As long as I can remember, Grandpa & Grandma and Mom always wanted to go back and explore Slovakia and see where their ancestors came from, but since they had kids and other responsibilities, they never were able to make the trip. I feel very grateful that Sarah and I were able to make the trip and take some time to explore Slovakia. I hope to be able to go back and explore some more with my brother and his family someday (and my sister too if she’ll ever talk to me again after all of the hiking I made her do! 🤣). My only regret was that we didn’t take the time to do the trip sooner while my Grandpa was still alive.

I loved the hiking there, the castles were awesome, the churches were beautiful, and I’m already going through Slovak food withdrawals a day later; however, what I liked the best was spending some quality time with my sister and remembering my grandpa and grandma and how kind, caring, and welcoming they always were to everyone. We saw that a lot from strangers in Slovakia. I also really enjoyed getting to hear and speak a little bit of Slovak and remember some of the things my grandpa and grandma taught us (or tried their best to teach us).

I’m looking forward to sharing pictures and memories with my mom, grandma, aunt, and the rest of the family in the coming weeks and months.

Day-by-Day

Tuesday October 8, 2024

Today, we flew out from DIA, to Munich.

Wednesday October 9, 2024

We landed in Munich, and were met by Petre, Nicholas’s friend, who wanted to give us the full Munich experience in the hour or so that we had. We drove in to the city center, where we saw the town hall. We were going to climb a zillion step church tower, but unfortunately (Thankfully?) we didn’t have enough time, although it would have been nice to see the whole city from the top. Petre bought Nicholas and Sarah a traditional German snack, a buttered pretzel, and we walked to a beer garden to have lunch. Nicholas had a sausage and French fries, Sarah had Schnitzel and French Fries, and they both had a beer - when in Germany, you’ve got to have a beer, right? Nicholas had to help Sarah with her beer though.

We then returned to the airport, and when we boarded at the gate, they loaded us into a bus, which caused Sarah to stress - we bought plane tickets! Where are they taking us? But they just bussed us to a small airplane on the tarmac, where we loaded, and then we flew into Krakow.

From the Krakow airport, we took a train into Kraków’s city center, and magically somehow managed to go the right way so that we just had to exit the shopping mall that was connected to the train station, walk across this large open space, and voila, there was our hotel. We got checked in and had to wander a bit to find our room - it was on the 1st floor, but all we could find on the first floor was the spa and garden. Turns out, in Europe, the first floor is really the 2nd floor. We found our room, and then headed out to wander around Krakow and see where we could find dinner. We saw some pretty nice buildings, including the St. Peter and Paul Church that played taps on the hour. We climbed up a hill to get a closer look at the Wawel Royal Castle, and Sarah got a cramp in her calf - No, she did not jump around yelling “cramp, cramp, damn cramp!” But it did take a bit to recover so she could walk down the hill. We finally found a place to eat - Nicholas had Pierogi, and Sarah had a potato pancake. She was just so tired, she really wasn’t hungry.

Thursday October 10, 2024

Surprisingly, Sarah woke up before Nicholas, so while she was waiting on the sleepyhead, she found a couple options for breakfast. Once he finally woke up, we checked out of the hotel, and walked outside, and there was the place Sarah had decided she wanted for breakfast (before knowing it was literally across the street). So, they went across the street, had breakfast (a couple of breakfast sandwiches, Nicholas had tea, and Sarah had a Carmel hot chocolate, which had been the selling point for her decision to go there). Then, we went to the bus station. Although Nicholas had purchased the tickets in advance, they for some reason didn’t want to let us on the bus - the barcode wasn’t scanning. They finally accepted that we could be on the bus, so we boarded, and soon were on our way to Slovakia.

We made it to Slovakia, but then they kicked us out of the bus a stop or two early. Somehow, we didn’t buy a ticket to the correct stop? Or maybe they were just tired of us, who knows. This language barrier thing has been a little difficult. At least they kicked us out where there was a really pretty view of the mountain. We tried to buy a train ticket to the next location, but the train was closed. So, we figured out a different bus, and made it to Stary Smolkovec, where we could buy a train ticket. We ended up just missing the first train we could have caught, so we had a hot dog while we waited. We got on the train, and made it to Nova Lesna, where we checked in to the airbnb. Our hosts/tour guide offered to drive us to the restaurant we decided to go to for the night, and he spoke to the restaurant staff to let them know we spoke English. Sarah had a grilled chicken and “American potatoes” - best we can tell, they were lightly fried potatoes. Nicholas had Haluski, and let Sarah try some so she knew whether she would like the Sheep’s cheese or not. She did, so she won’t starve while in Slovakia since almost everything is pork, lamb, cabbage, or made with Sheep’s cheese.

