by Xavier
Summer 06, with 2
of my friends (Nicolas and Florent), I was heading to Slovakia to spend
my holidays.
In
bratislava
After a long
night driving from Belfort to our holidays' destination, we finally
arrived in Bratislava the next day at the beginning of the afternoon.
Bratislava, capital of the Slovakian Republic and second biggest city
of the former Czechoslovakia, is a nice place to chill out... pretty
and quite safe. As soon as we arrived, we went for a tour around the
city and climb up the old town to reach the castle and have a nice view
over the town.
The new bridge
"novy most", built at the beginning of the 70's, is one of the biggest
monuments dating from the communist period. It was said that a part
of the old town was razed (with its beautiful heritage) in order to
make the construction of the bridge possible.
We were staying at a student residence in the North-East of the city
center. The place was openning its doors to tourists during
summer. Good adress... if you like to be surrounded by french people
during your holidays abroad. Well, no wonder, it was the cheapest place
found in the french travel guide book "le Routard"... Next
time, we'll be more clever. Anyway, the location was nice, pretty close
from downtown, in the campus area, with all the facilities (which means
a mini market next block openned until late with cheap beer!!...).
Around the building, many names written on the floor with many
colors... They are the name of the students who gratuated this year.
Cool!
Evening in down town. Nice bars, and if you're a bit down and tired
from a long travel.... try one or two glass of Absinth and you'll be
ready for a long night party!
Next day, we started to look for some information about our future
hiking destinations. We agreed on two trips in 2 different places : The
High Tatras and the Slovakian paradise. We bought the hiking maps and
studied it in order to think about possible itineraries. We're ready!
Another night in Bratislave before heading even further East...
High Tatras
Nearly 400km far
East from Bratislava is the gorgeous range of Mountains of High Tatras.
They are actually called the "smallest high mountains in the world"!!
10 peaks above
the 2600m, the range is across 2 countries (Slovakia and Poland) and
delimit an area of 26 km of length.
During my
previous stay in Poland in the spring 2004, I hiked for a
weekend along the Polish part of the High Tatras, and I just wanted to
return there. The place is actually incredibly wonderful.
Slovakian
paradise
