TRIP TO THE HIGH TATRAS MOUNTAINS BY ESN STUBA

"The Slovak nation is learning to be proud of itself because we do have a lot to show. One of the "must-see" things in Slovakia is the nature. According to this thought, we have organised a trip to the High Tatras for the fifth semester already. The recent one happened on 26th October 2019. We left Bratislava the day before in the evening, because we didn't want to loose five hours in the train and wanted to spend the most possibble time in the Tatras. Since we came to Poprad on Friday, we had a chance to see this lovely town with its nightlife. Of course, we went for Halušky to a nearby pub as it suits Erasmus students and all Tatras explorers. We want to sleep full of expectations about the following day and ready for the wild nature. On Saturday, we started our hiking very well. Our destination was Popradské pleso. On the way we stopped at the symbolical cemetery and paid our respects to those who passed away in the mountains. When we reached Popradské pleso, the mountain lake, our foreign friends were thrilled by the beauty of our national park. We spent at least one hour just taking photos of the lake, then us with the lake, even us in the lake and more photos of us and the mountains. After this photo shooting we stayed a while by the lake and relaxed, had lunch and just enjoyed the beauty around us. Before continuing our hiking we gave the participants of this trip genuine Slovak biscuits to replenish forces and then we set out for another journey. Now we were heading to Štrbské pleso. Hiking was very pleasurable thanks to stunning sunny weather and not crowded walking trail. At Štrbské pleso, the other mountain lake, we took a lot of beautiful pictures, again. Then we had free time which almost everyone used for walking around the lake and eating in some of the local restaurants. We ended our tour going by cog-wheel railway to Štrba, from where we took our train back to Bratislava. Our foreign friends were exhausted after hiking day so many of them had a little nap during the journey. The rest of us were playing cards or just enjoying time together talking about countries we come from. We consider the trip very successful due to high attendance and satisfied students. Nobody got lost or hurt. When we asked the students after this trip and a lot of them said that Slovak nature is the most beautiful they have ever seen."