Trip to Slovakia, 2023: Part 5—Final Thoughts

We're back in the US as I write this, and while it does feel nice to be back in the comfort of our own home (and sleeping in our own beds), I always get a little bummed out about returning to the States. In so many ways, I feel like I'm done with California. Don't get me wrong, there are many things about the Bay Area and California that I love and will never stop loving. But we feel that it's increasingly difficult to imagine a future here, since, unless there is some crazy economic catastrophe, we'll never be able to afford to buy a house here in the Bay. When modest two-bedroom houses average at $1.3 million, just getting the 20% down payment together for the mortgage would be impossible without other help, and would completely wipe out our savings. Then we'd probably never be able to travel abroad because we'd be so stretched financially making those monthly mortgage payments.

Sitting down to do a puzzle at the Halič castle cafe.

Slovakia has many flaws, and might be on the verge of electing a Russia-loving, socially conservative, openly racist, highly corrupt government (I hope I'm wrong!), but it's in Europe (and the EU), it's close to myriad places and things that we love in Europe, and it's still infinitely more affordable to buy a modest home or flat there than it ever will be in California.

The problem is that Terezia's line of work as a personal chef is just not valued nearly as highly in Slovakia as it is in California, and she would either have to take a significant pay cut, or figure out some other way to apply her talents that could bring in a meaningful income. 

The trip went well, for the most part, though we lost several days to people being sick. Simon had mild cold symptoms for a couple of days, but it was really nothing in the end, and cleared up quite quickly. Still, we didn't want to push him, so we scaled back and/or altered our plans considerably in those two days to make sure he could get better. Then Terezia got hit with a cold that forced her (and Simon) to leave Bratislava a day earlier than planned, and curtailed what we would've done later that week. 

Waiting for coffee and hot chocolate at Halič castle.

That meant tentatively planned trips to Banská Štiavnica, Košice, and elsewhere were canceled. That also meant more time spent in the village of Podrečany, which is relaxing in a way, but still gets to be mind-numbing and tedious.

I mentioned in an earlier post that a planned trip to Prague was canceled, though that was scrapped more because Terezia's mom was not feeling so hot, plus there was an awful heatwave forecast for that block of time, which would be awful for exploring a city. Also, Simon is still a little too young to fully appreciate a city like Prague anyhow—we'd have spent an inordinate amount of time checking out local playgrounds. I think we need to start with a more modest one-night trip to a place like Košice and see how that goes.

 

Simon is really excited to get some hot chocolate at Halič castle.

But we would also very much like to go down to the Croatian coast. (Recall that we went down to the Croatian coast way back in 2013.) That's the kind of trip that would be Simon-friendly, since it would involve a lot of time outdoors at the beach and swimming in the sea, which Simon loves. L'udka and Chris take their family to the Croatian coast reliably every summer, and we talked about the possibility of going with them next time (they were really encouraging us to do it). Either way, I want to be proactive about doing more next time.

This was also our first trip there during the summer, and the awful, nasty, humid heat is definitely something you have to contend with. You have to be flexible, because a heatwave could easily derail your plans. It also rains kind of a lot—the intense heat inevitably brings thunderstorms in this region, which can also put a wrinkle in your plans.

Simon and Village Life 

One really nice aspect to this visit was that Simon made a friend with Mirko down the street, whom I mentioned earlier. Simon spent a lot of time playing with Mirko in the afternoons, and this meant we could just let him do his thing and not have to constantly work to keep him engaged or involved in some activity or other. But a wonderful advantage of just being in a small village was that it allowed Simon to have a degree of independence that he'd never be able to have at this age back in Oakland.

 

For example, many times in the afternoon, Simon would walk by himself down Terezia's mom's street to the small playground at the other end, and sit on the swing and wait for Mirko to appear. Terezia's mom also lives on a perfectly flat, straight, well-paved dead-end street with very little car traffic, which allowed Simon and Mirko (and other kids) to ride up and down it on their bikes and scooters. We would still keep an eye on him and check in on him periodically, but this kind of independence is awesome for Simon to experience, yet there's no way we could do it even in our mellow neighborhood in Oakland. This reminded Terezia and I both of how we grew up in places where you could do this. You'd step outside, and bam—kids your age suddenly materialize, and you play and ride bikes all afternoon.

