Slovakia Trip, 2024: Part 1

We're back in Slovakia on yet another trip, staying at Terezia's mom's house in the middle of the country, like we always do, and we've actually been here for more than a week and a half, as I write this. However, for the first time, I haven't been feeling particularly inspired to write. 

A big part of the problem is that we've really exhausted most of the interesting sites and destinations in the Novohrad region (not to mention the greater Banská Bystrica region) that you can drive to and back and visit in a day, so the things we've done on this trip so far I've already written about—multiple times, in many cases. (Plus, I've been working, which eats into our time and limits what we can do on certain days.)

For example, have we tromped around the nearby Divín castle ruin, like we always do? Yup.

Did we drive down to the Slovak-Hungarian border for yet another visit to the Šomoška castle ruin? Of course.

Have we gone to nearby Lučenec several times to get ice cream from the excellent Záhradná ice cream shop, buy groceries from Tesco, and run other banal errands? Absolutely.

Have we piddled around Terezia's mom's small village in the (currently rain-soaked) middle of rural south-central Slovakia? Naturally.

Did Tony lend me his fancy carbon-frame road bike again so I could go on more nice bike rides in the scenic countryside here? Check.

Have we taken the local train to neighboring village Tomášovce to visit Terezia's dad's grave and pick up some of that fresh-out-of-the-oven "tomorrow's bread" from Pekáreň Klas? You bet.

So, as you can see, for much of our first week here, I just didn't really have anything new to write about that I haven't already written about. And why would I want to subject my two or three readers to a regurgitation of the same trips and activities?

International Children's Day

Saturday, June 1, was International Children's Day in Slovakia. This is a day that goes completely ignored in the US, and which many countries around the world commemorate in November. But back in the 1950s, the Soviet Union decided to mark the day in June, and all of the formerly communist/Soviet countries continue to celebrate it in June to this day.

The village celebrated it with an event on the vast grounds of its ornate, historic 19th-century manor house that sits up on the hill. I've written about this cool old mansion briefly here and here (it's the only building of its kind in the village). The organizers set up a kind of course around the grounds with 10 stations for the kids, each of which "tested" different abilities.

One station had the kids dribbling a soccer ball through an obstacle course of traffic cones and then shooting a goal (which a man squatting down and holding a small goal net would move left or right to ensure each kid actually made a goal). Another station tested the kids' balance by having them walk along ropes stretched tightly between two trees. For another, kids had to match trimmings of local herbs with photos. Another had them hammering nails into logs. Each kid had a card on which they'd receive a stamp after completing each station. Once your kid had 10 stamps, they could get a free ice cream cone, a hot dog, and some random cheap toy. There were also stands serving langoš and beer for the grownups. 

What was cool about the whole thing was that the manor house and its poorly maintained, overgrown, weed-strewn gardens are usually closed to the public, so you can normally only just peer at it through the bars of the iron front gate. But on this day, the entire grounds were open, as were sections inside the manor house itself, so we were able to walk in and take a peek inside, which is something I've wanted to do for years. 

I was told the village doesn't have the money to repair and maintain the house, and currently it co-owns the place with a private owner who, if I understood correctly, occupies half of the house and is responsible for half of the maintenance and repair costs. One room was furnished with a mishmash of old furniture from different eras, but the rest of the rooms were in varying states of disrepair and/or renovation, and empty, except for power tools strewn about the floor, and in one room, an air mattress with a crumpled sleeping bag on top, a napping dog, and a mini fridge.

A Nearly Pointless Day Trip to Rožňava and Zádielska Gorge

For our first day trip outside the Lučenec area—and the first thing we did that we haven't already done before—we took a spontaneous drive about an hour and 20 minutes east towards Rožňava and the Karst/Gemer region.

Rožňava is the only town of any consequence (and with a historic town center) in the area, but there is the nearby Krásna Hôrka castle, the Betliar historic mansion/museum, several popular UNESCO-listed subterranean caves filled with cool speleothem formations, and a number of smaller villages containing uniquely attractive gothic churches with wildly ornate interiors built centuries ago by German mining settlers (the most notable one being in the small village of Štítnik).

The Krásna Hôrka castle, just east of Rožňava.

Rožňava's main town square and watch tower.

Sadly for us, we had completely forgotten the most vital rule of Slovak tourism: everything (and I mean everything) is closed on Mondays—and this was, of course, a Monday. So, the caves, museums, churches, etc.—everything was closed!

After making this crushing realization at our first stop, the Gombasecká caves, we headed for Rožňava's historic center for lunch, where, upon visiting the local tourist office to pay for parking, the kind, young, helpful fellow working there told us that anything anyone could possibly want to visit that day would be closed, except for the tall, medieval lookout/clock tower in the middle of the town square (which he would have to get up and unlock for us).

