Cycling Highlight (Segment)
Recommended by 44 out of 46 cyclists
This Highlight goes through a protected area
Please check local regulations for: Štôlska dolina
It started with a “dungeon path” and some small shepherd paths. In the last decades of the 19th century, a construction of a good road started, as it was necessary to link the fast growing tourist places below the Tatras. In a sense, it’s easy to perceive how the Spiš local authorities well understood the importance of tourism - a convenient railway line was built also in the same decades. By 1918, the road was 8 meters wide and accessible by cars. With the creation of Czechoslovakia it was renamed from the Tourist Way to the Freedom Road.
Nowadays, Cesta Slobody links Podbanské in the westernmost part of Spiš and ends 67 km further, in Łysa Polana, a border crossing with Poland. In its great part it leads over the forests limit and offers splendid views of the High Tatras, Sub-Tatra Basin and Low Tatras. It’s a state road, but has a wide roadside that makes it comfy to cycle (except for Kotlina - Javorina section in Belianske Tatry in the East).
What made it far more scenic that it used to be, were the terrible 2004 and 2014 hurricanes that devastated the forests, covering the Road with meters of timber at some places. The forests (National Park) are slowly recovering but it will take decades if not centuries.
February 28, 2018
Nice road, but sometimes a lot of traffic. No bike path.
Almost always next to the Tatrabahn (bike transport is limited)
Nice views.
More information: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vysok%C3%A9_Tatry
August 29, 2020
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