Slovakia

We started our trip in Slovakia at the capital, Bratislava and had a quick excursion to the Tatras mountains for an evening to get away from the city.

Bratislava was a nice city, but in reality there wasn't much to see besides the Bratislava castle and a quick walking tour of the city. Most of our days were spent with Jesse working on his real estate license while I worked plans for when we get back.

We did learn a few cultural facts about Slovakia including Easter traditions. Rather than the usual Easter egg hunt the traditional Slovak way is to splash women in the town with water and then hit them with a whip. Of course today whipping is more of a light tap and the tradition is optional. Oddly enough after this "whipping" the women treat the men with gifts including  sweets, fruit, money and their famous painted Easter eggs. Yes, I would agree it seems a bit strange, but it is all good in fun and Slovak's respect the customs. Our guide explained that for the most part you don't see this tradition as much in the cities, but more of the small country towns.

After learning about the interesting traditions we ended  up speaking to a local bartender at a Cuban rum bar of all places. We told him we were from Colorado and missed the mountains so he suggested visiting a town named Stary Smokovec inside the national park of the Tatras mountains. He showed us some pictures and told us where to eat and we were sold!  We decided to take a night and venture out into the rural part of the country, we rented a car and hit the road. During our 3 1/2 hour drive saw green rolling hills and oddly enough enormous fields of dead sunflowers.

We arrived a bit later than expected in the evening so we didn't get to explore town much, but I was able to quickly schedule a massage appointment right after dinner. And for only $25! We ate at the suggested restaurant and had a fantastic traditional meal including sheep cheese, trout goulash soup, braised beef and a glass of Slovakian wine. The town was very quaint and for the most part was very quiet. When we arrived it was a bit cloudy and rainy so we hadn't seen the mountains yet and really didn't know what to expect.

The next morning we got tickets to ride a series of gondolas to the top of the largest ski resort in Slovakia, and really didn't think there would be much to see. As soon as we made it through the clouds and above tree line the sun was out and relatively hot. In fact there were many more people on the mountain than down in rainy town. We were at the base of the second tallest mountain in Slovakia called Lomnicky Stit. It was a very impressive sight and honestly looked very similar to the Alps. We hiked around a bit on a few trails at the top and Jesse was able to fly the drone and get very cool photos above the clouds. After a short time we had to hit the road and get back to Bratislava to return the car. We took a different route home and it was a lovely scenic drive. Overall the long drive was well worth it and made for a very memorable experience. The next day we packed our bags again and took a 7 hour bus ride to Ljubljana Slovenia.