Share This Article
Jasná is full of action not only in winter but also in summer. Cable car trips to Mt Chopok, a sheep farm in the area of Priehyba, picnic in the sky. All this can be experienced with Gopass in Jasná.
It’s a warm Friday in July and our whole family gets in our car. All five of us look forward to the weekend in and around Jasná and the adventures there immensely. The direction is clear – Jasná. The main goal of Friday is the Hotel Grand Jasná. We are spending a family weekend in and around Jasná and want to experience as much as possible but also relax and laugh a lot. Our kids have told us at least a million times how they could not wait to enjoy the hotel breakfast. Now I can say that everything worked out well, but let’s go through it step by step.
Relaxing Friday
We haven’t planned absolutely anything for Friday, except checking in at the hotel and relaxing in our room, or making a short walk. However, everything changes once we arrive in Jasná and check in at the Grand Jasná Hotel, where our boys keep peeking into the wellness centre. I and Maca understand immediately what will happen next. We don’t even manage to unpack and there is a knock on our door. So I open it to see everybody in their bathrobes. We quickly put our swimwear and bathrobes on, make a selfie and set out for the wellness centre. The boys don’t need sauna sheets after all as they jump into the pool to fool around once we arrive. I and Maca put the sheets on and move to the saunas.
Wellness relaxation in July after 5:00 p.m. has one big advantage. There is almost nobody inside the spa. Once we register our room numbers, the boys go to a pool which is ideal for children to have fun. There are pool beds next to it but also water to drink. We use a glass door to enter the sauna section with 3 saunas. A Finnish one with a temperature of 80 – 100 degrees and two steam saunas – salt and aromatherapy. After the first sauna session, cooling off in the showers and relaxing in a tepidarium, we take a look at the outdoor spa section. There are two outdoor whirlpools and relaxation beds but mainly two more 100-degree Finnish saunas. After two more sauna bathing sessions and cooling off in an outdoor mini lake, we leave the centre and head for the hotel restaurant.
The dinner receives top ratings from everyone, the food, cakes as well as salads and side dishes are excellent. Kids don’t forget to mention how they look forward to breakfast, of course. We make a short walk around Jasná in the evening and then go to bed to be ready for an action-packed Saturday. I definitely recommend downloading the Gopass app, which offers not only weather reports and resort webcams but also great articles to read and the latest updates of individual resorts.
With a new cable car to Mt Chopok
On Saturday morning, it is finally there – the dream breakfast. Kids but also we give it 10 points out of 10. We put our hiking boots on and set out for the Biela Púť cable car. This brand-new cable car building offers not only a big Gopass information centre, a restaurant and a bar but also wheelchair-friendly access and parking. We don’t need to buy tickets as these are included in the accommodation price to travel to Mt Chopok and back. And so is a 1-day Tatralandia ticket.
The cable car trip including changing at the Priehyba station is fast. The weather forecast has said: “clear sky and warm”. But the morning is a bit different. Mt Chopok is shrouded in clouds and it is windy as hell. We don’t mind, though. Experienced tourists are never thrown off balance by the weather. We put more layers on, make a picture at the Rotunda building (the upper cable car station) and our hiking trip can begin.
Family ascent to Mt Ďumbier
To warm up at a fast pace, we pass the Kamenná chalet below the top of Mt Chopok and let the summit wait until we return from Mt Ďumbier to have some views. And we are really going to have them. The trail running from Mt Chopok to Mt Ďumbier is marked very well and rather easy. The wind is blowing only in the first half from south to north and gives us a really hard time. On the way, we often stop to take pictures of clouds moving fast which look as if they would flow over the ridge. We arrive at Krúpové sedlo (saddle) and are finally greeted by the sun. So we refresh ourselves and relax for a while.
From the saddle, it’s literally a stone’s throw away. After the last climb, we are finally there next to the cross at the highest point of the Low Tatras. We are lucky to meet only a few people there so we use it to take summit pictures. The wind is still blowing so we find a spot behind the ridge, which is calm and warmed by sun rays. The originally planned 10 minutes of rest are extended to 1 hour, which our kids appreciate. The view of the Western Tatras but mainly of the northern valleys of the Low Tatras is magical. It doesn’t take long to get back afterwards. We take a rest on benches below the Kamenná chalet and feast our eyes on the surrounding nature in beautiful weather. And at the end, we walk up to the summit of Mt Chopok to shoot a few more photos.
Like kings – picnic in the sky
It’s shortly after 1:00 p.m. and we enter the Rotunda restaurant. I tell the waitress that we have booked Sky Picnic for 2:00 p.m. She smiles and offers us 5 welcome drinks. We don’t drink, nor do our kids so we solve it with apple juice. She takes us to a table to have a rest and wait until she picks us up before 2:00 p.m.
It’s shortly before 2:00 p.m., the waitress is coming with a cart full of delicacies such as cheese, ham, buns, juice and fruit. We enter a lift together and get off inside the cable car station. A special cabin with Sky Picnic printed on it is waiting there. The seats inside are truly luxurious and the waitresses wishes us a nice experience. We get in and the cabin starts moving. During three approximately 15-minute-long rounds between Mt Chopok and Kosodrevina, we are enjoying the views, great food and feel like kings. Our kids say it is the best experience of the weekend and we don’t argue. I can only recommend it. It’s really amazing!
Wallachian sheep at Priehyba
The last adventure of today is a sheep farm in the area of Priehyba. We get off the cable car and go to a fence where we see shepherd dogs and sheep. A lady there tells us everything about the breed named Wallachian sheep, one of the Slovak national breeds, which was brought to Slovakia from the Balkan. The original sheep didn’t have quality hair and didn’t weigh much, but the breed was changed and the original Wallachian sheep ceased to exist in Slovakia. Now the sheep have shorter legs adapted to the alpine environment as they need to walk uphill a lot and they have specific hair. In Slovakia, there are 700 pieces these days. Wallachian sheep are ideal to graze meadows and areas as they loosen the soil with their hooves without pressing too much when compared to tractors.
One half of the weekend gone
Saturday has been amazing. We have had a great hiking trip to Mt Ďumbier and Mt Chopok. The picnic in the cable car has been the best experience of the day based on our kids. And then relaxing in Priehyba while watching sheep in their natural habitat together with shepherd dogs. But the day doesn’t end yet as a delicious dinner is waiting for us and we will continue with wellness relaxation. This is really appreciated as in addition to massages that are top-level here, we can join a sauna ritual with sauna master Ján in the Finnish sauna. He starts by explaining the basics of proper sauna bathing and then comments on the whole 15-minute-long ritual. Evening relaxation with a book in our room and views of Mt Chopok is the last item on the agenda. More adventures are waiting for us on Sunday.