Friday October 11, 2024

Friday morning came way too early - both Sarah & Nicholas woke up for a couple hours in the middle of the night, so 7 a.m. felt like it came around really quickly. Our hosts brought us up breakfast - cereal, coffee, yogurt, apples, ham and cheese and toast, and poppyseed bread. We ate breakfast (the hosts didn’t join us), and then we met the hosts downstairs and headed out for our first day.

Spišská Kapitula

Our first stop of the day was Spisska Kapitula / St Martin’s Pilgrimage Cathedral. On our way there, our guide pointed out a bubbling hot spring near the Pilgrimage Cathedral. We then walked around Spisska Kapitula, where there is a Bishop’s Palace, Bishop’s Garden, and St Martin’s Cathedral in addition to a seminary. Initially, we weren’t going to go in to St Martin’s Cathedral; however, we did end up going in. The tour was incredibly informative, with the Cathedral guide giving a lot of information and our guide translating it to us. We saw the oldest statue in Slovakia - a lion - and saw many altars. Mixed into the floor was one section of concrete, and then two areas of wood flooring. The section of concrete originally was steps into the crypt with all the bishops that are buried there that was closed for hygienic reasons, and the wooden sections of the floor were from an archeological project where they found that bodies had been buried 7 deep under the church.

Spiš Castle

From St Martin’s Cathedral, we moved on to Spis Castle. The top level of the castle is under construction, but we were able to tour the rest of the castle. It offered some really nice views of the area. The exhibits they set up to show what the kitchen looked like, as well as the jail were interesting to see.

Basilica of St. James and the city of Levoča

We ended the day in the city of Levoca, which was very pretty with all the yellow leaves. We toured the Basilica of St James, but we weren’t able to take any photos inside, which was disappointing. Inside the church is the world’s tallest wooden alter, and it’s height is just astonishing (61.1 feet tall). It’s truly hard to visualize just how tall it is without being able to compare it to anything of known height. Also in the church are many, many other alters and paintings. There was a church guide here as well who was giving a tour, and our guide was translating, but this guide went very quickly, so it was hard for Jan to translate everything.

“The White Lady of Levoca” reminded me of a good friend. The story is, she was remarkably beautiful and she would arrive late each week at mass and walk to her special, carved pew in the front of the church. She would distract all of the men. After a while of this, they moved her to the back of the church, behind a pillar, where no one could see her and she would be less of a distraction 😛

Another beautiful feature of the church is the pulpit (no longer in use) but is a winding staircase with statues and paintings depicting scenes from the Old Testament, and then above the preacher/bishop’s head are statues of Mathew, Mark, Luke & John.

Outside the church, is the Levoca Town Hall which has a Shame cage for anyone who was not law abiding - women who were caught outside without a man escorting her, theives, etc. In the distance is the Virgin Mary’s Chapel, which we did not go to, but it was pretty to look at in the distance. Originally, the city center of Levoca charged tax based on the number of windows that faced the square, so to live there, you were among the wealthiest of the wealthy. The most windows we saw were 8 on a building. There is also a statue of the man who decided that the Slovak language needed to be standardized throughout Slovakia, so there weren’t so many different dialects throughout the region.

Saturday October 12, 2024

Today, we embarked on our first hike. The tour guide stopped by a couple of mineral springs on the way up the mountain and had us try the mineral water in both locations. We made it to the hike, and started climbing. We climbed up - and up and up - until the path finally leveled out. It was very steep, for about the first hour, and then the next hour wasn’t bad; however, the whole trip was very rocky, which Sarah struggled with (and swears her feet are bruised on the bottom, despite having good shoes!). We made it to the end, where we could see a huge glacial lake. We had some lunch from a restaurant at the lake, and then hiked around the lake, including a little detour to see a honorary cemetery for people who have died on the mountain. It was incredible to see the cemetery - there were so many plaques honoring people! Sarah didn’t expect to see plaques - maybe just one plaque to honor all, but they had a plaque for each person. It was very interesting to see. We then hiked back down the mountain, and made it back to our airbnb. We decided we would try the third restaurant in town, so we made it over there just to discover that it would be closed for a few days. So, then we tried to go to the place we had gone the night before. It was also closed! As was the third restaurant close to us, and the grocery store! We had to hike up the big dumb steep hill to get to the final restaurant in town, but we finally made it - it was packed. We ate, and then hiked back down to the airbnb.

