We began the morning relatively early at the Krakow bus station, where we easily got a mini-bus to Zakopane. Zakopane is the last city before the border, although it's not the end of the line; from Zakopane, we still had to take a mini-bus to the Polish border, from which we could walk over the Slovakian border, then take a bus from there to Poprad, a town which was the major transportation hub in this area of Slovakia. From Poprad, we would take a train to Kosice, our final destination. I had been unable to find exact timetables online, but previous travelers and our guidebook both assured us that all connections were frequent and it was an easy trip to make. We arrived in Zakopane 2 ½ hours later at a tiny station and told that the next mini-bus would be there in 20 minutes. We waited patiently with three hard-core backpackers (the kind who camped and whose plan was to travel until their money ran out) for 30 minutes but the bus didn't come. Brenden decided to check across the street, and—it turns out—that's where it was waiting. We hopped on quickly, and soon, we were on our way. I was worried, though, because we were headed to Lysa Polana, which was not the end destination of this bus, and I was terrified we would miss where we supposed to get off. As the guidebook provided no helpful advice about how far Zakopane was from the border, though, I had no idea exactly how far to go on the mini-bus, either. Luckily, we weren't the only ones who needed to get off at Lysa Polana, so it was easy to get off, and then to walk over the border. When we got into the other side, there was a timetable listing buses between the border and Poprad. The next bus wasn't due to arrive for more than 2 hours, however, so we waited in the rain along with a steady and growing crowd. After that bus arrived, we had a long, winding road down to Poprad, the transportation hub for this part of eastern Slovakia. From there, we caught a train into Kosice, our final destination. We arrived about 6:30pm, after beginning at the Krakow bus station at 8:30am.
We spent two nights (Saturday and Sunday) in Kosice. Kosice is Slovakia’s second-largest city, which has a population of 200,000. It definitely had a provincial feel to it, particularly since we had spent most of our time on our trip so far in the capital cities. It’s very, very pretty, and there is a lovely promenade area running through the main street in town with a number of fountains, benches, churches, shops, and restaurants lying along it.
The first night in Kosice, we ate dinner at a delicious, local Slovak restaurant. The next day, we got a late start and arrived at the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth after church had already begun. So we wandered around the church and over the small chapel next to it, St. Michael’s Chapel. Since it was Sunday, all of the shops (except Tesco) and all of the tourist attractions (except the Archaeological Museum) were closed. So we decided to go to the Archaeological Museum, as it was supposed to be pretty cool. What the guidebook said was that it was a tour through the ancient foundations/sewers of Kosice, dating back to medieval times. That was true. What was also true, however, was that it doubled as an art exhibition which focused on autism (we only knew it was about autism because of pamphlets). I did not really see how autism was being promoted or represented through the art at all—mostly it consisted of portraits of scantily clad women in odd poses, accented by the occasional hanger with the clothing from the portrait hanging. Not only did we not understand how the art wasd connected to autism, we really didn’t understand how it was connected to archeology or to medieval town foundations. It was, without a doubt, the most bizarre museum I have EVER been to. It’s hard to describe in words just how strange it was (check my Facebook album for an example of what one exhibit looked like).
After that odd experience, we decided to check out Tesco (sort of like the European Target) for backpacks, since mine, bought for 20 lari (roughly $15) at a Chinese store in Georgia, had almost completely ripped out after 12 days of use. By ripped out, I don’t mean that the stitches were to blame—the fabric itself was falling apart. This is true Georgian Chinese shop quality at its best… Tesco was a surreal experience. There were four floors, with lots of choice. We actually had about 20 backpacks to choose from, in varying sizes and price ranges. The clothing was—mostly—pretty cute stuff, and I would’ve been in real trouble if they actually carried small sizes because I would have bought too many things. I tried on a red trench coat and tried to convince Brenden that it fit right (even though it was obviously a size or two too big) because it was just so darn cute. But none of that compared to the shock upon entering the grocery floor. The choice in groceries was just plain overwhelming —we wandered around the aisles, dazzled by the choices available to any shopper (remember, we were mostly used to items being safely tucked behind the counter of a shop, so browsing is discouraged). It was an hour of “You know you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer when…” (you’re dazzled by the array of sodas to choose from; you almost buy microwave popcorn even though you have no microwave in your hotel room, nor do you have one back at home; it takes you 10 minutes to decide which granola bars to get for breakfast because you haven’t seen so many choices in over a year; etc ad nauseum). In short, Tesco was awesome, but overwhelming. At one point, we started to hyperventilate just a bit over all the choices, so we left and got some lunch at the restaurant next door: Pizza Hut! Yes, the real deal—and it was delicious deep dish pizza! Normally, I wouldn’t be *that* American, but it’s different when you’re living abroad, and not living the life of an expat overseas.