But after pondering the situation for a bit, he then mentioned Zádielska Gorge would be open, since it's a park, and that it was a mere 20–30-minute drive east.

I have wanted to visit Zádielska gorge ever since I first saw it back in 2014, when Terezia and I drove past it on a road trip into eastern Slovakia. So, we thought, we've come this far, why not check it out?

But first we had lunch and ice cream in Rožňava's historic town square.

Rožňava is a small-ish, sleepy town (population: 16,932 in 2023) with a pretty intact historic center that's cute but certainly not jaw-dropping or anything. There's the aforementioned tower, three attractive old church facades, and numerous other buildings with ornate, colorful medieval facades. However, there's just enough modern signage and streamlined facade renovation, along with bits of clutter (not to mention a significant portion of the vast square's real estate is occupied by a parking lot), to detract from what was probably a nicer square in centuries past.

The square was relatively bustling during our visit, with a seemingly endless stream of students filtering in and out, and local police busily ticketing parked cars whose owners either hadn't paid to park or didn't have the requisite local parking decal.

Rožňava's first written mention was in the 1290s, and the town earned its place on the map from lots of profitable mining activity, as was the case with many of Slovakia's cities and towns.

For lunch we parked ourselves at a place on the main square with nice, covered outdoor seating. Simon and I both ordered the pizza from the daily lunch special menu. We were expecting to receive small pizzas that one normal-sized human could eat in one sitting, or maybe just a generous slice, since the price was the same as other lunch menu plates. But instead we both received these giant 14-inch pizzas that could have fed three people each. We would have just ordered one and shared it had we known. After getting ice cream at a bustling shop across the way, we ambled around the spacious main square a bit before piling back into the car and continuing east, to the Zádielska Gorge.

Zádielska Gorge

The Zádielska Gorge is a beautiful, striking natural wonder. After driving past miles and miles of continuous, steep, tree-covered mountains (the "walls" of the Slovak Karst valley), the gorge suddenly appears like a massive, gaping wound, looking ready to swallow whole the tiny village that sits at its entrance.

An intermittently paved trail begins at the rear of the village and gently winds through the base of the narrow gorge, traveling all the way up to the top of a rocky plateau. The gorge is more visually striking from a distance, since, when you're in it, it's difficult to see the heights of the towering rock formations on either side of you (some of which, according to the interwebs, reach higher than 300–400 meters, or ~1,000 feet).

The path and the adjacent creek that run in tandem through the base of the gorge are densely lined with lush, tall, green trees and a variety of other foliage, all against a backdrop of vertical rock walls on either side. So, even though you only get fleeting glimpses of the towering rock formations above the trees, the immediate setting is still gorgeous. The V-shaped gorge gets quite narrow at times, and at a few points, the clearance between the rock walls on either side of the path/creek is as narrow as 10 meters, though one point honestly looked even narrower to me.

At some points along the path, there's just enough of a clearing to catch a good view of the mountains above, like this:

The creek, while relatively narrow and rarely ever more than a few feet deep, rushes down the gentle slope in a pretty strong current. It tumbles over its rocky bed in small but forceful cascades, and snakes back and forth, running at several points under small bridges on the hiking path, abrasively carving its way through the rough terrain. The creek was so loud that you sometimes had to raise your voice to be heard over it.

Towards the top of the trail is a chata, a small cottage/cabin-like structure with tables and chairs that serves drinks and snacks. We didn't make it that far because Simon isn't quite ready for that long of a hike, and, because it was the afternoon, we had gotten a late start, and we had to think about getting back on the road and home in time for dinner.

After you pass the chata, there are paths that take you up along the tops of both sides of the gorge, where you can apparently get some truly stunning views from above (see here and here for some great professional photos of these views). But, again, not an ideal hike for a seven-year-old kid who doesn't like to walk much more than a mile or two. We made it about halfway up the trail before turning back.

Apparently, no one is quite certain how the gorge formed. One theory is that a particularly unruly subterranean river gradually caused the ground above it to collapse.

The gorge also reportedly boasts around 100 caves. I read that fierce, prolonged fighting occurred in the gorge between the Russians and Nazis during World War II, and locals hid from the fighting in the caves, some sticking it out for months.

The ascent is mostly gentle and gradual, with only a few steeper stretches, so it's very doable with kids and less experienced hikers. And it's all under the shade of the dense canopy of trees, so it's probably a great place to escape the sun on hot days.

It's a gorgeous setting and a truly unique experience, and I wouldn't hesitate to go back and hike more of it.

Driving on Slovakia's Main Two-Lane Highways Still Sucks

On the drive back, we were reminded of how wholly inadequate the road infrastructure in this part of Slovakia is. From Lučenec all the way to Košice (about 100 miles), there is no freeway. There is only one main road: a two-lane highway that's plagued by a seemingly endless cavalcade of snail-paced freight trucks. Passing lanes are almost non-existent, so you have to pass these painfully slow-moving trucks in the oncoming lane when it's safe to do so. The road is so curvy that stretches which are safe (and legal) for passing are often blink-and-you'll-miss-them short and fleeting.

