Weekend Update...

So this past weekend we took a roadtrip through Slovakia....

The car was delivered Friday night around 7:00 and we promptly hopped in and headed to the town of Trencin. We got there around 9:00 pm parked the car and started to hike up the hill to the beautifully lit castle on top of it. We were stoped short by a large gate and had to wait until the next day to explore. So we went down the hill and found the penzione we had a reservation at and checked in. We got a "suite" for the four of us $60 total(included a beer for each of us and 2 one and a half liter bottles of water). Sounds lovely... doesn't it? Well quirky is more like it. The penzione was part of a school. Our suite seemed to be a small classroom converted into a "suite". The bathroom had a toilet in one room and the sink and shower (looked like a large sink you could stand in) behind another. The floor looked like cross sections of tree trunks but was lanolium, the table was 2 desks pushed together with a table cloth over it and there were 4 twin beds... just like summer camp! For what it lacked in plushness it made up for it with cleanliness.

Saturday we finally made it up to Trencin Castle. It was very cool... both aestheticly and temperature-wise. We looked around for a little bit, checked out the view and left (the inside is currently being renovated so not much to see inside).

Back in the car and off to Beckhov Castle. The home of the Blood Countess. Rumor has it she killed young girls to bathe in their blood because she thought it would preserve her youth. This castle was not as well preserved as the first one but better because we could walk all over it. There was even part of the gothic chapel wall remaining. We spent about an hour here and then back in the car and off to Bojnice Castle.

Bojnice was very well preserved but it is like the Disney Castle of Slovakia. There must have been 10 weddings there the hour and a half that we were there. They move them in and out. There seemed to be a constant procession of people and decorated cars... some with bridal dolls attached to them... creepy! The castle was pretty but we got stuck on a tour in Slovak and we could not lag behind or we would get yelled at. We would have preferred to go through it on our own and probably would have been done much more quickly.

Again... back in the car and off to Spis. This was about a 5 hour drive and our stop for the night. This is where things begin to get interesting and I have to get off the computer now because the computer room is full and I have run out of time.... so there'll be more later!