Sunday October 13, 2024

Our first stop of the day was a stop back in time.

Vlkolinec

This village is made of almost all wooden villages, the way they would have been for our ancestors. A few homes are still being lived in today, while others are set up how they would have looked and functioned back when our ancestors were alive. In one of the displays there was a little wooden flute - turns out they really are called píšťalka, although for like the orchestral one, it is “flauta.” As interesting as the buildings and the displays were, they dimmed in comparison to the surrounding nature - the mountains and the trees all changing colors were just absolutely gorgeous, and we took many photos of the surrounding area.

Orava Castle

From Vlkolinec, we then went to Orava Castle, which was stunning. It was very nice to see how the castle changed as we moved from the newer part, to the slightly older, to the oldest part of the castle. Also, there were so many displays and things to look at - it’s a good thing most of the signs were in Slovak or we could have spent FAR more time reading all the signs. As it was, we took pictures of a great deal of the signs so we can read them later (either because they had English on them, or by using a translator app on the photo images). The castle had a lot of stairs, and many of them were quite steep. One staircase set was so steep that in the winter they refer to it as the toboggan as it gets quite slick when it’s frozen that you could just slide down it. They had many displays, from jewelry to clothing and housewares, to animals and the ecosystem where the castle is. In addition to all that, they had a media wing with many photos of different castles in the area, and props from the movies that were filmed at or near Orava Castle. It was interesting for Sarah to see the differences between London castles and Slovakia castles. Based on the castles she saw in London, the staircases in the main areas are wide, whereas here in Slovakia, so far they have been narrow. Also, London castles are in nice, flat areas. Although history taught that castles were in defensible locations like at the tops of hills, there has been far more climbing upwards to get to the castles than what she was expecting based on previous experience with castles!

Monday October 14, 2024

Today, we had a slightly earlier start than previous days. We met with Michal in Presov, and then we went to Hridisko to spend the day in the towns where our ancestors came from. Hridisko is a tiny village, with currently 5 full time residents, and then several residents who visit on the weekends. Three of the 5 full time residents are Manyiks, and we had the opportunity to meet them. First, we went to the house that used to belong to Helena Manyik, who has since passed away since Michal last visited. Right next door was Irenana Lazorikova (maiden name Gdovinova), who is part of the Manyik family line. Irenana will turn 91 on her next birthday. Her daughter Anastazia is living with her to help her around the house. We first went into their home, but were invited across the street to Milan’s house. Milan is Irenana’s son and Anastazia’s brother. Anastazia and Irenana were cooking and drying mushrooms, so their kitchen was very full. When we went to Milan’s house, they offered us shots of Slivovitz, or traditional Slovak Plum Brandy, and we sat and talked for about an hour (during which we shared two additional shots of Slivovitz!). During the conversation, Irenana and Anastazia commented many times how much Sarah looked like another Manyik cousin they knew - that they just couldn’t get over the similarities. We learned that Anastazia is a teacher.

After leaving Irenana, Anastazia, and Milan, we climbed a hill to see the Hridisko church and graveyard. We saw many familiar names in the graveyard, as well. The church keeper was working at their other job in the city, so we were unfortunately unable to see inside the church in Hridisko.

From Hridisko, we went to Kukova. First, we stopped at City Hall, where Michal asked about the Kosleys. We met the mayor, whose predecessor was a Kosley. She made the joke that you can’t throw a rock and not hit a Kosley in Kukova. She directed us to the cemetery where there were many Kosleys buried. In addition, she called the church and made sure someone would be there for us to see. We headed to the cemetery, and started looking around for Kosleys. We ran into what we assume was the groundskeeper, and asked if he knew where Kosleys were buried. He gestured to basically the whole back of the cemetery.

