Oh boy, it actually took me so many months to get this post done... Note to self: stop being a lazy ass.
I had a 5 day weekend over half a year ago (!!!) and did a trip to Kosice. I wanted to do that trip already a year ago but because of the restrictions I had to postpone it.
Kosice is in East Slovakia and it is the second biggest city with the population of 240 000. It takes by train about 5 hours from Bratislava, but it really is worth visiting. I stayed in hotel Dalia, an eco friendly hotel in good location, excellent price too and it was very nice! No, they are not paying me to say that :) My local friends told me that the dialect is very different in Kosice, and in east in general, and they can always tell if someone is from there.
The first two are from the hotel yard
St Elisabeth Cathedral is the largest church in Slovakia and one of the easternmost gothic cathedral sin all Eurpe. The capacity is over 5000 people! It was quite impressive I must say, a place to visit when in Kosice.
Kosice has nice parks, fountains, and music was playing... I can imagine how nice it is to sit there at summer.
I also visited Presov, it takes about 40 mins by train from Kosice and the return ticket is just 3,80 €! It was absolutely lovely town, I was there just a few hours and saw only the city centre but I really enjoyed that short visit. It has about 100 000 inhabitants, and it is actually the 3rd largest city in Slovakia. I have to say it felt a lot smaller than that.
November I did a day trip to Nitra with a friend. The train takes about 1h 45 mins with one change in Leopoldov, and the one way ticket is 5,15 €. Gotta love trains in Slovakia... Nitra was nice small town, a bit run down though and it was totally empty! There was no lockdown then, it was Saturday, the sun was shining, and it was like a ghost town not a soul in sight. Very odd. Nitra has about 78 000 inhabitants and it is the 5th largest city in Slovakia.
We had a nice day, walked around and visited Nitra Castle. If you are into castles, Slovakia is a good country for that, so many castles everywhere! The view from the castle is also very nice. The castle was built in the 11th century, most parts you can see there are from the following centuries, all the way til the 18th century
And of course the beautiful plants and flowers I like to take photos of :)
At Christmas just had to something, because of quarantine rules I didn't want to travel abroad, so me and my friend went to Terchova in Mala Fatra mountains. I will do a separate post about that so this won't be ridiculously long, but I sure am not giving any promises when that will happen :D In Easter we rented a car for a couple of days, it was allowed to move only in Bratislava region, but we saw as much as we could! I need to write about that too... And I have next week off, so I am going to Banska Stiavnica, so soon I will have yet another post I have not done! I seriously need to hurry up with these!
Updated situation; covid-19 situation got really bad here in the end of 2020, and especially when 2021 started. I think Slovakia was at some point nr 1 in deaths per capita, for a few months we had 100 deaths a day and thousands new cases daily. We had strict restrictions but many people didn't give a shit, that is why the numbers were not going down, so we got even more strict restrictions. Now the numbers are going down and things are opening, shops opened and services and hotels etc, with restrictions of course and you need a negative test no older than 7 days. So far I have not been asked to show it, but last time I tested last Friday to get a haircut. Finally I got rid of that cave woman style...
Until last week it was not allowed to take a holiday abroad, or even go to another district in Slovakia without a reason. I have registered for vaccination, and waiting for my first jab, I don't have the appointment yet. I hope we will also have vaccine passport, just to keep the moron anti-vaxxers crying. If I travel in EU, and some other countries too, there is no longer mandatory quarantine when coming back, just take a PCR test after coming back. I will still wait for a while before I cross any border, will see how the situation both here and neighboring countries develop, since many of the neighboring countries still have a bad situation. FFP2 respirators are mandatory in shops, but mask is no longer mandatory outdoors! First it felt like I am doing somethimg naughty and I kept forgetting it on
Last but not least, the before and after hair cut :) Yep, was about time don't you think... :D
Since I am so lazy updating my blog, you can see the pics and short stories right away when I am on the road in my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nomad.riitta/
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