From Vienna, we drove about an hour, crossing the border to Slovakia and had lunch with friends in Bratislava. We knew them back in Accra, and it was weird and so nice to spend time with them in a temperature less than sweltering.
Bratislava is divided into the old and new sections of town by the Danube River. The old part of town looks like many picture-postcards towns in Europe. The new part is full of boxy, concrete buildings. This 1970s era bridge leads to the new part. The authorities destroyed a section of the old city, including the Jewish quarter and synagogue, to build the bridge.
On a hill in the old city sits Bratislava Castle. It was reconstructed in the 1950s.
After lunch with our friends, we moved on to Levoca, several hours northeast. It's a medieval walled town with a very pretty central square. Here's the view from our hotel room.
Here's a view of our hotel (U Leva) from across the square. I highly recommend both the hotel and the restaurant, which are fancy and reasonably priced, especially compared to expensive Vienna!
Some of the buildings feature intricate surface designs, similar to those we saw in Bolzano and Austria.
Next we visited Spis Castle, the most famous site in Slovakia.
It's a 13th-century castle in the middle of nowhere, and it features prominently on Slovakia travel posters.
Sections were added over the centuries.
Much of the castle was destroyed by fire in 1780, but some of it was reconstructed in the 1970s. It's worth a visit if you happen to be passing by.
Between Spis and the Polish border, we were very fortunate to have found Tatrabob, a sort of alpine slide/roller coaster kind of thing with individual bobsleds for each rider. It wound in and out through a forest with sharp turns and deep drops -- fun!