It was also great to see Simon continuing to connect with his cousins Tea and Sasha. Simon and Tea both have loads of energy, and when they get together, they are loud, silly, and chaotic. It can sound a bit alarming at first, but then when you check in on them to see what all the commotion is, most of the time, they're not doing anything bad—they're just going bonkers together.

Sasha is mellower, and when Simon interacts with her, the energy level goes down a few notches. Sasha's younger sister Zuzka is a bit more chaotic, so if she's with them, that takes the commotion back up a bit.

Simon wasn't as interested in "farm work" this time as he was last time, but he was still excited about a few things, like pulling potatoes out of the ground (with his bare hands!) and helping to mow the grass.

At any rate, that's another trip under our belts. I wish I had more exciting things to report, but I suppose we'll just have to be more focused on making more things happen on the next trip.

Click here to see all of the photos from this trip.

Trip to Slovakia, 2023: Part 4—Another Bike Ride, Lovely Kremnica, and Šášov Castle

Continued from Part 3

Longer Countryside Bike Ride

Tony and his family came out to Podrečany for our last weekend here, and Tony, once again, kindly brought his sweet carbon-frame road bike along. I set off Saturday morning, determined to do a longer ride than the last time, since this time I had gotten a full night's sleep. I did a 30-mile loop, which involved going through some of the villages I went through last time as well as some new ones.

Click the image to expand it so you can see the map of my route more clearly.

 

I started out like last time, first heading down to Halič, but then went through Stara Halič and hung a right onto the road that leads directly to Polichno. This road to Polichno starts out as a very gentle ascent, but once you hit the forest, it turns into a more serious climb. It is not crazy steep at all, yet it feels harder than it looks because it maintains such a maddeningly consistent grade for a fairly lengthy stretch, with no areas of even slight, fleeting relief. 

The climb to Polichno feels a bit harder than it looks.

Once the hill finally levels off, you find yourself in a clearing. What's interesting about the top of this hill is that Wikipedia describes it as a kind of plateau. There really is a vast plain of relatively flat (or moderately rolling) fields, to the point where you kind of forget you just ascended a decent-sized hill to get there. You ride through this plain for a bit until you get to Polichno.

I probably sold Polichno a little short last time. It's actually a pretty cute village with a lot of striking old homes. Polichno is also part of the Timravin náučný chodník, a self-guided educational hiking trail that takes you through key points in the village and surrounding area from the life and stories of Božena Slančíková, the famous Slovak author from Polichno who I mentioned in my last post about cycling here. Also, this time I actually saw signs of life in the village. At one point when I stopped to snap a few photos, this guy came out of a yard to ask me if I had a flat tire. I told him I didn't, but he said he was going into town (probably Lučenec) and said he'd offer me a ride if I had a flat. He was with a young woman and they both got into a green food delivery van. I suspect food delivery services may be popular in these remote villages, especially among older people who aren't driving and are not wanting to rely on the sparse public transit into town.

Polichno: you can see in the distance here what looks like a cluster of old, folk-style headstones. I think it has something to do with the Timravin educational trail. There are several other points of interest in the village that have something to do with the author, like an old well and even a tiny museum in the house where she supposedly lived.

From Polichno I went to Ábelová (population: 213; first written mention: 1275), a village that truly feels out in the middle of nowhere. Ábelová apparently has limited ground water and no other meaningful water source, so, like Tuhár, it has to be brought in. This has reportedly been a problem throughout the village's history, as it has apparently suffered numerous highly destructive fires over the years, which couldn't be put out due to the lack of water. One fire in the 1700s burned up all of the village's registers. 

Why are there mini panelaks in Ábelová?

