Journey through Western Slovakia

Bicycling through Western Slovakia to see the landscapes, learn the culture, food and
cost of travel.
Where you can find things to do in and things to see in Western Slovakia

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The gang savior here from peers signing in from just outside of to myself a small town Bratislava where I was just lost and where I had a great time stayed in a really cool hostel while wild elephants want to be better hospital experiences I’ve had in a while so I

Managed to pull myself away because I was excited to discover that’s a really interesting elements to its history being part of the often Hungarian Empire means there’s a lot of castles but also already have noticed in the towns also in Soviet Klara two parts of Slovakia

Because it was part of the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union : quote delivered them from Nazi Germany kind of going from one part of Central Europe so there’s some modern idiot mix with some history so looking forward to delving deeper into that over the course of our journey here through Western Slovakia So I meet Anitra right when it was getting dark and I headed to a hostel the one that seemed to be the best reviewed when I got there they were full then I called the other hostels and they were all full except for this one the

Guy said you can come over I got here but there was no one at the reception I called they said yeah there’s no one at the reception right now so with heat and bought some Slovak beer for research purposes of course this one is a hundred

And fifty years old and is aiming for another hundred and fifty I guess they’ll be done at that point probably because of global warming or something but maybe Nitra Slovakia wouldn’t mind a little bit of global warming chilly windy day here but the Sun is out so I’m

Going to check out the town I think I should learn some Russian I say that because so far in Slovakia there’s including just a few moments ago people have been trying to speak with me it seems that so far Slovaks appear to be more social than Austrians or Germans

I put maybe Austrians being a little bit more social than Germans a lot of people try to talk to me but I don’t not that guy but I do not really understand any Slovak my Slovak speaking ability and hearing ability is about zero so the reason why I say I should learn

Russians because there are quite a few Slavic languages whichever one is spoken here in Slovakia check Belarusian and I can’t remember the other countries but there’s a bunch of kind of variations of this one language Russian being one of them and I just know that Russian is the language

That a lot of people can understand and Eastern Europe and other parts of the world Asia as well so that might be something that I’ll put a little effort into maybe download a podcast or something speaking of effort doing a little climbing out of nature here which I

Enjoyed and to my surprise were actually on a really nice bicycle path here I was not expecting to see this in Slovakia let’s see how long it lasts that’s probably what that woman was talking to me about she’s probably saying yes please foreigner enjoy our world-class bike path here in Nitra Leave this ad war used to be Daewoo manufacturing plant which i think is a Korean car company the auto industry is actually CELAC his biggest employer Skoda is a big big one Volkswagen yeah actually this one kind of looks like it’s maybe not running anymore these companies chose Slovakia

Because wages are very low but it’s still within Europe so there’s basically open borders so if you make the cars in Slovakia for with cheap labor and there’s no paperwork and you know customs and clearing customs and stuff like that to deliver the cars to the rest of Europe so it’s pretty convenient

In that regard [Applause] [Applause] so was a tough last ten kilometers bicycling through the mountains but I made it to banská Steve Nika to the hostel here in town I was looking at the windows and saw no lights and figured that was a bad sign actually while I was

Coming to town I was thinking it’s probably not gonna be open because it’s the winter but I managed to call the owner and he said he’s going to make his way down in about an hour I guess he doesn’t live in town here just for me so that’s pretty cool so while we

Wait let’s get something to eat so that was some pretty good pizza and some pretty good company I was sitting with a family from the some locals who are pretty amused by the fact that I was a foreigner bicycle touring in Slovakia during the winter so yeah and that I was

You know happy to speak to some stove Atkins who knew how to speak English so I was having a good time socializing with them and enjoying some good pizza which was six dollars or six euros rather for that pie and then I returned to my hostel which is where I am right now

Which is this old the guy told me 400 year old I guess mansion or something and I have the place to myself all for the low price of 11 euro per night which seems like a pretty good deal considering that is fully equipped obviously kitchen hot

Showers and right in the center of town which will make things perfect for tomorrow morning when I’ll be going for a stroll the town of bans caste of Nika is the oldest mining town in Slovakia and in fact here where is now the main streets

Of Steph Nika we have one of the main entrances [Applause] [Applause] so I was hanging out on the the off-ramp for the main highway there my phone was telling me I had to cross over the highway at some point I was trying to figure out how to do it and then this

Car pulls up to me super fast and breaks like right in front of me I was like whoa what’s going on and let me pull up next to Simon no no you can’t go on the highway then I recognized from their shirts that they’re police officers yes

