Slovakia has 9 national parks, 14 protected landscape areas, more than 1300 mineral springs and 6000 caves. This heart of Europe hides many unbelievably beautiful places that are worth exploring. And in this article I will describe you a hidden gem of national park Veľká Fatra in a form of a magical wooden cabin called Limba pod Rakytovom.
WHAT IS LIMBA POD RAKYTOVOM
Limba pod Rakytovom is a small, cozy, wooden cabin hidden in a national park Veľká Fatra which offers its services all year round. What kind of services? Well, don´t think of it as a luxurious accommodation unit. Not at all. It´s a simple wooden cabin with a useful wood-burning oven which makes you feel warm even in freezing weather outside. The upper part of this cabin offers 15 mattresses for sleeping and at the bottom of this cabin you will find a common room where hikers spend some time together chatting, playing board games and getting to know each other.
A huge benefit of this cabin is always present “chatár” (or so called cottager – a person who actually lives there and takes care of the cabin although he is not the owner). “Chatár” will take care of you by keeping fire all day and night on, cooking you delicious hot soups and serving you some home-made medicine (I mean alcohol 😉 ).
The cabin doesn´t have any running water (although you will be able to use the water from close-by never freezing stream and chatár will help you out with that), the electricity is limited depending on solar panel and the only toilet is a “latrine” located around 20 m from the cabin. It was a very unique experience for me especially in winter time with temperatures 15 degrees below zero at night. Warm clothes was a must! Although my Canadian friends who made me company didn´t complain a lot about the temperatures, who knows why. 😉
HOW TO GET TO LIMBA POD RAKYTOVOM
Limba pod Rakytovom (1210 m) is located in national park Veľká Fatra, just under the third highest peak of Veľká Fatra – Rakytov (1567m). The best way how to get to this cozy cabin is to get to the village “Liptovská Osada” (15 min drive from bigger town Ružomberok in Central Slovakia) and park your car at “Háj pred dolinou Teplô” or at near-by parking lot where the hiking trail starts. Use the app “mapy.cz” to locate this spot.
From this parking lot simply follow yellow hiking trail sign and after two hours you will get to the cabin Limba. Total elevation of this two hour hike is around 500 meters. The first part is very slow and easy, in the second part you will get bit sweaty at the steeper trail until you reach the meadow where Limba can be spotted. Easy, peasy even in a snowy, cold weather.
HOW MUCH IT COSTS AT LIMBA POD RAKYTOVOM
Price of overnight stay at Limba is based on a voluntary fee.
It is recommended to leave at least 5 euro per night per person. The prices of home-made food and alcohol were very reasonable. For better idea I can give you our example of one night stay in the cabin Limba.
We were 4 people staying overnight, ate 3 cabbage soups, had 4 plates for breakfast (sausages and/or scrambled eggs), drank few beers and few shots of home-made brandy and we were asked to pay total of 50 euro. Damn cheap! Of course we gave our chatár some nice tip and were more than happy to share the existence of this place with more people.
WHAT TO BRING WITH YOU TO LIMBA
It depends on the season of the year. During summer time you won´t need a lot. Food and drinks are always available, toilet paper, too. You might want to bring with you a sleeping bag, headlamp and in case you have allergies for cats, some pills as chatár´s cat Lima lives in the cabin, too. During winter time it is recommended to bring a lot of warm clothes, avalanche equipment (especially if you plan to hike up to the peak of Rakytov) and many people got there by cross-country skiing, so if you have ski, don´t hesitate.
We didn´t have any ski nor snowboards but our lovely chatár Vojto lent us certain kind of sledges so we were tobogganing around the cabin for few hours and thus were able to transport back into our childhood halcyon moments.
So what do you say about this hidden gem of Velká Fatra? Would you visit this cozy cabin Limba pod Rakytovom?
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