Slovakia Road Ways - TRAVEL - Two On The Loose

CURRENT: Minority, EU. Gypsies, Roma and the European Union

2007-11-12T18:37:00.001-05:00

CURRENT

News, Topics

Treatment of minorities is an issue in (all?) many countries. How does Slovakia fare, as to its Roma. Fair use quotes from this opinion article by Colum McCann, author of "Zoli," a novel roughly based on the life of Gypsy poet, Branislawa Wajs, see Gypsies, Roma, Romani and "Zoli":

Mr. McCann speaking to a Slovakian -- "But when I asked him about contemporary issues of sterilization, school discrimination and burnings of Romani houses in his own country, he said without rancor, 'Of course, yes, but they're just Gypsies.'
"Malice is sometimes another name for silence."

And another, not depriving you of the interest in reading the whole:

"Yet so much about Romani history is still wrapped up in a willful forgetfulness. It is not that Europe or America doesn't care — dozens of conferences and non-governmental agencies confront the "Roma question" each year, and 2007 promises to be a bonus year.
"But the prevailing attitude still echoes the old Slovakian joke: 'What is small, dark, filthy and knocking on the door?' The answer is not just the future, but the past as well."

MOUNTAIN BORDER. High Tatras

2007-09-11T10:05:00.001-04:00

The High Tatras

The High Tatras is a small range of high mountains, alpine, on the border with Poland. This view is from the Polish side, looking toward Slovakia. Hiking, sports, skiing, health resorts, all here.

High Tatras, Mountain Range, border Poland and Slovakia

See the national park here,Visoke Tatry, at http://www.earth-photography.com/Countries/Slovakia. Our route: arrive from the east, from Spis Castle through Levoca, then across the border and mountains to Zakopane PL, hiking and ski resort area. See also http://www.slovakia.travel/entitaview.aspx?l=2&idp=3982

Time your crossing in good daylight, not toward dusk as we did.

CURRENT: Trafficking. Gloria Steinem: Cages.

2007-09-08T12:18:00.001-04:00

Human Trafficking? At least, exploitation.
Force in isolated places. Is that so?

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Traveling on our own means taking care on secondary or back roads, of course. We do not get out to investigate some things, or stop to take some pictures.
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We have eyes open, however, and found this: on the side of an ordinary 2-lane road, driving on a logical and direct from Budapest, Hungary toward Bojnice, we were in the middle of unsettled country. We saw no farms, no houses. It was simple, lovely nowhere special, no town nearby, and a side road, packed gravel, off to the left. No building was in sight, just the road going on and on.
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Sign at the point where the winding road met the regular traffic road: "Sex Farm." In English.
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Trafficking. Exploitation. See http://www.gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SlovakRepublic. see also http://www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?cl=22040www.protectionproject.org/slovakia.doc .

And the sign that was in English. For the convenience of the patrons.

Levoca, Slovakia. Women's Cage.

Is this the contemporary equivalent of the town of Levoca's No way out - a tradition in the west and east. See Levoca post for t1600's Women's Cage of Shame, for control and disposition of the witches, the scolds, the independent, the healers, the simpleminded, or simply ongoing exploitation and control.

Gloria Steinem has the right cause here. See http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/12/20061207_b_main.asp

Courses on it now. Look up the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, "Women on Margins in Europe 16th-20th Centuries," and that uses Lithuanian, British, German, French historical examples: "...interactions between economical, political development and women's lives...." See Gender and Culture in the menu at the top. Courses in this are now common, example at http://www2.sewanee.edu/academics/catalog/departments/womens_studies.

Levice - Roma, Romani, Gypsies

2007-08-20T20:00:00.001-04:00

Levice

Roma, Gypsies

Levice, Slovakia. Roma with handcart.

Roma in Slovakia, as in many countries, might as well be invisible. Noone pays attention to the conditions. All the Roma. Is that so? Is it any different from our history with blacks and others of our own minorities, including our own Roma.

