Slovakia

Monthly Recap: Month 3

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Here we are at Month 3. Hard to believe. We’re still going strong, though Della is going through her first bout of true homesickness. This was an emotional and eventful month. We dedicate our thoughts this month to two wonderful women who lived long, meaningful lives. We both lost our grandmothers this month. Lucille, Della’s grandma, was 101 years old. Marvis, Eric’s grandma, was 94. They were both kind, caring, and generous. They will be missed.

Here are our stats for this month.

Countries visited: 6 (Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro)

Beds Slept In: 16

UNESCO Heritage Sights Visited: 8 (Levoca Spišský Hrad and the Associated Cultural Monuments, Budapest including the Banks of the Danube the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrassy Avenue, Škocjan Caves, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Historical Complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian, Old City of Dubrovnik, Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar, Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor) Total on RTW: 23

We traveled by 0 planes this month!

We traveled by 4 trains (though one of them involved a train, a transfer to a bus, then a transfer back to a train!)

We traveled by 5 long distance buses.

We traveled by 2 different rental cars which took us from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, then Dubrovnik to Sarajevo and back!

Top Moments:

~ Our first top moment came at the very beginning of the month! We had long been looking forward to visiting Spis Castle. We had planned to do it as a day trip from Ždiar, but felt thwarted by it being a holiday weekend and therefore bad bus schedules. We switched our plan and it totally worked out for the best. We added one more UNESCO site of the old town of Levoča and were able to spend a wonderful day at the castle. The weather was glorious and the castle even exceeded our expectations!

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The amazing Spis Castle

 

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~ We had a top moment when, after a long day of traveling, we were able to successfully meet Della’s parents at the bus station in Zagreb. It involved both her parents making a train, bus, train connection as well as us doing the same. We converged on Zagreb one Saturday evening- Peggy and Wayne from Vienna and Della and Eric from Eger. Della and Eric arrived first, connected with our VRBO host, and then decided to head back to the train station to meet Peggy and Wayne’s train. It made for quite a happy reunion!

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~ During our two weeks with Della’s parents, we had the benefit of Peggy’s Rick Steves’ Guide Book. (Eric loved that book and might consider it a top moment by itself!) Rick had warned us not to expect too much from the people in the Plitvice Lakes region of Croatia, stating that often the service left something to be desired. We were so pleasantly surprised during another one of our top moments. We had a long day of driving to arrive in the Plitvice Lakes region. We met our Airbnb host, who was wonderfully friendly, making sure we had everything we needed in a great apartment. He even brought up some free beers from the local brewery where he works. We then headed to a restaurant that he recommended where we enjoyed the service of a wonderful man. He was friendly, funny, and competent. It was just a cherry on top when he gave us travarica (Eric’s new favorite liquor) shots on the house!

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The beer was actually quite tasty!

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Dessert with free shots!

~ Eric and Della returned to Dubrovnik after a few days in Bosnia-Herzegovina with Della’s parents. They said goodbye to Peggy and Wayne in Mostar before driving the rental car back into Croatia. We weren’t really looking forward to spending more time in Dubrovnik given that we had been slightly underwhelmed by our first experience (high prices and a LOT of tourists). We were also a little depressed after having to say goodbye to Della’s parents. However, we enjoyed another glorious, sunny day (after many of rain) upon our return. There was no drama with returning the car (which was unexpected) and we found our lodging quickly, despite having to hike up 421 stairs with our bags. But it was the next day that really brought the top moment- we found out that Game of Thrones was filming in the city at that moment. We slept in (which could have been a top moment also) and then headed into the city to hunt for the sites of filming. Turned out that it was easy to find. We were able to watch them setting up for a large scene this coming season. The excitement came when we, first, got to listen to what must have been the camera director explaining exactly how the scene was to be shot and getting some inside info about what was coming! Then we saw LITTLEFINGER walk right by us! Finally, when we weren’t even expecting it (sitting on the square, enjoying a Coke Zero and some snacks), we looked up and saw CERSEI walk right by. Della feels like she even got a smile. =) What fun!

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Eric is the King in the ever-continuing Game of Thrones

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We were right there with the official Baratheon/Lannister banner!

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It was quite fascinating to watch them set up for what is probably one scene. So many people and so much work involved.

Runners up for Top Moments:

~Della, especially, loved all of Hungary. She doesn’t have any really great reasons except that it was extremely enjoyable and she somehow identified with the place and people. She wishes that she could list the whole time in Hungary as a top moment, but we try to be a little more specific in these recaps. So, we picked a moment that was in Eger, Hungary. You probably read how we experienced some pretty depressing, rainy days in Eger. There was one day in particular where we were quite annoyed. We had a lot we wanted to do, but we just weren’t feeling like getting soaking wet while trying to do it. So, we headed back to our pension to relax and read. All of a sudden, after a few hours holed up in the room, we glanced to the window and saw the sun peeking from behind the clouds. We dropped what we were doing and ran out to visit the Eger Castle before it closed. What views!

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The clouds actually added to the effect

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We love castles and views…

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so happy the sun came out!!

