http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Slovakia en-us Thu, 15 May 2008 13:44:40 BST Thu, 15 May 2008 13:44:40 BST Sunday morning marked the perfect weekend trip the first trip I have gone on since my arrival in the Czech Republic where it did not rain during some part or most of the weekend Yet another glorious sunny day After breakfast I went with everyone to the Demnovsk Ice Cave. The caves were quite pretty but not as impressive as the Macocha Abyss located near Brno I have pictures up on an ear http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/blog-271209.html On Saturday I woke up to a room flooded with warmth and light from the sun I couldn't believe it two whole days of such beauty The bus took me to the Vratna Dolina Valley which is a valley located in Mala Frata mountain region. For about 2.5 hours I engaged in one of the most strenuous and rewarding climbs in which I have participated. The day was so beautiful and it felt so great to stret http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Mala-Fatra/blog-271198.html The morning dawned brilliant and warm with promises of a lovely day and hope for an eventful weekend. After wishing Amichai a very happy 22nd birthday via Skype I boarded a bus that took me to a small town called Piescaron357any famous for its sulfur healing waters and beautiful surroundings. A few people loitered in the sunshine as they walked to various destinations and I had the chance http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Trencin/blog-271195.html Okay so this is a little late but just pretend like I wrote this 2 weeks ago. Martin picked me up from the train station and after apologizing a million times for his ldquobad Englishrdquo we drove to his apartment. I was so tired that I felt like I was floating. We got to his apartment and I immediately took a shower. Not only was the train not very comfortablehellip it wasnrsquot the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Kosice/blog-266068.html This trip was early in November. The Aberdeen guys went through Amsterdam then onto Vienna.They then had a short bus trip over the border to Slovakia where they hooked up with The Lithgae Lads who had taken the a flight from Edinburgh to Pargue where they stayed overnight. They then took the train into Bratislava the following morning.This was our first venture into Eastern Europe where we found i http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-262481.html Yeah so looks like I'm in Bratislava now pretty knackered and about to go to sleep. But I thought I should finally get my ass up and write something on this thing.The trip to Gdansk was rather bizarre...first I was standing with the other pathetic passengers in a giant queue on Hahn airport waiting to board. They wouldn't even make an announcement it was pretty frustrating just standing there http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-261729.html ....and welcome to the land of no vowels spotless streets beautiful buildings and 24 hour partyingIve been attempting a whistle stop tour of Slovakia Poland and Austria and spent a few err...strange hours in the Czech Republic tooAdmittedly its been a few years since ive had the pleasure of experiencing the open road and going wherever fate takes me Some things change but unfortunately so http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-254646.html 3608Ahoj kamaradkas It has been a long time since I checked in with you all. This is partly due to an increased workload in my academic studies with CIEE and FAMU although they are hardly rigorous in the traditional sense. This week I was required to attend an Open Mike Concert featuring my professor. It was a strange evening of performances by people who were once highly subversive in the Cze http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/blog-253342.html Bratislava... It was here that I decided I needed to find a Slovakian wife. Why Well let me tell you. We got into Bratislava and walked down the historical district towards our hostel. It was quite nice and we took out some Slovakian krowns which ended up being 45 and that lasted us the entire trip We got to the hostel and messed around a bit on the computer and played some foosball. We went ou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-251408.html Bratislava http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-239744.html Bratislava http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-239727.html My friend Milka was very kind in inviting me with her friends to a village in the Slovensky Kras national park for new years. It was a spectacular time with wonderful people During New Year's Eve the wine Hungarian cherry liquor and champagne flowed merrily down the old gulliver. And even a village with maybe 100 people had fireworksThe following day we got over our headaches and spent the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Slovensky-Kras-National-Park/blog-239381.html Do you ever find yourself stuck in a city where there is an eternal blanket of snow above you Well chances are good that these clouds are quite thin and all you need to do is hike up a mountain or hill for clear skies and warmer weather This was the case when I travelled with Milka my Couchsurfing friend before Sylvester to some mountains west of Kosice near Gelnica. We had a spectacu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Kosice/blog-239093.html Just after Christmas I travelled to a village called Podmanina near Povazska Bystrica which isn't far from Trencin or Zilina. Since the whole country has beautiful nature this place is no exception. The mountains might not reach as high as the Tatras there but the rock formations and beech forests more than make up for it. Sadly there was no snow so I couldn't try crosscountry skiing. The http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Povazska-Bystrica/blog-239017.html Ok so I havenrsquot exactly kept up with the blog. You see Irsquove had so much work and then I had Christmas break. I just havenrsquot had time to write. Well as for my travels I went to Bratislava and Vienna then spent a weekend in Amsterdam and then spent two weeks home in Puerto Rico.About a month ago I was on my way to the airport with my friends Anna and Patrick to board our early http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-234659.html Well i have spent the last day and a half