Month: September 2014

Budget: Slovakia

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This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Slovakia. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Slovakia we used the Euro. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 1.3 euro to one dollar.

Total Spent (7 days): $564.55

We normally break down into the following categories:

Accommodation: $268.72

We stayed at one hostel in a dorm, one pension, and one AirBnb.

Activities: $31.68

We didn’t have many activity expenses this month! We stayed in the mountains and did hiking which was free. This included tips on a free walking tour in Bratislava, entrance to Spis Castle, and a fee to visit a church in Levoca.

Food: $165.02

We ate out approximately 1 to 2 meals per day. The hostel that we stayed in for some of these days provided breakfast.

Miscellaneous: $8.18

This included buying postcards and our Zumba class.

Transportation: $90.94

We traveled by buses and trains.

This divides out to $80.65/day which, thankfully, is under our $100/day budget. Yay!

 

Bratislava, Slovakia

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We weren’t sure that we were going to make it to Bratislava, but ultimately decided it was worth it. We needed a place to stop over on our way from Zdiar to Budapest, and Bratislava was on the way. Also, we read up on Bratislava and it sounded like it had plenty of cool sights of its own!

Where We Stayed

Airbnb Apartment – We were lucky to find a convenient, inexpensive Airbnb. We were about a 15 minute walk to the east of Old Town. We enjoyed our apartment as it was on the first floor and had all the conveniences we needed, including a washer! The washer was a bit of an adventure though. We couldn’t get it to work, and ended up having to call our host. It turned out that some work had been done in the room and the water was turned off. It was hard to figure though because the sink was in the same room and the water to it was fine, but eventually managed to get it going. Our host thoughtfully provided a drying rack, iron, and hair dryer! He also included fruit and supplies for breakfast!

What We Did

Free Walking Tour – We feel like we’ve become pros at the free walking tour. What a great thing to do in many of the cities we’ve visited! We like to do the tour on our first full day because they often give us a good lay of the land and help us orient ourselves. Like many of the others, our guide was great and gave us a good overview of the city. We enjoyed this particular tour because our guide gave us a little bit more of the recent history (since communism) and a bit of the current political situation. Namely, she explained that the country was moving in a capitalist direction and many of the young people agreed. She did state that there was a significant population of mostly older people who believed that they had been better off during communism. Their unemployment rate in Slovakia is high, mostly in the country. In Bratislava itself, it was not that bad.

We started out in the Hviezdoslavo Square, admiring the Carlson hotel and then the Opera House. We then headed into Bratislava’s small Old Town. We stopped by the statue of “The Watcher” peeping out of a manhole, then to the main square, where we found a cannonball embedded in a clock tower. We walked out of Old Town through the St Michael’s Gate (and found the second narrowest building in Europe. which is now a Kebob shop). Our next stop was near the Trinitarian church where we also looked up at the castle but did not walk to it. We then walked past the Presdient’s residence and the Slovak National Uprising square. We stopped at the Art Noveau “blue church”, then our final stop was at a small square where a communist uprising occurred.

Walk to the Bratislava Castle – The Castle is up on a hill overlooking the town of Bratislava. It was destroyed in the early 1800s by fire and then was not restored until 1953, during communism. Due to this, it was not restored lavishly and today is pretty simple. It still is impressive and offers great views of the rest of the city.

Zumba – We were so excited to participate in our second Zumba Round the World class. Read about it here!

Where We Ate

Slovak Pub – We followed a recommendation and visited the Slovak Pub for dinner our first night. We enjoyed the many rooms relating to Slovakian history as well as the delicious food. We ate a combo platter of the Slovak national dish of sheep cheese halusky, sheep cheese pierogi, and cabbage halusky. Halusky is small thick noodles, kinda like gnocchi. Here in Slovakia, they are normally covered with cheese and bacon. As a dessert, we had sweet dumplings filled with blueberry and covered with cocoa powder- YUM!

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Zumba Round the World: Bratislava

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After almost a month of Zumba withdrawal, we were able to find another convenient class! We spent two nights in Bratislava, Slovakia. Luckily, we were able to find a class quite close to our Airbnb. Even more lucky, it turned out that it was Daniela Cavojec Cesnekova.

