Made it to Poprad!

So this time, our bus arrived on time at 8:45am yesterday morning, and it was a forty minute ride to Liptovsky Mikulas. There, we caught the train to Poprad.

Had to wait around for a half hour for the train, and then it was twenty minutes late. No worries, because we had lots of time left in the day.

Total of 93 kms (58 miles) from Zuberec to Poprad.

Total cost for the two of us to go 93 kms (58 miles) on the bus and train was €10.70 ($13.38).

On the bus. 

The Litovsky Mikulas bus station. The bus station is always located within walking distance to the train station. Makes sense to me!

Here's our train arriving!

View of the Tatra Mountains from the train.

More mountains.

Arrived in Poprad, and first thing to do was find a place to stay. I had done some research ahead of time, so I knew that Poprad is a touristy city of about 55,000 people. Quite a few private places to stay, similar to what we have been in, but definitely with higher prices than we're used to. We walked the twenty minutes or so to the information centre, and made it just in time because yesterday was a bank holiday in Slovakia so most places were closed, and the info centre itself was closing at noon. I had looked up a few phone numbers of places that had an online presence, but the girl wasn't very helpful, saying "oh, those are mobile numbers" and instead handing me a sheet with accommodation choices and a map. She pointed us towards the two hostels listed, saying they were very nice places. 

Okay, so we walked over there. Found the first one, in an old run down apartment building. They wanted €19.50 ($24.38) per night and there was no private fridge and the place was kind of sketchy. No thanks.

While we were dragging our bags around, we walked past a penzion (guest house) that I thought would be fairly expensive, but you don't know if you don't ask, right? The lady said they had one room available for three nights and I went and looked at it. Very nice. But it was fairly expensive, at €32 ($40) per night. And there are no kitchen facilities, so we would be spending more on meals. But they do a nice buffet breakfast every morning for an extra €5 ($6.25) per person. 

We took it.

Definitely more than we normally spend, but it's been a pretty cheap month so far, so we splurged. Got ourselves all set up in the room, and then went for a walk to explore the city.

Near the main plaza.

A mosaic from the communist years. There was a date on the corner of 1951.

The city is divided by the railway tracks. Mostly industrial and business on one side, and mostly residential on the other side. We are on the business side.

Poprad exists partly because it is close to these mountains.

Nice central area.

During our walk around the city, we were looking for somewhere suitable to have dinner later on. Once again, prices are a little higher than we're used to. Usually, if you look at the price of a beer in a restaurant, it is a good indication of the price of the food! For example, there is a cheap pub in the front of our guest house (but it doesn't sell food). Beer there is between €0.70 and €0.90 ($0.87 and & $1.13). So when you see a restaurant advertising beer for €1.40 ($1.75), you can be pretty confident that the food will be more expensive too.

We found one place, and decided we'd go back there. But when the time came, we spotted another place hidden back off the main drag. Prices were good, and so was the food! And, they had allergy alerts on the menu so that Ruth knew which items were gluten free.

Two beers, a glass of wine, and two decent plates of food for €14.30 ($17.88) including tip! In Canada, the drinks alone would have been that much!

Today, we're off to do a hike. That's the reason we came to this area. Oh, that and the ice cave! We'll do a hike today, and the ice cave tomorrow. The sun is shining and there's not a cloud in the sky!