Blogs from Kosice, Kosice Region, Slovakia, Europe

In April 2008 while on a trip to Hungary I decided to travel to Slovakia by train with my Hungarian friend. I wanted to see another former Soviet bloc communist state in Eastern Europe besides Hungary and Poland. The following is an account of our visit to Kosice the second largest city in Slovakia. It was a cold morning when we set out for the railway station in Nyiregyhaza. The train was scheduled to leave at 7:30 but we arrived at the station well in time. An hour after leaving Nyiregyhaza the train pulled in at Miskolc where we had to change to another train for Kosice. However, we had to wait another two hours at the station for this train, so we spent some of the time to have breakfast at the station cafe. The ... read more

Wednesday July 10 – I got up early and took the bus at 8:30. We arrived at 9:40 and I had a 10 minute connection before the bus to Kosice. A guy asked me something but I told him I didn’t speak Slovak. A girl translated and said he drives a minivan to Kosice and that some of them were going to go with him as it was faster, if I wanted to go. I agreed and walked with them over to his van. I sat next to the driver and it was a pretty quick ride. We got in around 10:20 and I went to the train station next door and bought my ticket to Budapest for tomorrow. Much like plane flights, it was cheaper to buy a roundtrip ticket than a one way journey. ... read more

Bratislava, Eslovaquia, a 3 de noviembre del 2008. Saludos a todos alla por TJ y LTO: Les mando fotos de la ciudad de Kosice --mas de 200 mil almas--, que es la segunda ciudad mas grande de Eslovaquia, pais que era parte de Checoslovaquia, pero que a principios de los anos 90's unos bribones la independizaron --le llamaron el divorcio de terciopelo-- para hacer el negocio de su vida. A la fecha esos bribones siguen viviendo del presupuesto y de la politica, peleandose entre ellos, pero bueno, dentro de lo bueno para los eslovacos fue que hubo mas inversion y que el pais entro a la Union Europea. Ah, tambien Eslovaquia es el pais de la pelicula "Hostel"... La ciudad es candidata para ser capital cultural europea del 2013.... Mis problemas empezaron cuando a estar aún ... read more

I got to Kosice by train which is the best and possibly only option to get there directly. It was about 1 euro extra for the fast IC train but it cut about and hour or more off the journey time. It's kind of annoying that all these countries take ISIC but only if you are a student in that country. So far, ISIC has not worked for me in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. I keep trying to use it and sometimes they take pity on me and give me an under 26 rate instead but it really is quite useless in Central and Eastern Europe despite the fact that ISIC is supposed to be accepted! Anyway, Kosice is a nice town with a very small old town center. The church is pretty cool ... read more

September the 10th by now. We awoke in Miskolc, had breakfast (scrambled egg - soon regretted that) then found out it wasnt free. We missed our train to Kocise in Slovakia by 30mins so had to wait until 3pm. No bother, i decided to send home my massive sleeping bag. So i went to the Hungarian post but they were useless and didnt bother to try and speak english for me. But then some Hungarian guy came up and explained the postoffice was rubbish, that id be lucky to find a box to send my bag in and then spent 20mins of what turned out to be his lunch break from a neary shop to help me translate what i wanted and send my bag home. He even put his own address as from where it ... read more