Monday, May 16, 2011

Slovakia - Bratislava and Zdiar 11/5 - 15/5

After spending five days in Budapest I decided it was time to get back into the country areas so my next main stop was Zdiar, a small village in the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia, about 20mins drive from the Polish border. On the way I stopped in Bratislava for a night. Bratislava had a nice old town, but there wasn't really much to do so I was glad I only had one day there. 

Old town of Bratislava

The Tier One Ice Hockey World Championships are currently being held in Slovakia, so there were ice hockey things everywhere. It was a rest day when I was in Bratislava so everything was pretty quite.

The Old Town had lots of cool statues like this one.

Another train picture. This is somewhere between Bratislava and Poprad
 To get to Zdiar I had to take a train from Bratislava to Poprad (4 hours) and then a bus to Zdiar (1 hour). I had counted the bus stops listed and thought I knew where to get off, but it turns out people can get on and off anywhere along the way and the actual stops don't matter, so I had no idea where to get off. I ended up walking about 2km with my pack because I got off the bus too early. Lucky it was a beautiful day.

Where I got off the bus.

The view from my hostel.
 The hostel I stayed in was really lovely. It felt like staying at a friends place and it was very hard to leave. I spent 4 days doing walks in the morning and then reading, walking the dog and playing guitar in the afternoons. At night we went out to the local restaurants and tried lots of delicious and really cheap food.

Zdiar river walk

Zdiar river walk

The houses were all made of wood in traditional style

Farmland behind the village

An XXL pizza. The hostel has a challenge to eat the XXL pizza (50cm diameter) in less than 1 hour. The pizza is 16 slices and weighs 1.5kg. 

On my way to Krakow with some other travelers. We had to walk across the Slovakian/Polish border to change buses.
Posted by Julia at 6:21 AM

5 comments:

  1. Ned PowellMay 17, 2011 at 4:08 PM

    The scenery looks impressive Juls! Do you think it would be nice country to ride a bicycle through?
    I must say, I'd have no trouble eating that pizza in less than an hour after a long day out on the touring bike.

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  2. JuliaMay 21, 2011 at 7:37 AM

    It would be lovely to ride through but probably not very safe. I saw a few cyclists being passed by buses and I wouldn't have liked it very much if it was me.
    Also, you would definitely have finished the pizza. The current record is 10mins and 40 something seconds so you should give it a try one day - 1.5kg. The guy who holds the record researched how to eat pizza quickly and ended up dunking each slice in water before eating it, which is supposed to make it go down faster.

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  3. xingjiJune 6, 2011 at 10:19 AM

    What is the name of the hostel you went to?

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  4. JuliaJune 6, 2011 at 9:36 PM

    It was the Ginger Monkey Hostel in Zdiar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJune 18, 2013 at 9:23 AM

    I just came across this as I am actually visiting Zdiar in a couple of weeks and I noticed you visited the Ginger Monkey Hostel, I will actually be working there for 2 months in the summer and would love to know what you thought of the hostel, zdiar and any of the surrounding villages/towns. I have checked it out online quite a bit but would love to hear some of your experiences if you have the time?

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