 

Ábelová also has two small panelaks, which, curiously, appear to be abandoned and derelict, yet on both it looks like someone had started making fifth floors but never completed them. Usually if a town or village has panelaks, that means there is some form of meaningful employment there, like a factory or mine, that necessitated the quick construction of new housing. But I have no idea what prompted these mini panelaks in Ábelová, as everything I've seen says it's purely an agricultural village.

 

 

After Ábelová, you take a long, winding country back road that eventually links up to another road, which you turn right on to get to Budiná (population: 201; first written mention: 1393). Budiná seems cute, but still remote. Compared to nearby Polichno and Ábelová, Budiná, according to the interwebs, has a fairly colorful and eventful history, and it even had some role in the Slovak National Uprising in WWII, but it could also be that someone just bothered to write a lot more about it on Wikipedia than the other villages.

 

This was all I got photo-wise for Budiná. I didn't have time to ride through the village (the main road doesn't go through it); I needed to get Tony's bike back to him so he could do a ride.

After Budiná, it's literally all down hill. After a short but horrific quarter-mile of rough road surface, you descend a gloriously smooth-as-butter curving road that goes through a lush, dense forest, which then deposits you at the edge of Tuhár. I continued down the steep, beautifully paved, gently winding road to Divín. From Divín I rounded the Ružiná reservoir and after that, it was a straight shot back to Podrečany.

That tiny beige blob at the center of the photo is the Divín castle ruin. My iPhone doesn't do so well with shots of things that are far in the distance.

I really needed this ride. With all the sausage and other pork products, not to mention the daily rounds of beer and the sheer boredom of life in the village, I was in dire need of a good workout, so I'm quite happy to have gotten one.

Trip to Lovely Kremnica

The Monday of our last week in Slovakia was the last full day we had to go on a day trip. We were hemming and hawing over whether to go to Banská Štiavnica or Kremnica, and decided on Kremnica, since Terezia and I hadn't been there since early 2012, and it's a smaller, more manageable place to tromp around with a six-year-old. 

When Terezia and I went to Kremnica (pronounced like krem-neetsa) back in 2012, it was in early February and the town was covered in snow, which lent the already-majestic little town an even greater sense of majesty. On that day, kids were sledding on the snow-covered slopes of the main square, and the whole scene seemed straight out of some European winter fairy tale. So, it was cool to see the town in summer.

Approaching Kremnica. This is a cool thing to suddenly see after rounding a curve in the highway through the forest.

Kremnica is a smaller town (population: ~5,000; first written mention: 1328), but is historically significant for its extensive and prosperous mining activity, and the fact that it's home to the oldest still-operational mint in the world. The attractive town is nestled in a lush, densely forested, narrow valley in the Kremnica mountains. It boasts a striking medieval town center, complete with some well-preserved sections of its robust double-layer defensive wall, a vast and picturesque sloping town square lined with medieval facades, and the gorgeous remains of a castle whose cathedral—with its ornate, majestic clock tower—lords it over the square. Another dominant feature of the square is its towering, 18th-century Baroque plague column—one of the tallest (maybe the tallest?) and most intricately detailed in the whole country.

Kremnica's wild Baroque 18th-century plague column in the main town square, with the clock and bell towers from the castle complex behind it up the hill.

 

 

It's a visually striking historic town center, but it's compact—one basically has to exit the defensive walls and cross a street to reach imposing 20th-century communist panelaks on one side, or neighborhoods of generally nice earlier 20th-century houses and smaller apartment buildings on the other. The walled center's main entrance, at the southwestern corner, is a massive and lovely double-gated barbican.

 

The front of the double-gated barbican and the main entrance to the historic town square.

Directly across the road from the front entrance of the barbican is an inviting pedestrianized street lined with medieval facades housing various shops and food establishments, though a number of them appeared to be either vacant or undergoing reconstruction/renovation on our visit.

The main pedestrianized historic street outside the walled town square/center.

