Final day

Day 15
Current destination: Bratislava again! Unfortunately, not in one of their beautiful hotels, but in the airport. We just past through security quickly seeing as how it was past 1am and definitely not busy. We had to leave the Kosice hotel to catch a late train ride directly into Bratislava and make it to the airport to wait for our homebound flight. Right now I am updating my blog while sitting at our terminal gate with a wait of a few hours while my friend is sprawled out along some chairs. At least these chairs are more comfortable then most other airports.
I cannot believe our trip is over, my suitcase was half empty when I came to Slovakia, now it is almost full with new souvenirs, mostly wooden carvings of folklore times and a few little wooden dolls with folklore inspired clothing. What can I say? The Slovak folklore culture was really interesting to me, so I had to take a little piece of it home with me. I also found this great Slovak Cuisine book in English to take home with me seeing as how I got so used to their local recipes. I just spotted one of the cafes open, and a coffee with a Slovak desert would be really great right now while my last few hours in Bratislava slip away up until my Air France flight at 5:20am.
Goodbye Bratislava, and Slovakia. I promise to return soon.

Kosice

Day 12-14
Hi everyone, it's close to dinner time and we had quite an eventful couple of days. Let me fill you in on how we spent our time here.
We have left Presov and traveled further south to the city of Kosice. This city is the 2nd largest city after Bratislava so it is more modernized then some other cities but still has such beautiful and historical features seen everywhere in this town. Originally, we were going to take a taxi from Presov to Kosice, but we found out about Presov's great train service to Kosice and ended up hopping on in the morning with our EuropeRail passes. After a very short ride, we were standing outside the train station and discovered this great trolley service that brings you directly to downtown Kosice within 10 minutes. Of course, we chose the trolley rather then walking there like we had thought we would have to do. Finding the hotel was the next thing to do on our to do list, and it was easily found thanks to the downtown core being easily accessible to the rest of the town. We stayed at the Doubletree Hilton, a great hotel from the well known hotel chain of Hilton.
But to be honest, we didn't spend much time in the hotel since Kosice has so many beautiful things to see, we didn't want to waste time. The great thing about this city is that you do not have to travel far around the city to see history and culture, it is practically everywhere and all accessible from the downtown core.

Part of the city is mostly dominated by the St Elisabeth Cathedral that can be seen from basically everywhere in the city. I can close my eyes and still have such a vivid picture of it's gothic themed architecture that towers over me and has so much detail it looks as though it took hundreds of people to assist in building it. At first glance it gives off a sort of dark vibe but once you walk past the large wooden doors you find a beautifully gothic inspired church. There are many other religious areas in the city as well, but no where near as large as the famous St Elisabeth Cathedral since it has been a landmark of Kosice for hundreds of years. All the other close by landmarks consisted of their coat of arms statue, St Urbans Tower which has a wax museum inside, Miklos which is a prison from the medieval times.



Kosice had so much to offer us these past few days but it is time to bid farewell to this city of culture. In 2013, it will hold the European Capital of Culture along with Marseilles, France. It is August 17th, 2010 and we have checked out of our hotel in the very late afternoon to catch one of the hourly trolley services again back to the train station. We are heading back to Bratislava, and straight for home. So goodnight, I am going to take advantage of this 4.5 hour train ride and take a nap. Goodbye Kosice!

Blissful resort

Day 10-11:

Wow, I have definitely fallen in love with this country. We just spent the last few days in Presov literally surrounded by nature. This hotel, The Grand Hotel Stary Smokovec, really is all it was made out to be when we researched its reviews online upon booking. I am currently sitting at one of the many tables set up around the resort and I am completely surrounded by nature. Let me walk you through what the past few days have been like for us. We first arrived into town and were dropped off in its center where the train station is located. This city is also located at the foot of the mountains so we immediately found the shuttle service the hotel offers to bring us up to our resort area. The ride up brought us further away from the city life and civilization and we entered a hidden resort area for travelers to spend a relaxing time. The hotel is known for accommodating to nature lovers and I can stand by this fact 100%. The hotel's focus is on everything natural, and it uses everything this landscape and area has to offer.

Our days were spent in complete comfort among the lush greenery. We spent a few hours hiking around the resort area the first day. The trails are marked up for which ones are easier as opposed to the trails for experienced hikers. We chose to stick to the easier trails and had a great time along the mountain ranges and discovering wildlife. Yet another amazing feature of this hotel is it's spa area. We took full advantage of this, especially after our hike and spent time in the hot spring as well as the steam room. Massages are available as well, amongst other beauty treatments. We will definitely be returning here for a relaxing getaway as soon as we can!

Train ride through nature

Day 6-9:

Our time in Zilina is over and it is now time to travel further east into the city of Poprad where we will be staying the next 3 nights at the Best Western Hotel Tulipan. We definitely love these train passes and the fact that we have our own closed off area in the train is great also. It maximizes our amount of space and gives us our own privacy to talk or rest. It’s been an hour ride so far, so there is still an hour to go as we ride deeper into the Tatra Mountains. It seems like everywhere we’ve traveled is always so full of scenery that I can’t help but snap pictures constantly of all the mountain views and the amazing greenery that surrounds us along the northern side of Slovakia, which include the Carpathian Mountains and the ever so popular Tatra Mountains. Yet another point of interest I am looking forward to during my time in Poprad is to see the captivating St Egidius Square, which is rimmed with burgher houses predominantly from the 18th and 19th centuries, along with the gothic inspired church that dominates the square. It's time for me to curl up in my train seat and watch the scenery pass me by, perhaps even eat the "Laskonky", a fluffy dough desert filled with walnuts and cream, that we picked up from a small bakery before we got onto the train.

Budatin Castle

Day 5:

We just got back to our room, it's close to midnight and we're both exhausted and ready for sleep after a long day out exploring. We woke early this morning to catch local transportation that brings us up to Budatin Castle. This building is yet another historic landmark to Slovak culture, this castle was built in the 13th century to guard off intruders and had gone from Gothic theme finally to the Renaissance and was used for many different purposes of housing to elite members of society of the past. We went through all 3 exhibitions amongst the castle land which contains over 100 000 artifacts from the fields of natural sciences, archeology, history and ethnography. But we paid more close attention to the Tinker Art Exhibition seeing as it is the largest of its kind in the world and documents the past and present use of the tinker craft in the folklore history. It was amazing to be able to walk through the exhibition of over 2,500 artifacts and see how it started and how it all turned into what it is today, a huge part of Slovak culture. By the time we got back to Zilina, the evening had arrived and we strolled back into Marianske Namestie for a quick bite to eat and some local desert at a café along the main square.