~ The middle of our trip with Della’s parents was plagued with a bit of bad luck: we experienced days of gloomy rain, bouts of bad colds (all of us in succession), injuries (Della tweaked her back, Peggy’s toe continued to bother her, and Wayne sprained his ankle badly), unpleasant experiences (lodging being cancelled on us at the last minute and then having to pay more for less, car companies who didn’t do what they said and then literally yelled at us and hung up on us, threating to let the car be towed instead of allowing us to return it: Sixt Car Rental, by the way), some sad family news from back home, etc. I tell you all of this because it was the backdrop for one of our runners up for top moment. After all of this stuff to make us unhappy, we arrived in Sarajevo. Sarajevo is a difficult city to visit for a number of reasons, but we found it amazing. We also were able to finally find affordable, good food. This may sound like a small thing, but, somehow good dining options seem to be able to make or break a place for us. We found multiple pleasant restaurants with genuine servers, good prices, and tasty food. (Even the hardest person to please among us was happy!) Our last night with Della’s parents was amazingly pleasant. We dined in our second town in Bosnia Herzegovina, Mostar. The evening at a restaurant with all the above, plus a great ambiance, and amazing views of the wonderful Old Bridge of Mostar.

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Happy campers… er… eaters!

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Local food delicacy called Burek. Yum!

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Our meal, see the view in the background.

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This lovely bridge!

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Sunset in Mostar, adding to the wonderful ambiance of our final dinner

~ See above for the lead up to this second runner up as well. We had had many days of rain during our trip and expected many more. We arrived in the Plitvice Lakes region on a cloudy evening, had a wonderful dinner (see above top moment), and slept well (except for Della who was fighting the cold at that time). We woke up to more cloudy, gloomy weather, which was truly unfortunate for our trip to the amazing Plitvice Lakes. We had been looking forward to this for a long time, reading blog after blog about how wonderful these lakes were. This is what they are supposed to look like.

Image Credit: adventurouskate.com

This is what they actually looked like when we arrived.

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The rain had also caused many of the wooden paths to be closed due to flooding. We were quite distraught but hiked on anyway. The top moment arrived when, at around noon, the sun was able to peek through the clouds! It wasn’t perfect, but it gave us the light that we had been hoping for. The mist cleared and we were able to enjoy the second part of the lakes!

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The lovely upper lakes

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The sun is out!

~ We had a wonderful time with Della’s parents, however, because their trip was short and there was a lot they wanted to see, we moved very fast! We rented cars and zipped from city to city, mostly spending only one night in each location. This was great because we saw a lot, however, we were quite exhausted by the time Peggy and Wayne left. Traveling like that is OK when you get to go home after, but on this long trip, we can’t keep up that kind of pace. We knew we wanted to slow down and thought that maybe we had found the place to do it. We headed to the bayside town of Kotor in Montenegro. We had booked an apartment through booking.com and didn’t exactly know what to expect. We arrived to a great place! Spacious, homey, and with almost everything we could want. We had already decided to hunker down for a few days, but now we think we might even go for more!

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Stay tuned to the blog for more pictures of the actual town. It is lovely.

Items Missing, Broken, Discarded, or Added:

Discarded/Broken:

1. Eric’s computer. We were quite frustrated because we had bought a lightweight netbook for the purpose of this trip, but by the second month of the trip, it was starting to malfunction. It wouldn’t start up regularly and we began to worry that it was on its last legs. Luckily, we were able to buy a new one, ship it to Della’s parents and have them bring it to us.

2. Della’s cell phone battery. While in Budapest Della’s phone died. Luckily, it turned out to just be the battery. Unluckily, we were told that the specific battery she needed was not sold anywhere in Hungary. Cue a late night rush to the store in Denver by Wayne (Della’s dad) the day before they left to meet us.

Added:

1. See above: New computer and new cell phone battery, purchased at home and brought to us

2. New soap

3. New toothpaste and two new toothbrushes

Packing Update:

We’re still mostly happy with the contents of our bags. We probably have more than we really need. We still feel like we haven’t used some of our summer clothing. Shorts haven’t been worn virtually at all. We have finally used our swim suits (swimming in the Adriatic, next to the walls of Dubrovnik, and in Zadar) and we made use of our cold weather gear again during our time in Sarajevo. We also have been potentially carrying more books with us at a time then strictly needed.

Books Read: (Have you read any of these??)

Della has read Poland by James Michener, Everything is Going to be Great by Rachel Shukert, The Bridge at Andau by James Michener, Final Epidemic by Earl Merkel

Eric has read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Eric and Della have BOTH read Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell.

Make sure to catch up on all our monthly recaps: Monthly Recap 1, Monthly Recap 2

Random Superficial Thoughts About Central Eastern Europe

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1. Everyone smokes everywhere, all the time.
2. There are a million nuns here!

Hiking in the Tatras

Hiking in the Tatras

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3. It’s shocking how many skinny women there are around given their cultural cuisine and cheap beer!
4. These women are champs of high heels… On cobblestones!
5. Prague is the city of rude servers.
6. Olomouc is the city of brides.
7. Krakow is the city of nuns.
8. Slovakia is super humid.
9. PDA is huge. I feel like I am constantly in line at an amusement park!
10. The showers here are different. They almost all are in a tub and the shower head does not hang above you. It is conducive to shorter, more efficient showers perhaps because it encourages you to shut off the water any time you need to use your hands to soap or shampoo.

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11. It is really hard to find broccoli. We got used to broccoli being a staple veggie at home. We have to be lucky to find it in supermarkets here!
12. The street lights go red, yellow, green!! They also do green, yellow, red of course.

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!