Day 41: Tuesday 22nd September
A reasonably good night under the trees just over the Polish border near Przemysl. With three-quarters of a tank of fresh water still left from the Lviv car wash we treat ourselves to showers.
The satnav is showing maps again and so navigation is simplified. We decide to take a southerly route to the Slovak Republic (aka Slovensko) as we’ve seen this part of Poland before, but from the map we didn’t realise the chosen route is through alpine country and virtually all behind slow-moving HGVs. But it’s yet another sunny day and the views are great so it’s no hardship to move slowly through the foothills of the Tatras. Pine-clad hills, grazing meadows, castles and chateaux. In the afternoon we hit a real motorway and are able to make good progress at around 100-120 kph – reducing the outstanding distance to Prague to one day’s driving.
We’re waved through the Poland-Czech border but then it takes twenty minutes to change our grivna to euros and the rate does not seem that good. It all works out OK when I query it but to be honest we never did figure out what exactly what grivna were worth. On checking it now it’s about 13 to the pound.
The motorway is fast and we get great views of the Tatras – but nowhere to stop for photos until it is too late. Around 6pm we see some lakes from the motorway so we come off and try to find a lakeside stopover spot. No luck there and so we try on the other side of the motorway and up in the hills. Here we find a superb spot in the curve of a horseshoe valley. After pondering for a while we decide to drive the van up the hill to a tiny level area near trees. She does it easily and we are presented with a delightful view of the valley and surrounding hills. The sun is setting behind us now but this will make a great photo in the morning.
Later, while we are admiring the night sky, a local with a shotgun under his arm comes over to tell us, in a rather officious tone, and in Russian, that we’ll be all right for one night but any longer and he’ll call the police. I thank him and we rest easily. Jill wonders whether we are parking illegally in a National Park but we put that out of our minds as we continue to admire a fantastic Milky Way display – including another clear ‘shooting star’.
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