Today Joyce arrived in Košice after backpacking in Europe for the last few weeks. We found her as she was trying to work a phone on the train station since she had been there for a little while before we arrived to pick her up. The three of us spend the morning and afternoon in Košice. I got to attend mass at St. Elizabeth's Cathedral, which is the largest church in Slovakia and was built starting in 1378. Joyce, Sylvia, and I sat outside on the square for a drink and then headed toward Roňava. We stopped at a roadside restaurant [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone, Nosdrove is what you should say as Cheers in Slovakia but my friend Kathy always says "Nice driving eh?!" because she can't pronounce it... This is some of the fun we are having after being together on the tour for the past week and a half. We arrived here in Bratislava today in southern Slovakia after taking 3 trains, one of which was a very local train that was standing room only. We fortunately had reserved seats. We had had such a great time in the High Tatras in the mountains where the views were spectacular, the local food [View Full Entry]

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Dobry Den everyone. We are now in Slovakia in the High Tatras. We got here last night and have been enjoying the views of the peaks above us. We have been enjoying local slovak foods including pasta with nuts, pierogis and something called the Robbers Purse. Today we took a cable car to the peak. We were up about 2634m. Beautiful views above the clouds and we even had a cup of tea at the peak. Took a ton of photos. Tomorrow we head to Bratislava and then onto Budapest. Missing you guys, wish you were here. Enjoying the cooler temperatures [View Full Entry]

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Oh dear, I'm very sorry Slovakia, but you were just a bit... safe. It's a real shame but the torusit-hoards have well and truly infested nice-but-small Bratislava, feeding on the charm it may have once had. It wasn't horible but did not stand out, and mundane is the last thing you want from your travels. Sooo, how did I get there? Well the answer is my first ever night train. And I was aprehensive to say thje least. I'd read things and I'd heard things about Polish night-trains: people being gassed while they slept and robbed blind. But the reality for [View Full Entry]

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Bratislava is one of those cities that people simply reject off hand; case in point: when I was in Vienna 3 years ago, there were 3 Swedish guys who wanted to take the bus to Bratislava for the day, and everyone asked why - their reason: EuroTrip, the movie where the 4 Americans live like kings in the city for pennies. Now, to be fair, there is not a whole lot in the city, but it is worth the visit for a day. It does have a lovely area that feels very European with the outdoor cafes and the squares with [View Full Entry]

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Spis Castle is a very big very old ruin of a castle and very famous. It is on quite a little hill but the site is very well chosen as it’s visible in any direction and obviously good at guarding all around. On the road we went thru a very long tunnel— 5 kilometres of very high tech roading—as we came out there was the castle a few km away framed in the opening of the tunnel -guarding the high tech road as well and a great example of the high tech many centuries ago compared with high tech now. You [View Full Entry]

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Today we had even more trouble finding someone to pay, and ended up being quite late to leave because of this. We stopped along the way at a small town called Levoca. It has a fully intact town wall, and inside there are a number of beautiful Renaissance houses and other buildings, with a central square. There was the Cage of Shame - near the town hall where women who had done something wrong were held to be publicly disgraced. We went into the cathedral there, and a school bus tour came in, kids about 15 and 16. They all went [View Full Entry]

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Eventually found someone to pay for the night in the campground - we are certainly still in the low season, and headed down the Orava valley. First stop was the village of Podbiel with little wooden houses. Near here we say a stork nesting on a special pole. Elsewhere we have see stork nests on the top of powerpoles! There was a school nearby and in the window amongst the other pictures were pictures of the stork. We drove on heading for Orava Castle. First glimpse is of a knife thin spike of rock with the castle on top. This was [View Full Entry]

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Vratna valley, Terchova So our base for the next 5 days was here. With the weather still good, we made our way up Boboty peak as a warm-up for the larger peaks. The climb was 400m, but very steep. The descent involved a bit of clinging on to a chain over a bit of rock. The day after we went via Stefanova for the climb up to Poludniovy Grun and the 1608m Stoh. It was tough going, as it was very steep, and I got very hot on the lower slopes, carrying all my crap. Maybe it’s because I was [View Full Entry]

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3 trains, 2 buses and a taxi. Another overnight on the rails, but travelling to Slovakia from north east Poland is never easy. One option had been a 0600 departure from Kraków, but that is a more of a chore than a holiday. So why not devise a complicated multi-modal travel plan instead? Now there may be better ways to get to Terchova, but this isn’t bad, at least if you can get a sleeper (we couldn’t). We dropped in on our friend Radek in Warsaw and acquainted ourselves with some Bulgarian red wine. This eased our post midnight departure [View Full Entry]

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