Some history: An abundance of gold ore deposits in the mountains there put Kremnica on the map as one of the major mining towns of the world from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. Evidence of subterranean mining in the area dates back to the ninth century. In the 1300s, the town significantly upped its status when it began minting golden florins, and later ducats (whose consistently high gold purity led to their use for international means of payment) and religious medals. It was the most important mint (and later the only one) in the broader region, going back to the Kingdom of Hungary.

This all meant that Kremnica grew incredibly prosperous, and it emerged in the 15th century as the second most important city in the Kingdom of Hungary. Eventually, however, the mines had to be dug deeper and deeper to access new deposits, and ground water entering the shafts led to deteriorating conditions. The costs of keeping the mines operational began to outweigh the profits, and the last gold to be extracted in Kremnica was in 1970, and all the mines were closed shortly thereafter. Today some of them are open for guided tours.

 

When Terezia and I went to Kremnica in 2012, it was later in the afternoon and the castle complex was already closed. This time, we headed there first. After crossing the square and ascending some steps and steep slopes, you reach a long covered staircase that takes you up the steep slope to the castle's entrance and ticket office. Climbing another set of stairs takes you up to the area around the cathedral, bell tower, and upper bastions.

 

Ascending the stairway into the caste complex.

 

We went into the 15th-century St. Catherine's church first, whose interior appears to have been scrubbed clean, but has gorgeous, vaulted Gothic ceilings and loads of ornate detail. There were "No photos!" signs in the church, so I hid behind some columns in the back and discreetly snapped a few shots with my phone.

 

 

We then ascended the church's clock tower, which involved 127 steps up a narrow, medieval stone spiral staircase. The views from the balcony at the top were dizzying but breathtaking.

 

 

 

 

 

The guards room up at the top of the clock tower.

 

After the tower, we checked out a bastion which contains rooms displaying old medieval swords and other weaponry, as well as examples of coins minted there in the Middle Ages. An adjacent Romanesque rotunda is the oldest surviving building on the complex and contains fragments of an old fresco on the wall in a chapel on the upper floor. Its basement is an ossuary, with piles of human bones on the floor, which were brought there when the local cemetery had become overcrowded.

 

 

Stacks of bones in the ossuary.

Simon was fascinated by all the human bones in the ossuary.

 

We had lunch at a decent place called Sylvanus, with nice outdoor seating in the courtyard of a Gothic building just off the main square. Terezia ordered a venison burger, which came with not one but two patties, and, instead of a slice of cheese, an entire hunk of Slovak-style fried cheese. To say she took most it home in a leftovers box would be stating the obvious.

 

 

Though not as majestic as Banská Štiavnica, and obviously quite a bit smaller, Kremnica is nevertheless a lovely town in an equally lovely natural setting. I think it's really cool how the town is tucked away deep in the mountains and forests in the center of the country, a bit removed from the major roads and rail lines. It's also easily doable in a morning or afternoon if you're in the area.

Šášovský Hrad (Šášov Castle)

On our way back home from Kremnica, we stopped by Šášovský hrad, an evocative castle ruin perched high atop a steep hill/rocky outcropping overlooking the Hron river and valley. It's located right by the exit from the main R1 freeway that you take to get to Kremnica, so it was on the way. We have traveled past this mysterious ruin on its precarious perch thousands of times, and it has always beckoned to me, but we never had a chance to check it out—until now.

The view of Šášovský hrad from the road below when entering the adjacent village.

A crappy shot of Šášovský hrad taken from a moving car on the R1 freeway. I have tried and failed too many times to count to get a good shot of the castle from the R1 or from trains on the adjacent rail line. It's difficult to capture something in the distance from a moving vehicle, especially when the light's not necessarily right.

The nearest town of consequence is Žiar nad Hronom, and hidden behind the castle and the extremely steep rock it sits on is the small village of Šášovské Podhradie, which is nestled in a ravine that snakes back into the densely forested hills. 