in Bratislava Slovakia. Was really looking forward to coming here was caught up in the Hostel jive but really its just another European city with trams trains and busy moving people. Vikki got this morning free so am going to try to find that tower did see one that looked similar yesterday when i was at the castle Oh yes what European city doesnt http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-233959.html The Argentian born Sicilian sitting next to me just said something about that so I thought that'd be a fun title for today.So I left off in Prague. The 2nd we went to Prague Castle and wandered around despite that fact that it was absolutely freezing. The first thing we saw was the Lobowitz musuem which is a musuem about the Lobowitz family. They were a family of princes in Prague for about http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-233766.html Typical 15 minutes outside Prague it was white all the way to BratislavaVienna. Painless bus trip and apart from the ugly nylon coats and large shoulder padded 80's coats that the people wear Bratislava was lovely. The historical centre is less preserved than Prague but that was actually kind of nice. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-233158.html Navnadil Vas titulok na pikantne citanie V tom pripade sa uz rovno na zaciatku priznavam ze nejde o nikaju pikanteriu ale len o dobre odkukany marketingovy tah slovenskeho bulvaru pri ktorom nazov citatela navnadi na velke tajomstva a samotny clanok mu ukaze ze sice titulok nebol uplne klamstvo ale napriek tomu je to cele inak... Nalejme si teda cisteho vina... do odchodu ostava okolo 38 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-231937.html Touched down at the Airport cleared immigrations and collected baggage in a 15minute period. Flight was full so there was a small crowd gathering near the luggage belts. No problems with baggages though prompt and efficient. Asked the money changer for recommendations for getting to Bratislava and she commented that it would be good to take the bus instead a sentiment echoed by the tourist inf http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-231083.html So I left Nottingham on a RyanAir flight to Bratislava. I had exhausted myself through nerves but couldn't sleep on the plane. I sat next to this really cute little girl but I couldn't understand a word she said. There were really low clouds but once the plane got above them the stars and moon were beautiful. Looking down I could see the lights from the ground below reflecting on the cloud http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-229080.html The last weekend i joined some friends on a trip to Slovakia. We would fly to Prievidza and on to Martin to go fishing.The weather has been just great the last couple of weekends. It's a lot of fun flying a Cessna. Our GPS conked the moment we took off so we wer back to the good ol' maps for navigation. A lot more funAfter roughly a two hour flight we touched down at Prievidza for a lovely lunch http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Martin/blog-225625.html Hi teamHope everyone back home is going well. I am fine thanks for asking.Me and Cat are now in Bratislava which is a lot better then what I was expecting. We have some time to fill in before Paris so though we would visit Slovakia. When we got here the weather was really nice a sweltering 11 outside. Had a walk around the city which is really old and not touristy at all. Visited the castle whic http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-224820.html Yesterday on the train from Budapest to Vienna there was a group of 20something Hungarians who must have been going away for the long weekend. They were well into the celebrations before they even got on the train and they were well stocked up with booze for the three hour train journey. One of them brought his cigarette onto the nonsmoking train as Europeans tend to do and when he leaned http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-223918.html I finished work on Friday at the airport and decided to go to the bus station on the way home from work. I had thought about going to Budapest but there were no tickets left. There WERE however tickets left for Saturday but the bus only went as far as Bratislava but I bought them anyhow. My roundtrip bus ticket was only 430krowns which is about 22dollars...so what a deal right I can't even http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-222785.html It's been awhile since I have made a post. Honestly it's a combination of busyness laziness and a camera that ran out of batteries. No worries though I'll catch all of you up rightquick now.I've been in Bratislava for two weeks to the day working on my final project. I've been following around a man named Marek Hojsik who is an expert on the subject I'm working on and meeting many interest http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-222532.html aa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/blog-219572.html Our stay was brief and we will be honest with you there wasn't that much to see That doesn't include the mess we got into which wasn't our fault over where we were staying.Having booked our hostel the night before we arrived to find them fully booked having not being told by the booking sight so we had to slum it round the corner. All they seem to do here is eat and drink so as it was cold http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-219105.html When you're away it's always interesting to see what from home makes the local news where you are. Last night while sitting around at the monkey replica watching the first bit of TV that I've seen for a few days there was a news story from Sydney the Burmese democracy protest. There was also a news story on the little bit of neonazi civil unrest in Prague.But back to the monkey replica that I fo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-218715.html Another day another country as they say in the classics and with Mel on her way back home to France today as well it was an early morning excursion to Prague airport. Having managed to make the Sky Europe flight cut off by a matter of minutes it was off to Bratislava. You see Sky Europe is like Jetstar in that if you are not checked in 40 minutes before your flight then don't bother flying Sky E http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava/blog-218201.html