Poland and Slovakia

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Taking a break
Eastern Europe
Poland and Baltic States
Poland and Slovakia
Hungary and Czech Republic

Pictures
36 Poring over maps
37 New old Warsaw
38 Getting to know Warsaw
39 Kazimierz Dolny & Lublin
40 Majdanek
41 A Utopian town
42 The Krakow Cracovia
43 Mooching round Krakow
44 Wawel
45 Auschwitz and Wadowice
46 Crawling to Zakopane
47 Tatra mountains
48 Hiking in the Tatras
49 Into Slovakia
50 Mighty Spišský hrad
51 Slovenský raj
52 Back to Zakopane
53 Along the ridge
54 More hiking in the Tatras
55 Detour via Vienna
56 Walking tour of Vienna
57 Swanky in Slovakia
58 Bratislava

Poland and Slovakia

After completing our travels round the northern half of Poland and the Baltic states, we made a brief interlude to fly to Brussels to visit Stefan's mum for her birthday for a couple of days. We flew from Warsaw to Brussels and a few days later returned to Warsaw to pick up where we had left off. See route description for details.

We loved the eastern and southern parts of Poland as much as the northern. We now left behind the influence of the Baltic Sea. As with northern Poland and the Baltic states, by far the most visitors were from Germany, with a small number of other nationalities, French, Dutch, Italian and, of course, Russians. Hardly an American or a Brit in sight. We took in a variety of places and sights, from the renaissance town of Zamość to the chilling concentration camp of Majdanek on the outskirts of Lublin (which in its bleakness made a far greater impression on us than tourist-infested Auschwitz), and culminating in the beautiful surroundings of the Tatra mountains and Zakopane.

We were very glad to have taken the trouble to visit much smaller Slovakia. Whilst we didn't spent as much time there as in Poland, it certainly packed a punch: the atmospheric town of Levoča, which we used as a base to explore the surrounding countryside, with trips out to Slovenský raj ("Slovak paradise") for hiking with a difference, and the ruins of mighty Spišský hrad. Slovakia has one of the largest populations of Romanies (gypsie) in Europe and this made it more exotic. I loved observing the gypsy faces and expressions, and it wasn't hard to understand why they are often sidelined or blamed for theft and dodgy dealings. Later we also visited Bratislava, formerly known as Pressburg, a small capital that is getting the full EU revamp. We're glad we saw it before it is totally sanitised. The "UFO" bar at the top of the Novy Most, the bridge across the Danube, has to rank as one of the best bars we've been to.

Oh, we "did" Vienna too, while we were here. If any city has the right to call itself the capital of Europe it must surely be Vienna. Right at the heart not only geographically but more importantly as the seat of the powerhouse of the Habsburg empire over the centuries. More recently it may have taken a bit of a backseat in history but it still has grandeur in spades.

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