibility. It was HARD work! We all finally made it down to rejoin the non skiers. They had taken a leisurely walk around the lake and had tea and lunch at the Grand Kempinski Hotel, and then had tea again...

Exhausted from our efforts, we returned back to our apartments for a late afternoon. We had dinner at Soul restaurant which was conveniently directly below our apartments. The food was nice and the service very friendly. A walk post dinner was in order to get our step count in (fitbit obviously did not count our skiing steps!) and also allowed us to get some local products to bring home for family.

Tatra Tea is the local spirit that comes in all sorts of flavours and strengths ranging from 17 to 72 percent. There are milky ones, fruity ones, bitter ones and even acai flavour. Malcolm has treated them like Pokemon...gotta try 'em all! It is hard to pin him on a favourite, but he is convinced that the original flavour is, in fact, the worst. All the flavours are quite intense. Opa liked the herbal one, but thought it would taste better served hot. That is probably some form of sacrilege, but paying homage to local food customs has never been high on his list of priorities. Cheese and banana anyone?