After rejection of some earlier terms, this trip was made at the end of October. Record number of people:Petr, Marek, Lubo, Honza, Radek, Jano (Lubo's brother). We have met in Bratislava, started directly from the main station (over Kamzik hill, making a way through families taking their Saturday walk).
A short stop and lunch at Biely Kriz: the scenery started to resemble a regular wood rather than park and the families were replaced by the mountain bikers. At Somar hill it started to grow dark: we have found some huts on the map, but then discovered that they are some military objects and they did not look quite abandonned, so we have continued to Baba saddle. There we had found a usable sleeping place at the wall of some big abandonned cottage.
As we started on Sunday, it started to rain. No more bikers, just one guy in a jeep. At noon Radek and Jano left, the other continued through the rain. We planned to find a hut (located in the map), make a fire there and dry ourselves, but it seemed to be behind a high fence, so we declined to Solosnica and went to a pub there. After drinking a lot of tea and eating some potato chips we were almost decided to end the trip prematurely (still raining). Then i suggested a visit of Plavecky Hrad (ruin of a castle) - mostly from sentimental reasons, I had been there last time on our pre-wedding trip. We had still about two hours of light, so the suggestion was accepted.
Plavecky Hrad is really a nice one: it is quite large and standing over a large plain. The rain has stopped when we were climbing there and we enjoyed a view of factory chimneys near Malacky and of rain clouds running over fields to us. At the top of the castle we had found one room with roof and decided to spend a night there. Wine & cheese party from Ludger's sources (Blauer Zweitel, Geheimsrat Käse), lot of tea (Hibiscus - Lubo was quite fascinated by this word).
In the morning Peter was feeling sick and went down to the village for a bus. The rest of us continued further to northeast: watched some wild pigs under the castle, found a castani tree, then over limestone hills Ostry Kamen and Zaruby (the highest peak of Male Karpaty, 768m) to Smolenice railway station and home.
Photos made by Ludger.