Far too many of Slovakia's major arteries are still two-lane highways.

I've said this numerous times, but it bears repeating: the Slovak government should be absolutely mortified by the lack of freeways in this (and other) regions of the country. It's mystifying that 30+ years after communism, the road network is still so incomplete and inadequate. And it's not only deeply maddening, but quite dangerous, that drivers are forced to go into the oncoming lane to pass all the sloth-paced trucks if they want to even go the speed limit. The side of the road is dotted with small, makeshift shrines, complete with a cross and flowers, to people who died in collisions from trying to pass other vehicles.

I've commented on how hyper aggressive and pushy Slovak drivers tend to be, and we've seen on multiple occasions narrowly averted head-on collisions from Slovaks passing on this highway when it was totally unsafe to do so. We spent much of the drive back home stuck behind trucks—at one point three trucks in a row, all driving right on each other's butts, making them more difficult to pass.

On this section of road, not far from where Terezia's mom lives, you can see the new freeway being built over the two-lane highway. This area is so steep, mountainous, and winding, that the only way to build the freeway was as an elevated bridge running over the old highway.

Slovak Politics

In lieu of new experiences and sites to write about, I suppose I could look to the country's news for inspiration.

Slovakia's Trump-y prime minister, Robert Fico, was shot in May, a few weeks before our trip, after attending a meeting in the town of Handlová. The shooting was non-fatal and Fico is reportedly recovering well, at the time of writing. But an assassination attempt on a prime minister is an insane thing for a country to go through. Yet, while you'd think the country would be reeling, it's kind of been business as usual.

A blurry photo, taken from a moving car, of the main church in the center of Handlová.

The 70-year-old man who shot Fico is a barrel of contradictions: he has been described as having ties to a pro-Russian paramilitary group (and he has owned a handgun since the early 90s), yet is also said to have belonged to an organization that opposes violence. He's been labeled an "anti-Roma progressive," which is bizarre since being anti any marginalized group is the antithesis of being progressive.

He was, by all accounts, a stereotypical panelak-dwelling grandfather from the south-western town of Levice, and a retired security guard who wrote poetry on the side, with no criminal background to speak of, yet he has committed an extremely violent felony. He stated that he shot Fico because he opposes his pro-Russian, anti-EU, and anti-Ukraine policies and rhetoric.

To me he just sounds like a disturbed and confused individual, but his all-over-the-map affiliations have made it difficult for people to really pin him down and concoct a coherent narrative around him and his motives. I mean, Fico and his allies are certainly trying to do that, but when you read details about the shooter, you can see he has no links to any of the opposition parties.

Yet, Fico and his allies are all blaming the media and the political opposition (and George Soros, predictably), which is absurd because no one here has been calling for the death of the prime minister, and the gun-toting extremist types are typically more likely to be pro-Fico, or at least not bothered by him enough to want to shoot him.

Sadly, Fico is on the cusp of a full government takeover, as his Smer party won the parliamentary elections last fall (2023), and Fico's ally Peter Pellegrini (de facto leader of Smer-adjacent party Hlas) just won the presidential election in April this year, beating the more liberal/pro-EU Ivan Korčok, and—quite sadly—replacing the wonderful, progressive Zuzana Čaputová, who, throughout her term, has been a true beacon of sanity in Slovakia's toxic dung heap of politics. (She decided not to seek re-election, not because she didn't have a chance of winning; she had just completely soured on the nastiness of Slovak political culture, and was getting sick of all the death threats). 

Outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, whose term ends in mid-2024. I will miss her level-headed presence.

Fico seems bent on emulating the illiberal, authoritarian policies of far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban (another Trump-y figure). Now that he's back in power, he's also putting the kibosh on the various investigations into the serious, deep-rooted mafia-style corruption that has been swirling around him and his party for years. I'm really upset about the direction he's taking the country in. And given super-low voter turnout in the last elections, it feels like no one here really gives a shit.

When Fico and his party won the fall 2023 parliamentary elections, they had campaigned on a heaping shit-pile of brazenly false Kremlin-approved pro-Russian/anti-Ukraine (and vehemently anti-NATO/EU) propaganda. Then, after winning, Fico abruptly softened his stance a little bit, and even though he has (annoyingly, stupidly) halted all military aid to Ukraine, he has said that Slovakia's arms manufacturers can continue to sell arms that go directly or indirectly (via other countries) to Ukraine's military—not out of any desire to help Ukraine, but solely to keep the arms industry from taking a financial hit.

At any rate, don't worry—things will pick up, and I will have more to write about as the trip continues.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip so far!