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She is not only a ZES (Zumba Education Specialist), but the very first Zumba instructor in Slovakia. Needless to say, her class was excellent! Lots of people and energy! We felt a little clumsy actually as it was clear that we were two of only three non-regulars in the class! We warmed up with Shakira’s Dare (La La La). Then we had a good variety after that. We feel fortunate to have been able to go to this class!

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Wow! It was great to get back in the Zumba saddle, and we were definitely feeling out of Zumba shape!

Check out a video of Daniela! It was a great class!

 

Check out the rest of our Zumba Round The World posts.

Levoča and Spiš Castle, Slovakia

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One of things we were most looking forward to in Slovakia was visiting Spiš Castle. We had originally planned to do it as a day trip from our hostel the Ginger Monkey in Zdiar, but we were there over a holiday weekend and the buses weren’t running nearly as often as we would have liked. This meant that it was not likely that we could make it there and back in a day with a reasonable amount of time to spend at this amazing UNESCO heritage site. So, at almost the last minute, we decided to move to Levoča, a town that was quite a bit closer to the castle. We are glad we decided to do this as Levoča is quite a nice, small, not too touristy town.

Where We Stayed

Pension Oaza – We quite enjoyed this pension, especially after staying in the dorm in Zdiar. We had a very large room all to ourselves. We had plenty of space to spread out, a refrigerator and microwave, and our very own bathroom! The woman who owned the pension was kind and offered us homebaked goodies. She also told us to grab some of her many tomatoes growing in her garden. It was quite a nice location too, located midway between the main train station and old town.

Our room came with its own table
The view out of our window

What We Did

Old Town Levoča and Church of Saint James – We enjoyed visiting this small old town square. We visited in the late afternoon so we didn’t go into any of the museums, however, we did enter the Church of St. James. The Church is UNESCO listed and is famous for having the tallest altar in the world. We paid 4 euros to enter, but were quite disappointed that the altar was under renovation so covered by scaffolding. Also, there were no pictures allowed inside. We did enjoy some of the other carvings though, done by the famous Master Pavol. Levoča is also unique within Slovakia because it is still surrounded by most of its original city wall. We particularly enjoyed walking around town observing the wall and imagining its past.

Streets of Levoca
Church of St. James and Town Hall
Church of St. James, the outside was also being renovated
The Cage of Shame, used to shame women caught outside after curfew. What?
Walking along the city wall
The inside and the outside of the wall

Spiš Castle – Spiš Castle is the real reason we came to Levoča in the first place. We had to take a bus to the town of Spišské Podhradie which is situated in the valley right beneath the Spiš Castle (this leaves from Levoča regularly). Even approaching the town in the bus, you are struck by the enormous size and majesty of the castle.

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The bus drops you off in the middle of town, so you will need to do a bit of walking to reach the castle. We headed out of town, following the signs for Castle parking. Strangely, there were almost no cars in the parking lot, but we did see a path heading up towards the castle. We followed and enjoyed the sights while hiking up the surprisingly steep hill. We also were surprised to see big trucks driving past us on the grass up to the castle. We followed them and entered the castle through a lower back gate. We later realized that we had only been allowed to enter there because it was open for the trucks who appeared to be bringing equipment in to set up some sort of stage. The normal entrance is on the far side of the hill, away from the town.

One car in the parking lot
The amazing hike up
The trucks going up and down the mountain
the back door!

We were honest though, and still paid our entrance fee even though we had entered through a back door. The entrance fee did include the use of an audio guide (free as long as you returned it within 90 minutes). We walked through the castle and listened to the stories on the guide.

There actually isn’t very much left of the castle. The royals stopped living in it in the early 18th century, and then in the late 18th century it burned down. What’s left has more of the feel of an archaeological site than the other castles we have visited so far. It was built in the 12th century and went through many phases of construction and purpose. It has 3 baileys, which we learned were walls to protect itself. It is really more of a fortress. It went through many owners, but always was an imposing view over the valleys nearby. It is actually lucky that it burned down in 1780 and no one rebuilt it. Therefore it looks more like it did when in use than many of the other castles we’ve seen during our travels.

The grounds of the castle are massive: there are multiple courtyards within the complex. After doing the audio tour, we spent some time just soaking in the ambiance from different places within the structure. The view was great as well!