After taking pictures of probably 75% of the cemetery graves since they were all Kosleys, we went to the Evangelical church where we met the Pastor and the church groundskeeper. The groundskeeper looked right at Nicholas and said he could see the Kosley in him! So in case we ever were to doubt our heritage, there’s no doubting! The Pastor told us all about the history of the church, and even pointed out the baptismal font where our great-great-grandfather was baptized in. In addition, the altar there was very similar to the altar that our great grandparents had built for the Lutheran church in Calhan. After spending time at the church, the Pastor and Groundskeeper took us to what used to be the school, but is now used as a Youth Center. The Groundskeeper could remember taking some classes in the building as a child before it had been converted. He said “uds stadi, tozato” (sp?) just like Grandpa would always say.

Finally, we ended the day by going to meet Fero Kosley, who had been doing family history, including having traveled to Streetor, Illinois to trace the family line; however, he had lost the line from there, so he was very excited to meet us. He talked a mile a minute, barely giving Michal any time to translate. His daughter is a preacher near Boston, and he talked a lot about her. Fero’s wife was also present, but I dont know that we ever caught her name. She has a famous relative who became an actor in the US, but neither Nicholas nor Sarah recognized the actor when shown a picture. Sarah recognized, but didn’t comment on, that Fero and Grandpa had the same ears - another family similarity.

Tuesday October 15, 2024

Sarah woke up with the flu, or a cold, or something, so she did nothing but stay in, sleep, and fret that she shared germs with all the relatives she met the day prior.

With Sarah out of commission, that left Nicholas to hike to his heart’s content!

Suchá Belá

He and Jan went to Slovak paradise and did a hike (Suchá Belá) that had him climbing ladders and following a river through the mountain.

Wednesday October 16, 2024

Sarah was better, but still not ready to go out and do things, so Nicholas and Jan climbed to the top of a Peak (Téry’s cottage) in the High Tatras, seeing many pretty waterfalls along the way.

Téry’s cottage

Nicholas and Jan climbed to the top of a Peak (Téry’s cottage) in the High Tatras, seeing many pretty waterfalls along the way.

Thursday October 17, 2024

Sarah was better, so today we all went to the Nestville Distillery. The tour was a little over an hour long, and took us through a historical part where they have some scenes set up depicting what it looked like in the old days, and then the current factory, we were able to walk through and smell the process - it smelled a bit like baking bread, but sour. We must have been sleeping during the historical part of the tour, because we didn’t get any pictures, and then photos weren’t allowed in the current factory; however, we did get some pictures during the 3rd part of the tour - the tasting! Nicholas did a flight of 5 different whiskeys to try. There were 3 “Mixed” whiskeys of 3, 6, and 9 years old - these mixed whiskeys may have been mixed with up to 50 different barrels of whiskeys. Then he did a single barrel whiskey, and a single malt whiskey. He liked the 9 year best, followed by the single malt whiskey. Sarah wasn’t planning on trying any due to still recovering, but the tour guide encouraged her to try some of the “Tatra Balsam” which is an herbal liqueur that was, in the olden days, brewed to help with different illnesses and made with mountain herbs. She tried the “Tatra Balsam Sweet” which had a cinnamon, thyme and honey flavor, good for congestion and liked it pretty well. She also tried the “Tatra Balsam Bitter” which was very strong like Whiskey, and serves as a base for all their “Tatra Balsams.” It is supposedly good for any ailment.

Lubovna Castle

After the distillery, we went to Lubovna Castle, which had the best views of any place we had seen before. We toured the castle, seeing various scenes and artifacts. They had one room set up like it would have been for when someone who lived in the castle married a Spanish princess, and it was very pretty. They also had another room that had some of the Spanish princess’s clothes.

Open air museum

From Lubovna Castle, we went to see the open air museum which was a village created from homes moved in from the Spis and Saris region - these would have been the types of homes that our ancestors would have lived in. Also in the village was a wooden Greek Orthodox Church. The homes looked different on the outside, but on the inside were very similar to what we saw in Vlkolinec - very small, with maybe two rooms in addition to a kitchen, where the bedroom, living room, dining room, etc was all in one room that would be shared by the whole family. Everything felt very claustrophobic to Sarah after having spent two days inside being sick, so she didn’t go into all the houses, but Nicholas went into many of them.

Nestville chocolate factory

We ended the day at the nestville chocolate factory, where we just got some chocolate bars to go.

