With the wife and kids visiting family back in the UK for a few weeks I’m home alone in Slovakia. What to do with my ‘free’ time? I didn’t have to think too long about that…where’s the keys for the Lotus.
Not wanting to waste the chance I was up and on the road at 5am this morning. It was not quite dark, but I had my shades and a full tank of gas. No satnav, just one of those ancient map type things. Forecast was sunny and 27C, no roof required today. One small mistake, it wasn’t 27C just yet and I didn’t take a jumper, the first 2 hours were a bit Baltic.
I thought I would head West of Kosice to the forested hills and valleys. East isn’t too clever, you’re in Ukraine in an hour. Although I’ve been here a year I haven’t had much opportunity to properly explore. The good thing about maps is that you can see all the important squiggly bits, so that’s what I aimed for.
All I can saw is wow, forget Wales and Scotland, this place is awesome. I followed some lovely flowing B roads through the valleys then had a brilliant blast on a steep climb, up through the forests, with several hairpins. Next was long straights through Alpine meadows and then a descent again through the forested roads.
I was running low on fuel after nearly 3 hours. At 8am on Sunday in Slovakia the only thing open is the Church. So I headed north to Spiske Nova Ves the nearest large town where I fuelled up on 95, espresso and croissants.
Since I was further North than I expected I carried on up to the Tatra mountains and had a great run, there’s a balcony road that traverses the mountains, about 1000m altitude, the views down the valley are spectacular. Once you get to the end then you can enjoy the sweeping open curves all the way back down to the valley bottom.
For the last section I took the long way back to Kosice via Roznava and Dobsina pass. The first section is narrow, twisty and ridiculously cambered, its like a tarmac motocross track. The next ascent was a bit interesting, due to roadworks they had spread sand and grit on the road for about 5km, that helped encourage a bit more oversteer on the hairpins. Dobsina pass, along with Jahodna pass, are both FIA hillclimb courses.
My little tour of eastern Slovakia took six hours driving and nearly two tanks of fuel. A pleasant way to spend the day 
It’s a shame its such a long drive from the UK but if you get chance I highly recommend it. The only thing that would have improved the day would have been a V6 roadster 
Next weekends adventure is dependent on the arrival of new rear pads from Geary, come on UPS!
One bit of design feedback for Lotus - move those stupid horn buttons on the steering wheel spokes! I was honking all day long on every hairpin 
SJWesque stylee, I must say! 
