In search of the Slovak Robin Hood

No, not Slovenia: Slovakia. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said those exact words. I’ve even confused myself once or twice. Just to be clear: I’m talking about the bit that came after Czech in Czechoslovakia. The bit that we’ve all forgotten in the crush for the Baroque and beer halls of Prague.

It’s unlikely this nearby gem will stay unloved for long, though. Bratislava is surely, depressingly, about to become the next big eastern European stag destination. But to see the country’s best, you need to head into the wilderness.

About the size of Switzerland, with the population of Scotland, Slovakia has nine national parks. From the rock climbing and skiing of the High Tatras to the hiking and caving of the Slovensky Raj or the cycling and canoeing of the Dunajec gorge, your outdoor predilections are probably catered for somewhere.

The most accessible from the UK is the Mala Fatra National Park, about three hours north-east of Bratislava. The park was created in 1987 for just one reason: to protect the Vratna dolina, the most beautiful valley in Slovakia.

My first sight of it isn’t too promising. The short bus journey from Zilina (think Crewe with a Romanesque church) passes scruffy agricultural plots and communist poured-concrete housing. When I jump out in plain Terchova, I’m wondering whether anything of such reputed beauty could lie nearby. When the town’s PA system blasts out a sound-a-like Leninist call to arms, I’m considering the next bus out.

There is of course a perfectly valid explanation for the questionable aesthetics (though not the dodgy music). The village was flattened, literally, during the war, as Russian tanks chased retreating Panzers across eastern Europe.

But it’s for an altogether different reason that Terchova is a familiar name to everyone in Slovakia. It’s the same reason that brought me. This is the birthplace and stamping ground of Juraj Janosik, the Slavic Robin Hood, and I’m here to hike and bike in his footsteps.

Janosik was born here in 1688, and by his teens was fighting in the army of Ferenc Rakoczi during a doomed uprising against the Austrians. Though he ended the war fighting for the Habsburgs, he already had another project on the boil: highway robbery.

But, so the story goes, he never murdered anyone and robbed only the rich: noblemen, landowners, merchants. What his gang didn’t need for survival went to the poor. Wealthy travellers with imperial, Austrian sympathies need be especially wary treading the lonely roads of the Krivanska Fatra when Janosik was about.

I first see Janosik’s playground (now the national park) the following morning, from the saddle. The road rises gently from Terchova, passing between a pair of stern crags that stand like sentinels at the valley’s mouth.

The climb to chata Vratna follows a deserted road. The only sound that penetrates the conifers is the Varinka stream heading in the opposite direction, downhill to the river Vah, and ultimately the Danube a hundred miles south at the Hungarian border. The droplets passing me now will probably be in the Black Sea before I reach the top.

The off-road mountain bike tyres and the imperfect surface are a draining combination and I’m glad the climb isn’t any tougher. It’s only 10 a.m. and my legs are burning. I’m regretting that last bottle of Slovak riesling last night.

The trail ends in a shady deciduous grove with a café and large wooden chata (refuge), so I rehydrate and head back. As I pick up speed on the descent, I note with glee that it’s much steeper than I thought. Darting between extremes of light and shade worthy of Caravaggio, overtaking the downrushing stream, I’m euphoric from the adrenaline pumping and instantly burning away.

I don’t let it go completely: the rented bike’s balance and brakes don’t instil confidence, and this isn’t the Tour after all. Half way down I pass four teenagers heading up. They look nowhere near as red as I felt twenty minutes ago. I’m deflated.

The second ascent of the day is a much gentler ride up the Nova dolina. I pass the Hotel Boboty, only marginally ugly, but spectacularly located on an escaprment at the parting of two valleys. I soon reach Stefanova, a hamlet of clapboard chalets, fruit trees and cabbage patches. It’s also a gateway to some of Europe’s best hiking. But that will have to wait until after lunch.

Over a bizarre sandwich in an enchanted spot, my thoughts turn again to Janosik, and the canon of myth and legend he left behind. He was born of giants, his palm could leave an impression in solid stone, he carried a magical herb that protected his body from bullets.

Such is the local repute of Janosik that both the Terchova football team and the partisan brigades that fought the Nazis in these hills took his name. Nationally he was a key figure in the rebirth of Slovak consciousness after the war, and has spawned five swashbuckling feature films.

Today’s trails were those that Janosik and his men walked, carrying their booty, perhaps to line their pockets, or just perhaps to distribute to the poor of the Krivanska Fatra. Above Stefanova, the track wriggles out of the larch and fir woods. The peaks of Stoh and Velky Rozsutec appear. At Podzihar I come across a wooden shack that was built by Wallachian shepherds around the time Shakespeare was putting quill to parchment. These Wallachians migrated with their flocks from Ukraine and Romania, and official signage around the park still blames them for soil erosion on the high Vratna pastures, which seems a little harsh.

Shortly after, the trail darts back into forest and heads for the jewel of the Mala Fatra: the Horne diery. At times, getting up this gorge is more a climb than a hike. I traverse wet rocks, scale ladders and makeshift bridges, grabbing for chains or protruding roots. The way forward narrows, now with less than ten metres to squeeze past cataracts running through smooth dolomite cliffs, then opening out into glades of sycamore and beech where birds twitter and chirp, always out of sight.

Finally, I reach the top and am once again on open alpine pasture of wild wheat, giant thistles and cow parsley. Heading up to the peak of Maly Rozsutec, on a precipitous path, I pass a nun and a guy carrying his dog on his head, both heading down. Gasping, with a burning chest and a touch of vertigo, I curse last night’s final Marlboro.

But it’s worth it. At the top I am rewarded with a fine view of corrugated forests, not a cloud in the sky all the way to Poland. I exchange “Dobry” with two fellow hikers, basking in the glory of a 1400 metre peak ascended. During a comical conversation of broken Slovak and sign language, I mention Terchova.

“Ah… Janosik,” is the reply.

Janosik, again. After a thigh-busting, one-hour descent that feels like fifteen rounds on the step machine, I’m back in the village. I’m standing right under a welded aluminium statue of Juraj Janosik that looks like a sixth-form metalwork interpretation of a Tamara de Lempicka painting.

When Janosik was finally caught, he was taken to Liptovsky Mikulas, imprisoned and tortured. In a moment of surreal defiance, he is reputed to have screamed at his tormentors: “If you fried me, then eat me!” On March 17th, 1713, aged just twenty-five, he was disposed of by hanging, central European style: ribcage first, on a giant hook.

I return to my hotel safe in the knowledge that, on a scale of one to Janosik, the pain in my ankle hardly registers. A couple of Slovak beers later and I’m adrift in slumber, dreaming of Deep Heat and highwaymen.

First published in the Independent.