We really enjoyed the castle and finally had some good weather! The sun was out and it was warm (actually a bit humid), but we were so excited that it wasn’t cloudy! We highly recommend making time for this castle if you visit Slovakia.

Where We Ate

On our first night in Levoča, we found a small place just off the main town square that seemed to have reasonable prices. We ordered some regional specialities:

  • Bryndzové halušky –  a national dish of Slovakia. Halušky are small potato dumplings, similar in size to macaroni almost. Bryndza is sheep cheese, so the dish is potato dumplings covered with sheep cheese. It usually comes with some sort of meet on top, like bacon or sausage. It tastes somewhat like macaroni and cheese, and is very good and filling.

  • A pototato pancake filled with a meat mixture

For drinks we had a Šariš beer.

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The halušky is in front of Della

On our second night, we decided to eat at a restaurant was built into the old city walls. Probably a little touristy, but seemed like a fun opportunity!

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Ždiar, Slovakia

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After our time in Krakow, we headed south out of Poland and into the country of Slovakia. Our first stop in Slovakia was the small town of Ždiar, nestled in the Tatra Mountains.

Getting There

Getting to Ždiar from Krakow was actually not too hard. We first took a bus to the Polish town of Zakopane. From the busy bus station in this town, we were able to find a bus that headed into Slovakia. There was some slight confusion over bus times, but we eventually got on the bus and got to Ždiar.

Entering into Slovakia

Entering into Slovakia

Where We Stayed

Ginger Monkey Hostel – The primary reason that we chose to stop in Ždiar was that it contained this hostel that received glowing reviews from multiple sources. We definitely enjoyed our time here as well! We spent every evening just hanging out in the cozy kitchen and having fun with the other travelers.

The Ginger Monkey is the buidling behind Eric
The view from the porch (with Kevin the cat)
There was a “onesie party” with the collection of brightly colored ski suits they have
Two people attempting the XXL pizza challenge

What We Did

Široké sedlo hike –  While we were staying in a mountain town, we wanted to take advantage of the surrounding scenery and get out and do a hike! The staff at the Ginger Monkey recommended a few different routes, but it seemed like the most standard one was the “saddle” loop trail. It was supposed to take 8 hours, so we decided to make a day of it.

The first part of the trail was more of a flat road along a river. But then it turned left and headed up into the mountains. It continued higher and higher at a steady pace upwards. We were pretty exhausted, but definitely enjoyed the views looking back at where we had climbed from.

As we approached the saddle, we were a little nervous because it seemed to be covered in clouds. Luckily, as we got to the top the clouds cleared and we enjoyed excellent views.

The hike continued on along a ridge to a few more saddles, then started to head down. Going down was less strenuous but still quite difficult on our feet and knees! We were also on the lookout for a restaurant – we had been told there was a nice place to stop by a lake, but weren’t quite sure what to expect. It took a while, because the hike from the top to the lake was a bit longer than expected, but we finally found it! We were able to enjoy some Slovakian beers and sheep cheese dumplings.

We eventually got up the energy to leave the restaurant and head down the rest of the trail. It was another two hours of downhill which ended out on a highway, where we had to wait another half hour for a bus to take us back to Ždiar.

In the end, we hiked over 12 miles with over 3200 feet elevation gain! We were pretty sore for the next few days, but the views still bring back good memories!

Starting our ascent
A small section with chains
Looking back at where we came from
Clouds cover the saddle
Along the ridge
Mountain goat (?)
After our meal at a restaurant – ready to be done!

Where We Ate

Pension Zdiar –  On our first night in town, we headed to the restaurant attached to this pension in town. The food was decent, but the most memorable part of the meal was the fact that we were able to order without a menu or the waitress speaking English! We were able to recognize a few dishes in what she was saying, and ended up with some decent food.

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Goulash Man – We had another memorable meal from this “restaurant”. It was actually just a little trailer that a kind man served goulash and beer from. We had lunch here during a rain storm and had a nice conversation with another tourist from Sweden.

