From Nowy Targ to Trstená on tracks that are no longer there

0 km

Start at the railway station on Kolejowa street. The town cycle path runs from Mickiewicz Park along the Czarny Dunajec river to the Bór Kombinacki forest, where the main route on the embankment begins. The historic water tower by the station still works.

3 km

An iron arched truss bridge over the Wielki Rogoźnik stream and the first rest area. The old halt never had a building. A 2.5 km link road leads to the sanctuary in Ludźmierz.

6 km

Once a station with a siding to a brickworks and lime kiln, the building was demolished in 2003. Next to it the Rogoźnicka Skała nature reserve, a piece of the Pieniny Klippen Belt. Between Rogoźnik and Czarny Dunajec you cross the main European watershed: water on one side flows to the Baltic, on the other to the Black Sea.

11 km

You are here. A brick station from 1904, three tracks and two platforms, flats after the war, today a restaurant with a terrace right on the path. The kitchen runs daily 9:00 to 21:00, with spanners and a pump on site, bike racks and a playground. Parking at the restaurant and a park and ride by the school complex on Jana Pawła II street.

This is also the start of the 8 km Czarny Dunajec peat bog loop and the Baligówka bog nature trail.

16 km

An iron riveted railway bridge 40 m long. On 1 September 1939 it collapsed into the river after an explosion. Today it is rebuilt with a wooden deck. A picnic spot, weirs on the river and the best photo stop on the whole section.

17 km

The second restored station on the line. After the war it was the terminus for forty years, because the tracks beyond it led only to the border. Today a bistro, a bike rental and an outdoor exhibition on the history of the line in Polish, Slovak and English. Link roads lead from here to Chochołów and Koniówka.

20.6 km

The last kilometres before the border are the longest climb of the route: the track rose at 25 per mille for about 5 km, still an easy pace on a bike. The path cuts across the Orava and Nowy Targ peat bogs and crosses the border on a wooden bridge over the Jelešňa stream, exactly where the train once ran. The highest point of the route, about 790 m above sea level.

21 km

Three hundred metres past the border stands the ruin of the biggest station on the section. For thirty years it housed the railway customs office between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Do not go inside, look from the embankment. The village itself is 2 km away.

24 km

A village that never had a station but has two shelters by the path and a view of the Western Tatras from the Slovak side. From the border it is downhill all the way.

30 km

An old station in good condition, now a weather station. By the path a chapel with a spring, the only place on the route where you can fill your bottles. A shelter and a shop in the village.

35 km

The path ends at a working railway station with trains to Kraľovany. A town square with cafés, halušky and Kofola at the finish. Free parking by the station if you prefer to start on the Slovak side and ride into Poland.