After lunch, we took a lovely stroll around the town. Nothing much was open (except for restaurants), but plenty of people were out for a Sunday afternoon stroll along the promenade. We had planned for this day in Kosice to be a relaxing day without lots of “must do” sightseeing, and that’s exactly what it was: a low-key, relaxing day. After dinner, we sat in one of the parks along the promenade and watched the “musical fountain” (it plays lovely classical music along with it’s colorful nighttime lights) and the Slovaks hanging out on benches around the fountain.
Traveling in Slovakia often seemed like a comedy of errors, and none more so than the next day, Monday, when we left Kosice for Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, via Trencin. Trencin is a town famous for its castle, and on Sunday, we went to the train station and bought our tickets for Trencin. When we arrived in Trencin, our plan was to buy our onward ticket to Bratislava, deposit our backpacks in left luggage or lockers at the train station, spend 2-3 hours touring the castle and the rest of the town, then head back and arrive in Bratislava early in the evening. The train ride was uneventful, but it unnerved us that stations weren’t called out, so you really had to be looking out for your station, especially since some of the stations weren’t particularly well-signed. When we knew we were in the right vicinity, we went up to stand near the doors, because the train also didn’t often stop for long at many stations, so there was a real possibility of being at the right station but not being able to get off in time. There was a local woman standing also, and Brenden asked her if the next station was Trencin; she shrugged and said yes. So we prepared to disembark and the train did indeed grind to a halt at a station titled “Trencin Teplice.” We got off at a singularly dismal station, but proceeded to the ticket window to buy our ticket. We bought our ticket, but in the process, realized that this was a small station, with nowhere to leave our luggage. We would have to shlep our backpacks with us. So we set off, using the Lonely Planet map of Trencin as a guide. The map was pretty poorly designed and unfortunately, street signs seemed to be spare, but we passed what looked like the park on the map, then continued down the main street, presuming this main street was the same one as on the map. After walking for 10 minutes down the main street and seeing none of the landmarks detailed on the map (and looking at this city, which didn’t seem big enough to be a town of 60,000 people), we concluded we were, in fact, not in Trencin at all. At the very bottom of the Lonely Planet map of Trencin, in tiny print, was the small notation with an arrow pointing downward “Trencin Teplice 9 km.” We had, somehow, gotten off one station too early, and now we were stuck in this tiny town with Soviet-style blocks, no tourist attractions to speak of, and the same options for food you’d find in a village in Georgia. So, we ended up buying cheese and bread at a small market and getting on the next train out to Bratislava.
We arrived in Bratislava and headed out to the Tesco (one block away from where we were staying) because now Brenden’s backpack had ripped and we also needed to pick up some basic necessities like hand lotion and conditioner. Suffice it to say—this was a humongous Tesco (like 4 times the size of the average Target), and we separated to do our own errands, which was a terrible idea when neither of us had a cell phone. I was supposed to find Brenden, but I got lost getting back to him, and when I finally got to where he was supposed to be, he’d left to go try to find me, so we had some panicky moments there. When we finally left Tesco, it was pouring down rain, so we resolved to go to the first restaurant in between Tesco and where we were staying, which happened to be a small little Italian restaurant with great food. J
The next day, we were resolved to do a whirlwind tour of Bratislava. We began by walking along the Royal Road (the old coronation path) through the only original city gate still standing to St. Martin’s Cathedral. We went to a lot of cathedrals/churches on our trip in Europe this summer, and of all of them, St. Martin’s was my favorite. It was beautiful and sacred and ornate in places without being so blindingly ornate that one forgets the entire purpose. The ceiling details were just gorgeous! Also, there was an entire exhibit full of old manuscripts, hymnals, etc that were so beautiful, as well as a crypt open to the public. That was cool! After St. Martin’s, we crossed over a major road (built by the Soviets, of course) to Bratislava Castle. From Bratislava Castle, we had gorgeous views of the river, the UFO bridge (this modernistic bridge that really looks like a UFO), and really, all of Bratislava. However, that was about it—all the good stuff inside the castle was closed for renovations. You’d think they’d try to do these things in the middle of winter, rather than in the height of the tourist season!
So in terms of seeing castles in Slovakia, Brenden and I were now 0-2, so we were determined not to miss the third castle we’d planned to see. Devin Castle is nine kilometers out of Bratislava, and has played an important role in the Austro-Hungarian empire, serving as sort of the border outpost. Besides Trakai in Lithuania, this was our favorite castle. And, unlike Trakai, this one was basically ruins—it was conquered many times throughout the years but never destroyed until the French decided to dynamite it in the 1800s. After a thorough excavation, they were able to excavate the various levels of building and determine what was added when. Parts of it date back to the Roman times. We had a fantastic time exploring and wandering about!
Here are some photos below—for more, see my Facebook album:
Photos:
1) In the High Tatras of Eastern Slovakia, between the border and Poprad
2) Cathedral of St. Elizabeth in Kosice
3) More of the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth
4) Ancient manuscript in St. Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava
5) The ruins of Devin Castle, just outside Bratislava
- Carissa
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