Barbakan Levoca

... especially recommend, and which I do more or less once every 2 years, is to Chata pri Zelenom Plese (literally: a house next to the green lake). It takes about 3 hours to get there, and the walk is not too taxing. It's a peaceful place with a lake, a mountain hostel and the mountains. There are a few trails than begin there, so you can follow some of them and see the place from above, although it requires good physical ...

... remembered more German [of the very little bit I learned], but it was more annoying to hear them speak to the guide in German, as if they deserved special treatment [after giving her explanation of the cave’s formations in Slovak, she would give a brief summary in German for those three tourists], or as if German is the only language one needs to get by. I am tired of the image of the American who doesn’t even try to speak the local language because he speaks only ...

After our revels the night before, I was not too excited about hiking in Slovensky Raj National Park. Nonetheless, we set off at a good enough time and got one bus to Spisske Nova Ves and then another to Cingov. From Cingov we began hiking.

The park was lovely: green mountains, streams, rocks, and very few other people. But, I wished ...

Levoča (and the pension Oáza in town—I cannot recommend it enough) were recommended by Lonely Planet Slovakia, and they did not lead us astray. Thankfully, I was able to shove the Romania LP to the bottom of my bag when we left there a few days ago. After taking in a wine tasting festival in a park during a brief stopover in Budapest and spending a night in Bratislava, we finally arrived in this small town in Eastern Slovakia.
Levoča, Presov, Slovakia ataritouchme

Yes it was going to be bishops but the hero of Levoca (thats Le-voctch-ah) is a carpenter who was working a mere 500 yeasr ago. Master Pavel of Levoca is the man round these here parts. Across a very sunny town square lies St. James church which contains his meisterwerk - an alter 18.63 meters tall traced out of wood but mostly air. I think we can safely say he passed his woodwork GCSE. Levoca itself is lovely little place ideally placed for explorations - this plus the fact that Ive ...

... historickych budov caka na rekonstrukciu a ked aj tie budu hotove bude to nadhera. Cestou naspat z Levoce do Zdiaru sme este stihli aj navstivit Slovensky raj, ale nepodarilo sa nam tam zohnat ubytovanie - vsade mali plno - a tak zajtra nepojdeme na turu do Raja, ale budeme pokracovat viacej na vychod.

... 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....

... and spent several happy hours climbing around the ruins. After leaving the castle we drove to Zehra (a village at the foot of the bluff) and saw a small church that was in the process of having its fescos restored. We could only stick our heads in, but it looks like it will be beautiful when it's complete. Driving out of town we drove through progressively more dilapidated housing, proving that the line ...

... Stare Maestro - Jacob's Palace, another cathedral etc) but being a Sunday not a lot was going on. We were also to find out that a lot of tourist things are not open on a Monday so you can pretty much write-off those 2 days. We were going to stay another day to see some UNESCO caves outside Kosice but alas they were not open on a Monday. At lunch time we thought that we would sit in the little park in the Stare ...

I crossed the Slovakian border at about 11 this morning, but didn't even get to "Hooooooo!" softly to myself because I only realised I was in another country fifteen minutes later, when a couple of border guards came to inspect and stamp my passport. Expecting an interesting colour of ink (my stamps from the Czech Republic were turquoise and the one from Poland lavender), I was disappointed to see a plain black one. But still, it's another stamp! When I wrote ...