Meanwhile... Back in Spis...

So we're on our way to Spis. The scenery was beautiful, there were mountains, the leaves were turning... really lovely. It turned to night and we were still driving and admiring the church steeples off in the distance. Finally, we see a big castle on top of a hill off in the distance. This what we have been looking for... it looks huge even from afar. We again decide we should get a closer look immediately. As we are on our way up Jessica informs us that we are in Gypsy country. We go up to the parking area and decide not to stay right there due to an RV that is parked there... might be Gypsies. We go part way down and stop to take pictures. It is windy and cold. We start snapping photos and hear a rustling in the grass behind us. It sounds to big to be just the wind... we jump back in the car and high tail it out of there. We don't want to get taken by the Gypsies!

Now we are off to find our lodging for the night. Which is supposed to be close to the castle. It couldn't be that hard to find... there's not much around! Or can it? On our way! We go a little further and start up this winding mountain road. We get to the top of this road and realize we have gone too far... back down we go! It is now slightly raining and our car has signaled that it is near freezing. We are behind 2 semi's... on a tiny twisting mountain road that may have the potential to be icy. Next thing we know... we are about to take a hairpin turn and the car in front of us decides to pass the semis... on the inside of the turn! CRAZY!!! We make it down the mountain and back track and finally make it to the town our penzione was in... yay!!!

There is one problem though... the streets are not marked. Mark starts to navigate with the map by noticing the shape of the squares and using landmarks on the map (like curches). Now there is another problem... we discovered from another map we had that the arrow pointing out where the penzione is isn't pointing to the correct place! We've been looking for the wrong place. Now remembering that we are in Gypsy country we are noticing that the people in the streets are looking at us oddly and they do not look like Slovaks. The town also seemed to be a little run down. We find the penzione thanks to a collaborative effort of map decoding, Andrew remembering that the building was green and some patience.

We get checked in. We decide we are not sure of the locals and the penzione owners allow us to park the car inside the building. We get to our room and decide that it is not a good idea to head out in search of food. Thank goodness we went to the store before we left. Pretzels and Nutella would have to suffice for dinner. In the morning we head downstairs for breakfast... which consisted of 3 hotdog like sausages and some cookies. The sausages did not seem to be stuffed too tightly. Mark was hungry enough to eat some... Jessica, Andrew and I opted to pretend we had eaten some and flushed 6 of them down the toilet! The we discovered that this was not a free continental breakfast... GYPSIES!!! Fortunately, this the only time we would get taken by the Gypsies... not too shabby.

After that we were off to explore the castle. Which we found out The Last Legion was filmed there. The guide books said that the outside was the most interesting but, we had driven so far and we wanted to go inside. We were glad we did. Even though it was quite cold there was a lot to see and it was certainly worth it. After about an hour of exploring we had to leave... we had a long trek ahead of us. We had to make it all the way back to Bratislava.

Back in the car we go. About an hour into the drive we notice that we really missed out on the drive over. Since it was so dark out we did not get to see the Alpine-esque mountains that just seemed to grow out of a green field. They were big, rocky and snow capped. We had seen the Low Tatras on our way out and now we were looking at the High Tatras. Uunfortunately, we could not go for a closer look. Guess we'll have to go back!

As we got closer to Bratislava we had a little extra time to kill so we stopped in the town of Nitra. There was a small castle there and the oldest church in Slovakia. The castle was pretty uneventful, as it is used for offices but the church was quite a gem. It was pretty late in the day and it looked as if a monk was just closing up. Andrew asked if we could take a quick look and the monk briskly replied "3 minutes". We thank him and run inside... it is beautiful. We decide to go so he can go home and on our way out he asked where we were from. I told him the United States and he got very excited. He unlatched a velvet rope and told us to follow him. He then unlocked a door and motioned for us to come in. We were in the original part of the church that he informed us was from the 9th century and that Pope John Paul II had given a service here. Back out in the churh he showed us a relief sculpture that St Patrick's Cathedral in NYC has a replica of and another relief below it that was done by Donatello. He then told us of a 27 year old Bishop that had been imprisoned in the church for 30-ish years by the communists because he refused to allow them to turn it into a museum. It was really fantastic to get a personal tour of this church by someone that actually cares about it and not some monotonous tour guide. This was a big highlight of our trip.

Back in Bratislava. We had to prepare to take the train to Prague the next day and bid farewell to Jessica and Andrew... our gracious Bratislava hosts. We had an amazing farewell dinner of Royale with Cheese & French Fries... that's right McDonald's. Apparently, that is all that is open on a Sunday night!

More later... my fingers are tired!

done typing tonight!