A winter day at the water reservoir

This holidays season didn't go as we planned. We went to visit our family in Slovakia for 3 weeks. We had so many day trips in mind, but instead we stayed mostly inside. My husband worked the first week as planned, so I spent a lot of time with my moms dog and walked him three times every day.

My mom got sick a few days after we arrived, so I took over cooking and taking care of her too. As soon as his days off started my husband got sick too, and in the morning of the Christmas day I didn't feel well either. It went all so fast and in a couple of hours I couldn't get out of bed, my fever spiked at 39.2 degrees Celsius, my body hurt and I coughed so hard that I kept my sister in another room awake. I stayed in bed for almost a week and when I started to feel better the weather got worse, so we couldn't do much outside either. It kept raining until the end of our stay with only one day of a reasonable weather when we could go for a walk.

Last Saturday, when we drove back to Switzerland we both agreed that those three weeks were 'weird'. I could think of many other terms, but this one seemed the least offensive 😊

We arrived back in Switzerland yesterday, so today was full of unpacking and trying to warm up our place as we turned off the heating when we left - bad idea as it's been almost 24 hours and it's still not warm enough.

Anyway, let me take you with us on our first (and so far our last) walk of this year!

In total, we walked about 10 km which was a bit too much after the sickness, but we managed to get back and didn't get sick again. It was a sunny, but also a cold day with crisp air, so it didn't take long for our cheeks to turn pink.

Our destination was the water reservoir outside of my home town which is one of the safest places in nature in our region these days as we have plenty of angry and hungry bears roaming the woods because they cannot sleep as it's too warm for them. Some bears were seen close to the town, so when my husband suggested to go to the National reserve Poloniny or Vihorlatske vrchy I quickly suggested to go somewhere with more people and less animals 😊

There are several smaller lakes in the area, some of them have very nice views. Here we are looking in the direction of Ukraine which is only about 30 minutes drive from here.

My family lives close to Starina which is an artificial lake created almost 40 years ago to provide drinking water to the region. Many people were evacuated when 7 villages were sunk under the water. This river is called Cirocha and it flows directly out of the dam to regulate the water level. In summer, it's a small river, but it can quickly flood the region when there is too much water and they have to release it from the dam to keep the construction safe.

When I was a child, this was the place where we went swimming. Kids that couldn't swim would play above the small waterfall as the water there is shallow and those who could swim would be below as the water there is above 2.5 m deep. I mostly stayed above because I was scared of the current.

The land surrounding my hometown is mainly used for farming. It's been raining so much that people are concerned about this year's harvest already. We saw many of these 'small pools' as the land can't absorb anymore water.

From here we hiked many times to our most popular hill called Sninsky kamen - on the right, next to the electricity construction. You have to start at 6 am to be back down before it gets dark 😊 It's one of my favourite hikes and we plan to do it again this year. When the weather is nice we can see Vysoke Tatry (High Tatras) from the top - they are about 200 km away from this place!

In some places it was like spring came in January this year...

It was one of the few sunny days in weeks, but surprisingly we didn't come across many people...

From here we could see Sninsky kamen much better...

We took Maxo with us too! He had so much fun and even after 10 km didn't want to go back home. He is a funny dog thinking that he can easily take on a Husky or a German Shepherd with his 5.5 kg. He doesn't get that those dogs could eat him for breakfast and keeps starting fights! And this is the reason why he stays on a leash...

He is not looking at me but at a stick that my husband used to lure him for a photo as he doesn't like posing in front of a camera.

We continued walking to wear him off, but he has an endless energy and we ended up tiring ourselves instead 😊

The days are short and the sun was already setting down even though it was only after 3 PM.

We enjoyed some beautiful moments...

Another side and it looks like the morning again...

And we finally reached the last lake! It had a magical atmosphere with fog coming out of the water, ducks swimming around, soft light and stunning views.

With Sninsky kamen right in front of us, I was thinking of our yearly hikes with my family. We were always about 30 people with my grand parents, aunts and uncles that are not with us anymore. We would start early in the morning, set up a barbeque on the way, have a snack at the top, and have a great time together. One of my uncles always carried his old camera, and those photos always make me smile - sweet memories.

I hope that you all had a good start of the year and that you are excited about what is next to come 😊

See you next time!