Slovakia

Slovakian countryside

After Hungary, Marko and I continued our holiday weekend across the Danube River into Slovakia, the country that is most often confused with Slovenia. We drove along the beautiful countryside which was bright yellow due to flowering what I believe to be rapeseed, a plant that is widely cultivated in the region and from which they make biodiesel fuel.

Rainy day in Terchova

We planned to visit the mountainous region of the Low Tatras National Park in the north of the country so we settled in the town of Žilina. We spent the night in one of those huge hotels that were built during the Soviet era and are now deteriorating, similar to what we had seen on our trip to Azerbaijan and Georgia last year. We didn’t even bother to ask if they have internet access but were quite surprised when we later discovered that there actually was a WiFi connection. The next morning we were going to do some hiking around the town of Terchova which is the starting point for hikes in the summer and for skiing in the winter. Unfortunately it was raining and there was nothing much to do than to drive around a little and move on.

Castle of Trenčin

We continued our journey to Trenčin, another picturesque town with a castle on top of a hill. We found out that our visit to Slovakia coincided with the world ice hockey championship. In a country that seems obsessed with ice hockey they had large screens put up in every main square in every town where the people gathered in the evenings to drink beer and watch the games. We caught a game where Slovenia was playing (and lost) against Russia.

Watching ice hockey

We tasted probably the worst beer in the world. It seems funny how Slovakia, neighbor to the Czech Republic – which is famous for its beers – manages to make such bad tasting beers. We spent the night in Trenčin, expecting that due to the sports activities in the capital city of Bratislava we might not be able to find a decent place to sleep.

Ice hockey stuff in Bratislava

On the last day of our trip we drove into Bratislava where there was no way we couldn’t notice the ice hockey stuff everywhere. Fans of Finland and Latvia were seen on the streets and in the pubs (the match between Finland and Latvia was that night), there were statues of hockey players with game schedules placed in various places around the city, they sold hockey souvenirs on the streets and the supermarket was stocked especially with fans in mind with towers of beer and vodka catering to their tastes. Among all that chaos we also managed to go up to the city castle and see a few sights as well.

Bratislava castle