Here's a cool, short video I found with great aerial drone footage of the castle from all angles, so you can get a better sense of the castle and its setting than what my photos can provide:

 

The first written mention of Šášovský hrad (pronounced like shashowsky) was in 1253, and, along with Revište castle (about 15 miles southeast, on the opposite side of the Hron) its purpose was to protect (and collect tolls for) the major trade route along the Hron river and valley that led eastward to the booming mining towns of Kremnica, Banská Štiavnica, and Banská Bystrica. The castle's ownership changed hands many times over the years, but in the early 1700s, it was captured by Hungarian Kuruk/anti-Habsburg forces, who were ultimately defeated by Imperial Habsburg forces, who then set fire to the castle in 1708. This left the castle severely damaged, and it sat crumbling in ruin ever since. However, the castle was further damaged when it was shelled in 1945 during WWII, when it was being used as a shelter by a garrison of German soldiers who were retreating from the advancing Soviet army.

 

A drawing of how the castle supposedly looked before it was destroyed.

The hike to the castle only takes about 10–15 minutes, though it's at times fairly steep. The trail eventually deposits you in a clearing at the base of the castle. A narrow, somewhat steep but well-defined path takes you up along the southern side of the castle to the entrance of the ruin itself. Signs posted at the entrance warn that you're entering the ruin at your own risk.

 

The views from the castle are breathtaking. I'm sure life in the Middle Ages sucked hard, but the views over the Hron river and the valley from the castle might have almost made the grueling life worth it.

 

The majestic view from the castle of the Hron river and valley below.

A glimpse of the small village behind/below the castle, Šášovské Podhradie.

Šášovské Podhradie, obscured by trees here, is the village that's nestled in the ravine that winds behind the castle.

 

Now, this is a fairly rough, exposed, untouched, unrestored ruin. Some kind of restoration work on the castle is currently underway (on our way up, we were passed by a crew of workers heading down the trail), though I don't know whether they're just tidying it up to make it more accessible, or if there is some grander plan. But this is not the kind of castle ruin like, say, Fiľakovo or Šomoška, where you have at least one fully reconstructed bastion with a museum and/or rooms with display cases, and wooden steps, ramps, and platforms taking you to different levels or areas, with ample parking down below.

 

 

 This is more like a smaller, harder-to-access Divín, or Pajštún, i.e., much rougher, wilder, rockier, and more exposed, and, while not treacherous, per se, there are some areas where you need to watch your step. There are no railings or nets to keep you from falling off of ledges or out of windows, and no wood steps or ramps to make reaching different levels easier. Parking is basically limited to a few spots on the street at the trail entrance. If you look at photos of the castle online from several years ago and earlier, the pictures often featured a herd of goats wandering the premises. The goats seem to be gone (and a rickety wooden gate would now keep them out of the castle itself), but it's nevertheless a quiet place which you might even have to yourself, as we did.

DJ Simon with his headphones. We have no idea why he brought them along; sometimes he just likes wearing them even when not hooked up to anything.

 There is, however, a bastion at one end with a couple of locked wooden doors, which are newish but have a vaguely medieval appearance to them, and a tower at the other end with more doors. One was unlocked, so we took a peek inside to find a large, dank room containing stacks of scaffolding materials. You can see janky-looking scaffolding here and there along the walls of the ruin, along with occasional piles of stones and things under tarps. I don't know if they've got plans to make rooms in these towers that visitors can enter, or if they're just being used to store and lock up construction materials. 

 

 

On the way back, located near where the trail begins at the top of the hill, we noticed a small portal into the hillside with a sign saying "Do not enter." An informational poster says this was a tunnel used as the castle's underground refrigerator for storing meat, wine, and other perishables. The sign said that in winter, they would break off chunks of ice from the Hron river down below and use them in this refrigerator/cave to keep things cool.

The subterranean cellar that was used as a refrigerator.

It's really hard to get a good shot of this castle from a moving vehicle.

I've mentioned before that the list of Slovakia's castles and castle ruins is probably about as long as the phone book, and there are still a ton of them that I've never seen but would like to visit. I'm happy to be able to check this one off the list, especially since I've ridden past it so many times. It was absolutely worth it.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.