They were an unmarked car and I explained to them I was just trying to cross the highway and then then they kindly pointed me to how to get over me so they’re serious about not going on the highway here in Slovakia and probably also serious thing about

Wearing a helmet so I am glad that I picked one up but I’ve had no complaints about taking these smaller roads here in fact it’s felt kind of fairytale like the landscapes especially yesterday and today are just just really amazing and I mean the probably the best I’ve seen in Europe so far Here’s loudspeakers on the electricity poles the music just started playing in this town not sure why but I dig it [Applause] [Applause] Which is quite attractive with many of the buildings being well-preserved Gothic Renaissance and Baroque mansions from the late Middle Ages so the 16th century when banská Bystrica was the biggest copper producer in the world and this is why the X mentions here are so detailed [Applause] [Applause]

So despite the rain I quite enjoyed my time and that’s got be sleeker like banská Steve mica the town where we were before this is a town that grew to prominence thanks to mining in fact that’s yeah roughly translates to mining town from Slovak to English but today we

Are going to go to another town also with the rich history but with no riches I’m planning to make it to lope : ik or something which is a well-preserved traditional small mound town so that should be pretty cool but to get to see a mountain town you have to go up some

Mountains [Applause] so it looks like we’re going to some less populated areas here so doesn’t seem like we have smaller alta alternative paved roads here so so we’re now riding on a highway with the no shoulder but I do believe I’m a lot cycle here because it’s not one of the

Main national highways that has the cars only sign that I’ve seen so it should be should be permitted here [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] just when I thought Slovakia couldn’t get any better I find this one Lane alternative road to where I’m going should be nice and quiet with some great scenery definitely beautiful out here but no longer getting reception and there’s been diverging paths so I’m not entirely

Sure that I’m still on track here which is a little bit worrying but what else can you do but keep moving increasingly beginning to think that I’m not going the right way here that’s not good back in civilization pretty happy about it things were getting pretty dire up there started to

Raining even harder I didn’t have any food or no water left and yeah it was pretty cold so we’re definitely not even close to making it to where I was planning to get to today is kind of a rough trail things were really muddy and really slow so now I’m just looking for

Somewhere to spend the night found a place in the town of looped Oaks Osada for 15 euro so not terribly cheap but not too bad for a private room in Central Europe got my own TV so I’ll be watching hopefully some Slovak television later and my own private bathroom let’s take a shower

Although there were some moments of anxiety yesterday it was actually kind of fun in a while since I’ve been lost in the mountains in dire situations so today we’ll be going to the traditional mountain village that we were supposed to get to yesterday and I’m not sure what the road is gonna be

Like on the way there of a traditional Central European mountain so as you can see here in the mountains life can be hard so you have to make do with what you have and what do we have a lot of trees so you can see that pretty much everything here

Foundations made out of logs these are rocks that you would have found nearby as well but everything else including the roofs are made out of wood found from within these Eastern slovakian mountains so we’ve made it to liftoff schema Kusa and this will be where we enter journey

Through western slovakia a real fairy tale journey for me because of the nice people the quaint scenic little towns and the financial relief in comparison to the much more expensive Germany and Austria and I don’t think the fairy tale will be ending especially that I’m anticipating snow for our next journey through

Eastern Slovakia which I’m very excited for you guys from what I’m hearing Eastern Slovakia is a little bit like going back in time it is the more traditional Slovakian culture half of the country it’s more agricultural as opposed to Western Slovakia which is more working-class so that should be pretty interesting

And anticipating it will be as scenic if not more so than Western Slovakia but you ought to say bye to Western Slovakia yet because coming up on the channel will be the fall videos of Nitra dance caste of Nika banská Bystrica and of the Koenig

Which we saw a bit of today and yeah and then it’ll be the video journey through Eastern Slovakia and if you’d like to support the hum of the earth you can do so via my patreon which I’ll be putting a link to in the description below the video I hope you’ve enjoyed this

Adventure through Western Slovakia which was a segment in my larger journey bicycling through Central and Eastern Europe before that a bicycle from Cape Town South Africa to Nairobi Kenya some bicycling through half Africa and before that from and before that from Canada where I’m from all the way to southern

Patagonia in Argentina and all those videos are available on this same youtube channel hum of the earth and if you’d like to see an interactive map of everywhere that I’ve been in everything that I got to see and do that is available over on our website follow the

Hum of the earth comm where you can click on the different locations and see the various blog posts and videos that are made of these places if you’d like to follow my continuing adventures bicycling through again Central and Eastern Europe you can do so by clicking on the red

Subscribe button below the video and then clicking on the bell to be notified when new videos come out so that’s gonna do it hope you guys had a good one see ya