Friday October 18, 2024

Cable car to Lomnický štít! Best hike ever! Sarah exclaimed 🤣. Haha it was a beautiful day with awesome views. And Nicholas didn’t think it was possible to reach a peak without also reaching over 40,000 steps. We took three different cable cars to the very tip top. The final one was a small cable car to begin with, but they managed to cram us in there with 12 or 13 others - it was standing room only, both up & down, as it’s a very popular attraction. They have only one cable car that goes all the way to the top, and it runs every 30ish minutes - it brings up more people, and takes a previous batch down. The views were spectacular, even if it gave mom anxiety to see them just in pictures.

Lomnický štít

The views were spectacular, even if it gave mom anxiety to see them just in pictures.

Evangelical Church in Kežmarok

After the Cable car, we went to Kezmarok, where we saw the Evangelical Church, which is the newer church to replace the articulate church. We had to start in this newer church, which was very pretty (pictures weren’t allowed here, or in the Articular church). It had been designed for the Orient, so it had some features that were more common for the Orient than it was for Europe. Inside, it has very, very high ceilings. The lady giving the tour was very friendly, and reminded us of Grandma or Mom - wanted to know our life story 🤣. A lot of Hungarians visit this church when they do like big historical trips, as the remains of someone very influential in Hungarian history are there.

Articular church in Kežmarok

After visiting the newer Evangelical Church, we could go see the Articular church. This is an old wooden church, that was built attached to the pub (as per the city’s regulations for the church to be built). It also had to be constructed using the cheapest material possible, so everything was built out of wood, including nails. This church is covered in paintings. It is very pretty inside. At the front of the church, there are also a lot of basically gravestones that show who was (is) buried in the crypt below the church. There is a legend that one of the gravestones is actually a tunnel out of the city of Kezmarok, but if that tunnel existed, no one knows which one it is. The lady giving this tour was the exact opposite of Mom & Grandma.

Kežmarok Castle

We ended the day at Kezmarok castle, which wasn’t really a big attraction - we could go in to the courtyard, and they have a couple displays you can tour (they were closed when we were there) and a cafe (also closed). This castle had imprisoned the woman who did the first documented hike of the Tatras. At least they were nice enough to imprison her in the tower where she still could see them. She was imprisoned due to going on the hike without her husband.

Saturday October 19, 2024

Today, we started out the day by going to the oldest wooden church in Slovakia.

Church of Saint-Francis of Assisi

This church also has a lot of paintings on its walls, and only two of them are actually on canvas that is adhered to the wall - the rest are painted directly on to the wood. To get to the choir loft for this church, you had to climb a set of stairs that were as steep as the stairs into the barn at the Dzuris’s, according to Nicholas. The paintings were very pretty. Then we saw a little building outside the church that would have been used for food storage, but had been set up to look like a little house. There was a saying stitched on cloth that made Jan laugh, he explained that it said “There was love, there was a wedding, the wedding passed, and the love perished.”

Basilica of Saint Egidio

Next, we went to the small town of Bardejov and walked around the city square. Here we saw the Basilica of Saint Egidio, which Nicholas climbed a claustrophoic tower to see a view of the city. While we were in Bardejov, there were two different weddings that were having photos taken, including one that went into the church.The basilica had two church bells that fell, and now are displayed outside of the church. The basilica was a very intricate church, every time you looked at something, you saw something different about whatever feature you were looking at. One feature was the creature on every other pew. It had the face of a monkey, for knowledge, the body of the lion, for power, the legs of the dog for loyalty, and really big ears for something the church tour guide didn’t know.

Back in the square, there’s a statue of the town executioner that you can take your photo with your head being chopped off. Also, the city hall has many statues on its roof, including a beggar because the city refused to pay the artist for his work on the building, so he made a beggar statue to call them out. Also of note, the roofs of buildings in the square were super steep, this is a style that is very common in these historical towns in Slovakia. Finally in the town, there is a house of a person who very much liked the Beatles and John Lennon, and had decorated the exterior with song lyrics and other homages.

Sunday October 20, 2024

Today we hiked up a stupid mountain. Sarah gave up halfway up, and she’s glad she did - as soon as the hike leveled off, it got frosty, and the lake they were heading to was frozen. Nicholas said it was still pretty. Sarah does have to admit, the river, small waterfall and rapids they saw up to her point of surrender were pretty.

Zelené Pleso

Nicholas said it was still pretty. Sarah does have to admit, the river, small waterfall and rapids they saw up to her point of surrender were pretty.