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Final Thoughts

The town of Ždiar is definitely situated in a beautiful place, and the Ginger Monkey was a fun place to stay. However, our timing wasn’t great, because the weather was rainy, and we were in town on a holiday weekend, which meant that bus connections to other attractions in the area were almost impossible. This meant we actually didn’t stay in Ždiar as long as we had originally planned. So we’d definitely recommend Ždiar and the Ginger Monkey for a stopover, but make sure you check a calendar first!

Budget: Poland

globegazers 1 Comment

This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Poland. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Poland we used złoty. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 3 złoty to one dollar.

Total Spent (5 days): $425.96

We normally break down into the following categories:

Accommodation: $158.37

We stayed at one hostel in a dorm.

Activities: $86.78

This included the entrance fees to the various museums and important sites that we visited. More than half of this cost was visiting the Wieliczka Salt Mines. Everything else we chose to do was much less expensive or even free!

Alcohol: $8.83

Food: $104.09

We ate out approximately 1 meal a day. Breakfast was provided by our hostel.

Miscellaneous: $13.69

This included postcards, stamps, and bathrooms.

Transportation: $50.72

We traveled exclusively by bus in Poland.

This divides out to $85.19/day which, thankfully, is under our $100/day budget. Yay!

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Krakow, Poland

globegazers 3 Comments

Krakow was initially on our list to visit because of Auschwitz and the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Auschwitz is of course an infamous site, and we knew about the salt mine from a book we have at home that always helped inspire our travel (one of those 100 places you must see kind of books). The salt mine was in it, so we knew we had to see it! 😉 Krakow is much more than those things though. We found that we loved the old town. We spend 5 days there, and we could have spent many more!

Where We Stayed

Tramp Aparthostel – We found this hostel on hostelworld. It was spread out over many floors of an old building very close to the old town square. We were in an 6 person dorm. The benefits were that all of the beds were on the floor, a nice change from bunk beds and the room was very spacious. The hostel also provided a filling free breakfast! The other nice thing was that we ended up being the only 2 in our dorm for 2 nights which is always good. There was a pleasant common room upstairs where breakfast was served. Our main complaint was that they kept trying little ways to overcharge us. It was confusing because they kept trying and would back down very fast when we resisted. We weren’t sure whether they were just enforcing the “customer is always right” policy or whether they were trying to get us if we weren’t paying attention. Examples: we paid through hostelworld which says right there that all taxes and fees are included, but they tried to charge us extra taxes when we arrived. Then, when we decided to stay an extra night (a Thurs night) they asked us for a more money than the previous nights. They claimed it was the weekend rate… which started on Friday. We had to reiterate that we LEAVING on Fri, not staying on Friday. Both times they backed down immediately and we got our way, but it was weird. Also, unfortunately, there was not a communal vibe here due to the rooms being spread across multiple floors, so we didn’t make any connections.

What We Did

Free Walking Tours – There are several different kinds of free walking tours offered in Krakow. We ended up doing two different tours in one day. They were both excellent, though we are not sure we recommend doing two in one day. Our legs and feet were exhausted by the end! The first was a tour of the Old Town Area. We looked at the many beautiful buildings on the large town square including 2 different churches and the cloth hall where merchants have been plying their wares for 1000 years! We then headed up to Florian’s Gate, part of the last remnant of the city walls, and the Barbican fortress. We also found time to head back to the square to listen to the bugle call which happens every hour and to wave at the bugler. The story says that in the old days the bugler warned of approaching enemies. When the Tatars attacked in the 1200s the bugler was shot through the throat in the middle of the melody and they still play that aborted melody 4 times (1 in each direction) on the hour (every hour- even at night) to commemorate! We also visited the Jagiellonian University which was attended by Copernicus (who was an economist as well as a scientist!) We saw the window where Pope John Paul II spoke to his Polish subjects and finally headed to the Wawel Castle complex where we learned a bit more about the history of kings in Poland. It was quite interesting actually, they would elect their king and it was most often a foreigner. The powerful magnates (nobility) never wanted a king who could become too powerful so they could retain control of Poland.