See Roma literally on the run, or trying to make themselves small, even unseen, no eye contact, or on the sides of roads, heads usually down, and shanty town areas off to the side, obviously derelict and not part of the commercial and residential areas just around the bend. Ghettoized, reports the Christian Science Monitor, at http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0103/p04s02-woeu.
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Read about their plight at http://www.slovakia.org/society-roma. They constitute a large minority. Slovakia apparently offers no route to change, maintaining a complex of conditions that run with poverty here - illiteracy, illness, crime. As we do and did. Other countries turn them back if they can. The Czech Republic has anti-immigration policies against them. As with our undocumented immigrants, we dehumanize and neglect the poor and their universal issues, human need, human rights, human backlash.
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One experience: We parked here to see an old ruin, not realizing the sidewalk there had a small access ramp that we blocked. A Roma family with their push-pull cart, equipped with car tires (for long distance walking), came up the road, the mother pushing it and children behind. Thanks to us, there was no way to get safely up to the sidewalk. I ran back, opened the door, called to them, gestured to wait until I could move the car. No way. Heads down, they were instead already in the busy road, where they all could have been hit. It seemed they never even considered that someone would actually move a car for them. Marginalization. Its long term effects perpetuating.
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Read the debate here. http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?ChapterID=674&CountryID=21&amp;amp;amp;amp;ReportID=212&keyword=.
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See also http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=servis/z_en_2004_0038; and the British Helsinki Human Rights Group on the topic, including addressing immigration issues, at http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?CountryID=21.
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Read the novel: "Zoli," by Colum McCann, http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/zoli/. The main character is a central European Roma girl born in the 1930's. In her ethnic group, to reveal cultural matters is to betray secrets -- silence is needed for self-preservation, preservation of freedom, and those who betray are ostracized. See review NYT 1/8/07 by Richard Eder. There is an awkwardness in using the novel format to present a cultural overview, but worth the read. See http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/zoli/
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See Gypsies, Roma.

Levoca - The Cage of Disgrace

2007-08-20T19:25:00.001-04:00

Since 1271, after the Tatars, Levoca has been a splendid center of commerce and culture. It is the place where Slovaks protested assimilation into the Hungarian empire group in the mid-1800's, and where the Slovak national anthem was first heard. See www.slovenskyraj.sk/vylety/levoca/en.

It is also the town of the Cage of Shame, or the Cage of Disgrace. But the photo album at the site does not even refer to it.

I will. The Cage of Disgrace where uppity women were put. Or those whose actions otherwise did not suit those on top. The independent, or simple-minded, or healers.

There, on the top of a column, is a memorial to mom and a child clinging to her.

And, to the other side, the cage itself. Iron. No way out.

It is also discounted here with just a passing reference. tanap.sk/levoca.

Half the world is women, or more than half, and we are interested. Punishment for moral crimes? See See www.itisnet.com/english/e-ce/e-slovakia/e-levoca/e-s-levoca. Like what, and where are the guys.

Look up Malleus Maleficarum, the Inquisition guidebook, "The Hammer of Witches," that spread all over Europe, with vestiges in the witch hunts in colonies. See http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/; then add Levoca, and suddenly all the entries are in Slovak. Look up the Malleus itself, from 1486, at www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/.

This is no mere moral turpitude platitude. This is part of the full-fledged witch purge that devastated healers and independence. But the issue of witch-burnings, why and who benefited, is complex and needs careful thought. See www.summerlands.com/crossroads/remembrance/_remembrance/malleus_maleficarum.

How far in the past is all this. Beyond my ken. Start on this area of persecutions of any group and for which reasons, pun intended.

Zilina - Mountain castles

2007-08-20T19:16:00.001-04:00

As you drive, don't forget to look up. There are eyries there. Sometimes you can't help taking two pictures of the same castle as the hairpin curve does its thing. And wish you had a panoramic video. Who were these fine people, defending themselves. Or were they they invaders, staking their claim.

This is probably Stary Castle, see http://www.slovakheritage.org/Castles/stary.htm. But in the same area is a similar one, Strecno Castle, on the Vah River, ://www.slovakheritage.org/Castles/strecno.htm. As we find other loose castles on a cliff above a river, we will compare and correct. Our notes say that this was just before Zilina, so we should be ok here for Stary, or even Strecno. Here is a comprehensive site for Slovakia's castles - at ://www.slovakheritage.org/Castles/castles_home.htm. Maybe this one is Povazsky? Should never have looked it up!