Zdair

After we came off the mountain, we went to the town of Zdair for lunch. It was a pretty town, with the same steep angled roofs, but also had some decorative details on the houses that were specific to the area, including blue painted chinking (the filling between logs on a log cabin) and red window trim, and X’s on log ends (blue and red is specific for that town; other towns have other colors and symbols). At the restaurant where we ate, they had a beam that had a house blessing inscribed on it that reminded Sarah of the Christmas Eve blessing. The town of Zdair also has a popular ski resort that had a nice view of the mountains.

Monday October 21, 2024

Best day ever! Wine tasting…. And other stuff. Don’t blame us if we can’t remember! Just kidding. :-D

Church of St Elizabeth

We started out the day in Kosice, the 2nd largest town in Slovakia. We saw the Church of St Elizabeth, which neither Nicholas nor Sarah felt comfortable taking photos in since it was actively being used with people praying and doing confession. Nicholas again climbed the tower to view the city from above, and he said that he thought he view of Kosice was better than the view of Bardejov. Meanwhile, Sarah took pictures of the Bell tower (which was under reconstruction) and the bell itself (which had also fallen, like the Bells of Bardejov).

Tokaj region

After having lunch, we then headed for the Tokaj region - Sarah couldn’t tell you anything about the drive other than it was a lot of winding roads that she had to have her eyes closed for the majority of the trip to avoid getting carsick. We went to a small two room museum to see the tools used for farming grapes for wine, and then we went to a large, abstract barrel we could climb and take pictures of the vineyard. From there, we went to Tokaj & Co, where we went down into the wine cellar where barrels of wine were aging. It was really cool to learn about what makes the Tokaj region wine special - there’s a specific type of mold that forms in the cellar that gives a unique flavor to the wines. It’s both fascinating and oddly disturbing to see the mold. The mold has something to do with the volcanic ash, rocks and lava that settled in the area, which is why the Tokaj wine is specific and special to this particular area of Slovakia and Hungary (we were a stone’s throw from the Hungarian border). Our tour guide Tomas was the winery manager and speaks Slovak, English, and German, and was very engaging. He reminded Sarah of Daniel, a lot. Just a very nice, friendly, good-humored guy.

He had set up a tasting with 8 different wines. The first three were wines from the vineyard that had not been aged in the cellar, the 4th was a mix of the first three wines. The next three were wines that had been aged in the cellar. These wines were made by grapes that had been handpicked when they turned into raisins, and then the raisins were left to “press” themselves under their own weight. The raisin juice is then mixed with something to make the wine, and left to age. They’re rated on a sweetness level 3 to 6, and we were able to try sweetness levels 4, 5, and 6. Nicholas liked 5 & 6 the best, while Sarah preferred 4. Finally, we were able to try a wine that Tomas kept referring to as “old,” but it was bottled in 1990, and it was aged in a bottle rather than a barrel. It was okay, but it was more bitter than the rest of the wines, so it was a little of a let down after the 4, 5, and 6. After tasting the 8 wines, we both got another glass of our favorite of the 4/5/6, and then two more glasses of our favorite of the first four wines.

Tuesday October 22, 2024

We went to the mineral hot springs (AquaCity - Poprad) today. It wasn’t at all what we expected. The spa was closed (it opened at 3), so we only had the option for the large basically swimming pools. It was okay, just not what we were expecting/hoping for. We did both get massages. Nicholas’s lady tried turning him into a pretzel, and Sarah’s lady kept going harder and harder pressure - there was a struggle with communication, for sure. We also walked around Poprad’s main city center today, and went beer tasting. In Sarah’s opinion, it wasn’t as good as the wine tasting but Nicholas was a good sport and tried all the beer twice - once for him, and once for Sarah after she sipped it and went “eww, beer!”

AquaCity

The spa was closed (it opened at 3), so we only had the option for the large basically swimming pools. It was okay, just not what we were expecting/hoping for. We did both get massages. Nicholas’s lady tried turning him into a pretzel, and Sarah’s lady kept going harder and harder pressure - there was a struggle with communication, for sure.

Poprad

We also walked around Poprad’s main city center today, and went beer tasting.

Favorites

Castles

• If you only see one castle in Slovakia, it should absolutely be the Orava Castle. It’s absolutely amazing and impressive and it’s almost impossible to tell when the hill stops and the castle starts.
• The Ľubovňa Castle was a close second and well done. The views from the top of the castle tower were beautiful as well.
• The Spiš Castle is also very impressive. It would have been amazing to see back in the day before it was destroyed (I think that there was a fire and the owners never rebuilt? I could be wrong).

