Today I would like to tell you about place in my area. It is called Sulov and the most interesting part in this village are rocks. Actually, it is Stone town or as we say in Slovak, Kamenne mesto. You can imagine it as a group of tall or wide rocks, situated on the top of the mountains. But lets start this tour on a train from Puchov to Bytca.
If you want to get to Sulov, you have to take a train to Bytca and then a bus to Sulov. There is many stops where bus stops, but for our tour the best one is called Sulov, turisticka noclaharen. So get out of bus on this stop, walk few meters and then simply turn left.
Be carefull, as the trail starts really steeply up. I will not lie if I say you have to be in some condition before you go on this tour. Be prepared to go up and down many times. But don’t be afraid, trees will help you all the time as their roots are drawing huge maps on the ground, so you can catch it with hands if you need it in the steepest parts or just simply use is as stairs, stair to heaven I can say. Why? You will see later.
Marked green trail goes through many forest full of trees. Sometimes you can see the sun shinning between the trees. During warm days, as this one was, tree cover the sun so well that you feel sometimes like in front of opened fridge.
After 30 minutes, more or less, you will get almost on the top. If you find some windows, as this one, you will be able to see this beautiful views on Stone city. It might look like these rocks are isolated in place, where it is impossible to get. But don’t worry, it is possible. But you will have a to move a bit further. So, enjoyed this view enough? If not, keep looking, but I will move a bit to another place!
Not far from here you will find first interesting monument which is located here. It is called Gothic gate. It is a window in rocks, which was created by the river and it looks like one of these gothic windows which can be found in churches. Take a look and decide, if it does or does not look like that.
This is way up to Gothic gate. It might look really steep but it is not that bad. You will probably think twice where to make next step, but you will do it.
View from the top through the gate is really magical. I am sure you will want to spend in this place more than just few minutes. I was here before but I still love to stay here for around 10 minutes.
When you will move to the right and get through some rocks, you will get a chance to see village called Jablonove. In this picture you can see actually the road, by which you get here with a bus from Bytca.
But as I am sure you will want to continue further lets move. I decided to walk to the castle part, but I did not visit the castle. To get up is a bit hard as you have to go through small hole up, but also the light that day was pretty bad. So I decided not to go.
From the castle part, I forgot to say that there is not a real castle, you can find there just some really small ruins, so do not be surprised when you get there and there will be just some small walls. But the view from the top is amazing. In the next picture you can see the way down from the castle. It is pretty steep so be careful and walk slowly, there is not time to hurry. After this steep part, you will get to the crisscross where you will decide where to go. If you want to know where we went, read next.
We decided to follow the red trail as we wanted to visit Sarkania diera what means Dragons hole. It is small cave which is located in pretty high place as we found out. So we were following red train and what we saw and you will probably see if you decide to take same way, you can see in next photos.
After and hour you will get to another gate called The great gate. It is the biggest one you can find in Slovakia. And I have to say, it is really large. On our way here we met an old couples and they said, the way down from the Great gate is really steep. I was like ok ok, for sure. You know, I did not believe it. But damn it was. You might probably not see how steep it is but also the small stones and a lot of dust all around made it almost impossible to get down. Later there were also some ladder and really tiny gorges. But we survived and it was time to move to Dragons hole.
To get up to the Dragons hole was another adventure. Dust everywhere, but as I said, better to be in dust as in wet and slippery terrain. Again, we had to walk up and from half of train we had to use ladder to get up. There were about 5 of them and when I was on them, I was just hoping, that the cave will worth it. But as I entered the cave, I knew it will.
When we got inside, the view from there was just stunning. It felt like I was watching from the cave through Dragons eye. And the temperature inside was really nice and cold. Probably dragon was not here for a while and did not use his fire here.
The Dragons hole is not a really big cave. You can find some bats here and also water is dropping down from the top. Probably during the winter when temperature goes down to 0, you can find some ice here and some weird formations of ice which connects the top of the cave with its bottom.
After the time in cave, not an easy way back down was waiting us. But as we found out, it was not as hard as it looked before. We got down without any problems and after next few meter we walked from the wood to the nice green area. But as the sun was shining a lot, we decided to follow the yellow train through woods as trees were covering us from the sun. In 40 minutes or so, we got to the village where we finally found a local pub and bought some cold beer and something to eat. The pub is called Pod Kopeckom and I can really recommend garlic soup. It was super delicious.
After some beer and the soup, we still had 40 minutes free time before bus arrive. So we decided to go up to check the pyramid. This is the only one pyramid in Slovakia, which an Slovak artists created in this area. It is made completely just from wood and if you walk inside, you can find a really beautiful view over Sulov Stone city. Every time when I come here I feel like I am standing behind the wooden frame with a beautiful painted picture.
So this was Sulov and its Stone city. I hope I made you think to visit this place in Slovakia. I think it worth it. With more tips, I will be here next time. See you!
Yours Marek Supertramp
Supertramp Diary 
1 Comments Add yours