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!