Churches

• The little Lutheran Church, Evanjelický kostol, in Kuková was our favorite church by far. Immediately when we walked in we recognized the Dzuris name on a plaque on the wall honoring soldiers who died in World War I. Next we saw the altar that looks very similar to the altar in the Lutheran Church in Calhan and it’s obvious that they used the altar from this church in Slovakia as an example. Finally we saw the baptismal font that our ancestors would have been baptized in. The pastor and the grounds keeper for the church were also very kind and seemed happy to show us around and tell us about the church and what they knew about the Kosley family.
• The little wooden orthodox church on display in the Ľubovnianske Museum was probably our second favorite because it was most like one of the churches that our ancestors from the Manyik side would have attended. It was simple, but the altar and paintings were beautiful and reminded us of the Orthodox churches in Calhan.
• After that who knows… Soooooo many beautiful churches….
  • The wooden altar and all of the other relics in the Basilica of St. James, Levoča were all beautiful and a must see. We weren’t able to take any photos here, but the tour was really good.
  • The Church of St Egidius - Bardejov was also really impressive and reminded us of the Basilica of St. James, Levoča with it’s high ceilings and beautiful altars and other relics. We paid extra to take lots of photos here.
  • The old wooden Articular church in Kežmarok was beautiful with its paintings. It would have been really cool to see back in the day when the colors were more vibrant, but still very impressive. The “new” church next door was equally impressive with it’s high ceilings and the tour was really good. Photos weren’t allowed at either of these churches.
  • The paintings on the wall of the old wooden Church of Saint-Francis of Assisi in Hervartov were cool and the tour (audio recording) was really well done.
  • St. Elisabeth’s Cathedral in Košice was big and beautiful and the view from the top of the tower is a must see. We didn’t take photos because there were quite a few people actively praying and it felt wrong to disturb them any more than we already were.
  • St Martin’s Cathedral (Spišská Kapitula) was probably our least noteworthy; however, it was still worth a look. The tour was VERY thorough. Mom would have loved it and she would still be there asking questions to this day…. The ceiling and the library were the most impressive, but the pews, altars, and a bunch of other relics were cool as well. I think that we’ve used some nails that were older than the nails on display here from dad’s “collection” of used nails 😜.

Hikes

Sarah loved all of the hikes SOOOO much that it’s impossible for her to choose a favorite 😜🤣.

• My favorite was the Suchá Belá hike we did in Slovak paradise where we hiked up a river. They kept things as natural as possible and so we climbed up lots of ladders and metal steps to go over and up. It was just completely different from any hike I’ve done before. Ok top of all of that, the leaves were at their peak and the colors were beautiful. A top ten hike for me for sure.
• Next on my list was Téry’s cottage. A beautiful day hike with lots of waterfalls, mountain huts, sherpas, glacier lakes, streams, and even a few kamziks (Slovak/Polish mountain goats). Definitely would recommend!
• Sarah’s favorite “hike”, the cable car to Lomnický štít was great as well. We lucked out; the weather couldn’t have been better and the views from the peak were amazing. Very happy we did this.
• The hike to Popradské Pleso was good. The cabin at the lake where we had lunch was nice and the symbolic cemetery was different. Wish we had a bit better weather for a better view, but a great hike overall.
• The hike to Zelené Pleso was good. The lake is surrounded by steep, tall, jagged mountains all around which makes the views pretty epic. I’m sure that it’s even more so when the lake isn’t frozen and the sunlight hits the lake just right.

Restaurants

• Penzión Alex in Nová Lesná was a favorite for both of us. Just basic bar food, pizza, and beers, but it was good, Alex was very nice and friendly, and Sarah liked his cat named Kubo.
• Koliba Tatry in Nová Lesná (up the hill) had the best authentic Slovak food overall. The Bryndzové halušky was especially good there. They weren’t quite as friendly as the other restaurants, but they were always open.
• Pohostinstvo pod vežou (the restaurant under the church) was the only place to get a good burger and fries or chicken nuggets in Nová Lesná. Food was decent and staff was friendly enough.
• Šarišská Chiža in Prešov was the only place that served Holubky which was very good.

Related Posts:

• Remembering my Grandma, Chris Kosley
• Kosly Family Christmas Traditions
• Remembering my Grandpa, Ray Kosley

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