So much of this was behind the Iron Curtain when I was growing up that Slovakia might as well have been Mars. All to our detriment.

Zilina and the town of Martin are in the north, both "regular" towns with the fine square and old buildings. They adjoins several boundaries - Poland and the Czech Republic. See this site for a map - www.slovakia.org/zilina.

Some days we just didn't feel like more town squares, and it was not time for a cafe lunch, so we looked up and were glad we did.

Kosice - St. Elizabeth's Cathedral; market square

2007-08-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

Kosice is at the crossroads of old trade routes, and dates as a town from before the 1300's. Slavs were here beginning about the 8th Century. The city has the oldest coat of arms of all the cities in Europe, says http://www.jewish-guide.pl/slovakia/42. The guides to Jewish history often give the most interesting accounts. It is a good destination eastwards, making a long oblong from near Bratislava south to Filakovo and then Kosice, then west again through the Spis area to Levoca. See map at

Mixing God and Mammon - the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth at Hlavna Nameste, the main square, and nearby a car show - just like any other city, with the female props, the band and a line of fine cars.

The Cathedral: largest in Slovakia.

The band: Loud but not the loudest.

Kosice - Street; Synagogue,

2007-08-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

A street in Kosice.

Here is the building of the reformed synagogue, that had been built in the 1920's. I believe it no longer is a synagogue. The Holocaust Memorial Plate or plaque is not just in the form of a broken tablet. Look closely.

It shows the imprint of a hand whose fingers dig in starting at the top of the Ten Commandments there, then slide down until finally the palm and the thum and the rest depress deeply and stop. See photo and read about synagogues, as a start, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue. This synagogue was also the place for concentrating 2000 of the 12000 Jews from Slovakia sent to concentration camps, before they were transported further. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_synagogue_in_Ko%C5%A1ice. Today about 800 Jews live in Kosice. See map and information at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/slovakia.html

The transports of Jews from here went to Auschwitz -Birkenau, the complex of two concentration camps in Poland. See Poland Road Ways. Of the 800 or so persons remaining, they represent the number not after the exterminations necessarily, but also after others moved to Israel or other countries. See www.jewish-guide.pl/slovakia/42

Banska Bystrica - Square of The Slovak National Uprising

2007-08-13T10:57:00.000-04:00

The Square of the Slovak National Uprising. In 1944, the Slovaks under German occupation here rose up against the Nazis, with Allied help, see next post, but there is much more to the town than that.

It has a history of resisting invaders. In 1536, the town resisted the Turkish advance, and some of the medieval walls remain. The town itself dates from around 1200. See www.bbb.sk/en/history.
Its surrounding rough hills make it ideal for a resistance effort.

Here is one of the Marian Columns, or Plague Columns that dot many squares in the Eastern European countries, in thanks for deliverance. or in hopes for it. See www.bbb.sk/en/castle.htm.

Wikipedia does a good job overviewing the city. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bansk%C3%A1_Bystrica.

"Banska" is the word for mining, and there are two particular towns known for that - Banska Bystrica here, and Banska Stiavkica. See www.cometoslovakia.com/towns.html.

Another view, to show that these are usually pedestrianized squares, ideal for strolling.

Just be sure to hide all visible belongings in the trunk of your car, because these fine strolls mean you are away from watching. We never had a problem but guidebooks warn again and again of car theft and other theft.

We hid every map and tissue. The license plate would scream rental car, but without the lure, we thought that maybe the guidebook warnings would not happen.

Just go and enjoy.

Banska Bystrica - Memorial, Slovak National Uprising

2007-08-13T10:26:00.000-04:00

Tanks in the woods. An impressive museum and memorial nearby re the Slovak National Uprising. The town of Banska Bystrica is described as a center for anti-fascist resistance in World War II.

