Arkada Levoca

... more traditional food like baked cabbage with meat. <br><br>A route which I especially recommend, and which I do more or less once every 2 years, is a trail to Chata pri Zelenom Plese (literally: a house next to a green lake). It takes about 3 hours to get there, and the walk is not too taxing even for a beginner. It's a peaceful place with a lake, a cosy hostel and the mountains. There are a few trails than ...

... I have seen way too many Germans and French in other countries not even trying to speak the local language, and I become quite annoyed. At the Merry Cemetery in Romania, a group of French tourists were speaking to the elderly cashier in French and not understanding her overly animated, very obvious answers. As they became exasperated with the old-timer speaking her native language, one of the tourists turned around to me and said something sarcastic in French, as if I ...

... I had gotten better rest the night before. <br><br>After perhaps five hours, we made our way down to another town. It was at this point that we realised that we had no idea where a bus stop was or if the old bus schedule we had seen in Oaza was correct. However, we did find a bus stop [eventually], and the bus did [eventually] come.<br><br>

... It's not that there is a whole lot to do in the town, though the church is an interesting visit if you have the time. (The nearby punishment cage once used for public humiliation of children is also a laugh.) It is simply a nice, laid-back town that happens to be very near Spi&#353;ske Podradhie, a town of no consequence but for Spi&#353; castle on a nearby hill. Spi&#353; was once used for defense, like most castles, and was badly damaged ...

... upon one of those pensions that put a smile on your face and keep it there mean that this is as far as I go this trip. In the last week Ive investigated one of the largest castles in the world at Spisska Podhradie just oustside the town, taken the funiculee-funicular train up above the snowline in the Tatra mountains that loom over this part of the world and on the other side of which is Poland - a destination for a future I hope and trekked back back down footsore and ...

50 pence a pint and two nights accommodation for 18 Euros, Chris is a very happy man! We spent a couple of days walking in the Slovensky Raj National Park, which was a real treat. They are part of the lower Tatra's and have ...

... a churchy village .... was once a monastery or something and all buildings somehow belong to or relate to the church somehow. Had a tour of the Church here, which as it turned out, closely resembled the style of the main church in Levoa - the same "master paul" must have designed/painted the interiors. Weirdly, there were loud speakers set up at various points around the village but for what purpose we weren't entirely sure....

... our guidebook about some of the Roma in Slovakia living in medieval squalor was not an exxageration. It put a bit of a damper on what was otherwise a very good day. I'm not really sure how some of the strucures managed to stay upright. We stopped in a few other villages near the castle, and then went up to Marianska Hora--the church we could see from our hotel room window. There's a pilgrimage here ...

... area and enjoy the musical water fountain with a little bit of a light show going on. The Barcelona one (for those of you that know) can be quietly confident that it will not lose heaps of tourists to Kosice's ever impressive water fountain....you could say a little tacky. Anyways....whilst sitting down enjoying the show we were accosted by some young gypsy girls who thought it was hilarious when she was trying to ...

... entries in Krakow, I kept forgetting to say that there's a sportswear store there called The Athlete's Foot. I also saw a sign for a beauty salon named Tipsy, advertising "Tipsy manicures & pedicures". Would you let them anywhere near your appendages? At 5:55 this morning, when my alarm went off, I was dreaming (what about, I forget) when the person in my dream, who may or may not have been G, said, very gently, "Your alarm is ringing." And so it was! As I ...