Blogs from Slovakia, Europe

After the 1989 Velvet Revolution and subsequent 1993 partition of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it seems apparent that the Czech Republic took the nicer cities in Bohemia and Moravia while Slovakia got the gem of the Tatra Mountains. Hard to say who got the better deal. Spent a few days climbing in Slovakia's High Tatra Mountains National Park and checking out a castle. Today I arrived in Vienna. $1 ≈ 0.79€ Mt. Rysy I had previously contacted a guide through the Tatra Mountains Guide Service about day climbs of Rysy and Gerlachovský štít, the highest peaks in Poland and Slovakia respectively. Ervin called me at the pension after my arrival last Thursday and we established a pickup time of 7:30 am Friday morning which was nice as it allowed me to get breakfast ... read more

This night was just too memorable not to write a blog about, and I write it from a free wifi cafe next to Budapest Kelenföld station having been awake for 27 hours and only feeling like I half exist, so excuse the clearly imminent poor and incoherent writing. I love my mantra "the worst thing that can happen is if everything goes to plan" just because that means this trip is going to be super uber mega special. The plan me and my friend Jon had for last night was to arrive in Nitra at about 10pm, go to the club, settle in and slowly set up ready for our first back to back set in a club, from 11pm-1am. However we were smitten by some delay or other which left us instead waiting in the ... read more

When you visit the wine cellars in Slovakia, a pleasure to introduce you to the beginning of a unique historical monument Schaubmar watermill. Schaubmar watermill from 1997 the Gallery of Naive Art has been situated in Schaubmar Mill, a monument of culture and technology, built in Pezinok - Cajla in 1767. The reconstructed mill machinery from 1913 can also seen. The first unique exhibition of its kind, it is administered by the Slovak National Gallery. The permanent exhibition highlights a representational collection of paintings and sculptures created by major Slovak naive artist from the Slovak National Gallery collections. A collestion of works by the painters from Kovacica is also on display. A unique international collection of works of naive artist from Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Finland, Italy and other countries forms an integral part of ... read more

I never would have guessed it but my trip has taken me to the location of the first “Hostel” movie, Bratislava, Slovakia. Where kids kill and torture tourists for a piece of bubble gum. Within ten minutes of being there, I witnessed stuff like that happening. So I went to the happiest sounding hostel I could find, Blues Hostel. Alright, so the real Bratislava is nothing like that. Its not any more rundown then any other city and probably more English speakers then elsewhere on my European tour. Throw in the fact that this city had more beautiful girls then almost anywhere else, fewer cars, less tourists and you can walk the entire city in less than an hour, Bratislava turned out to be pretty awesome. I had no plan on coming to Slovakia but in ... read more

The snow began to fall when we were about half an hour shy of the Slovakian border. The falling snowflakes made the darkened landscape look surreal and dreamlike as they fell softly onto the windshield. I was hypnotised, but only until I realised that snow down here meant deep snow in the High Tatras. Having grown up in Australia, snow is a novelty that turns me into a 5 year old with ADHD. There is of course snow in Australia but seeing it usually requires a minimum 2 hour drive into the mountains. My excitement grew as the road rose and fell over the three small mountain passes that stood between us and Poprad. We made slow progress on serpentine roads that wound through snow covered pine forests, the only source of light coming from ... read more