Vlkolínec [Vlk = wolf in Slovak language] was my very end destination of the trip to Veľká Fatra mountains in 2004. We started in the south, in spa town Turčianské Teplice, ascended to the highest peak - Ostriedok (1596m) then followed the main and the eastern ridges of this beautiful Carpathian mountains in a direction to the town of Ružomberok. After several days spent in relatively wild nature, the descending to civilizations was welcomed opportunity to take a rest and refresh ourselves in the UNESCO guarded village of Vlkolínec. It was not intentional to spare money, but later we realized that entering the village from the upper side means no entrance fee at all.

As already mentioned the setting of the village is beautiful. Though there was nothing very special in the village, and the visit is really "Holašovice-like", I gave fairly high rating to Vlkolínec (in contrast to Holašovice WHS itself). There are no many such preserved wooden villages in Slovakia, thus it deserves the inscription to the list even though the wooden buildings are not extremely spectacular. Besides abandonment, old wooden houses usually suffers from the "trend" that they are sold to open-air museums - skansen. Well, Vlkolínec is maybe also a museum village, but it is still normally inhabited. Perhaps, some visitors are "spoiled" by open-air museums where one can find the finest examples of vernacular architecture and expect something similar also in the case of Vlkolínec. However, I really enjoyed Vlkolínec as an example of something more authentic than artificially assembled museums.