St. Mary’s Basilica on the main square
Approaching Florian’s Gate
The Barbican
Bugle Call from St. Mary’s
Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
Wawel Castle- the statue is actually of Tadeusz Kościuszko who fought in the American Revolutionary War
Wawel Castle
Wawel Castle

We actually did a second walking tour with our same guide later that afternoon. This one was of Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter of Krakow. The tour started in the main square of the district, on Szeroka Street. We looked at the outside of three different synagogues and also heard about one of the famous residents who was a makeup mogul. Next we walked into an actual synagogue and heard a little about its history. Then, we stopped at the JCC and learned about how there really weren’t that many Jews (officially only 120) left in all of Krakow, since most were killed in WW2 or moved away afterwards. We then went to the square at Plac Nowy, where we took a break to look at the various stalls. Next stop was a walk through an alley that has been used to film many scenes of old town Polish life, most notably Schindler’s List. We then walked through a Christian church in the district – pretty gaudy inside, done in the Baroque style. From there we left Kazimierz and crossed over the Wisla River on a pedestrian bridge with some love locks into the area that was the Jewish ghetto during the war: Podgorze. Not much remains, except for a memorial with chairs in a main square and a fragment of the wall used to keep them in. The last stop was at Schindler’s Factory. Here our guide, Damien, explained that Schindler maybe was not as great of a person as the movie made him out to be. He said we should look into Irina Sendlerowa, who saved over 2000 children. After some research, we found that she is becoming more famous for her work in WWII and there are now several books written about her.

The first synagogue. Early synagogues were not allowed to be ornamented as the christian majority worried that beautiful synagogues would entice people to convert.
A street used in the movie Schindler’s List
Images from Shindler’s List. Make note of the top one.
Does this look familiar??
Plac Nowy
Baroque ornamentation in the christian church in the Jewish Quarter
more love locks
Memorial outside the Jewish Ghetto. Each chair represents 1000 people killed.
Wall fragment left of the ghetto

Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration/Extermination Camp – This powerful day trip from Krakow is described here.

Wieliczka Salt Mine – Read about our excursion to the salt mine here!

Schindler Factory Museum – This was the only museum we visited in Krakow, and it was excellent! The permanent exhibits walk you through what happened in Krakow during the years 1939 – 45, during the Nazi occupation. The museum does fascinating things in each room, designed to make you understand the subject with all of your senses. The room for before the war has nice, warm lighting and happy music playing. It feels like sitting in a comfortable room, watching old family movies about Jewish life in Krakow. Then you enter a hall which describes when Germany attacked. It is black and gloomy with red lighting streaking across the walls, representing the fire, and the sounds of shooting and bombs is everywhere. Even the floor of each room played a big role: in the room describing the initial attack, the floor was uneven; in a room describing life for the Nazis, the floor was fancy swastika tiles; in a room for a concentration camp the floor was actual white gravel. The last room was quite interesting as well. To get into it, you walk through a dark room with a spongy floor (we aren’t quite sure of the interpretation). Then, you enter the “room of regrets”, which is stark white and covered with snippets of writing. Upon closer inspection, the snippets are quotes from people who did something (or didn’t do something) during the war period. The building was actually Schindler’s Factory (from Schindler’s List), so his office is preserved and there are a few rooms dedicated to him.

German Occupation
Schindler’s office
Room of regrets

Wawel Castle Complex – Krakow boasts a beautiful castle complex. We unfortunately did not have time to explore it all. We did visit the Dragon’s Den which is a cave under the castle walls. We were a bit disappointed because we thought there would be “dragon’s” bones there, but there was not. The bones they talk about must be the ones hanging in front of the Cathedral. We did enjoy taking some pics in front of the gorgeous cathedral with the many chapels, different architecture for different kings.

Wawel Castle
Dragon’s Den
Dragon Bones

What We Ate

Our favorite restaurant (we went back 3 times!) was just a block outside our hostel and it was called the Milk Bar. Traditionally, a milk bar in Poland is a kind of cafeteria. It was designed to offer cheap but nourishing food. They were especially common through the communist era after WWII. Our milk bar is a modern take on this. It offered a cheap price for a meal of soup and entree. You had your choice of three different of each, which changed most days. They also had excellent pierogies which we enjoyed both boiled and fried!

Final Thoughts

We really liked Krakow! There were quite a few things to do, and the vibe was not nearly as hectic as Prague. The people were friendly, and prices for a tourist were quite reasonable. We’d definitely recommend it as a destination!