This is a soviet Li-2 bomber near the museum that brings out the macho. See www.slovakia-slovakia.com/accommodation/index.php?pid=214&user=det.

Overview of the uprising: Adolph Hitler had annexed the Czech Sudetenland in 1938. Slovakia had been part of the independent Czechoslovakia. Hitler then began encouraging the Slavs to be independent. In 1938, the Slavs declared their independence, getting protection in exchange for a willingness to let some 70,000 Jews and Roma (gypsy ethnic groups) to be transported out.

Dilemma. By 1943, it looked as though the Nazis would lose, although there was little hope of independence after the war, either. In 1944, partisan attacks increased, with the predictable result that Nazi reinforcements were sent in, and a full-scale uprising resulted. Some believe the uprising was not in the Slavic state's independence interest at all, but was planned and encouraged by both Russia and England. Read at
http://www.spectacularslovakia.sk/ss2001/snp.html

Tanks all around. Our children have never seen these in their back yards.

Spis Castle - UNESCO World Heritage

2007-06-20T07:59:00.000-04:00

Spis Castle from a distance. spisskyhrad.sk. A site with settlements dating from 40,000 years ago. With plains all around, this was the site for defense. Spis as a castle as we are most familiar with castles, originally was built by Hungarian kings.

Up close, the bulwarks are huge. To get in, do not count on a 5PM closing. With reconstruction and labor and materials inside, we just barely got in when the construction people were leaving at 4PM. Others behind us on the longish walkway to the gate were kept out.

A summary of the history is at tanap.sk/spiscastle. This site says the castle is open until 6PM. Agan, not always.

Bojnice - The Castle. History, and its current Insides and out.

2007-06-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

Bojnice. Castles in Eastern Europe are colorful outside, often more so than those in Germany or France, or even Disney. But remember that this one dates 200 years before Disney. Its history goes back to Slavonic forts from about the year 1000, to its stone construction in about 1300.. See bojnicecastle.sk/EXPO/Expo-en. Another site likens it to the inspiration for Cinderella's castle - see eeuroperussiatravel.suite101.com/article.cfm/slovakias_bojnice_castle.

As it appears now, it was remodeled from the earlier more medieval castle, in the 1800's, to mimic the castles of the Loire Valley in France, in order for a noble suitor to win the heart of a lady (it didn't). That tale is told at the annual Festival of Ghosts and Spirits, see slovakheritage.org/Festivals/ghosts97. The show must change over time, because the description there is different from our version, but newness would keep area people coming back.

We are still looking for representations of the medieval castle that we understood predated this glamour exterior.

Tour while the Festival of Ghosts and Spirits is going , and you will see darkened rooms, for effect.

You can see enough with a flash to get the idea of the paintings and inlay work there.

At the entry, inside the big doors and just overhead, is an opening that we learned in other castles (like Blarney, in Ireland) is a "murder hole." We were told that spears, rocks, arrows and hot stuff could be poured down on invaders, or perhaps it is just a peep hole to see who enters there. Look closely when you go into castles.
Look up. Since this is a remodeled castle (done in the 1800's), perhaps this opening instead just suggests the older defense purpose. Look up anyway.

This set of doors we think is Bojnice, just past the diagonal wood of the first set, but they could be from Mikulov, CZ. We like big castle doors and are checking.

Look closely at the outside also. There are bullet holes from a conflict unidentified. In so many places in Eastern Europe, we see these reminders of front lines far from our own hearths. Constant for the children there.

And go to the Zoo - right past the castle.
These flamingoes are not plastic.

This zoo is well-known in zoo circles. See waza.org/network/index.php?main=zoos&view=europe&detail=bojnice

Bojnice - Castle Show - Festival of Ghosts and Spirits

2007-06-02T13:02:00.000-04:00

Bojnice Castle. Tour guides, leave those Danube cruise ships and bring your guests northeast from Bratislava at the end of April. With the street party thumping outside the castle, get your tickets and venture inside. Meet the Count John Francis Palfi who inherited it, born 1829, and follow his tragic life.

Once a year, there is a mime-dramatization, choreographed and stage-set. Well-trained young people lay out the story of Palfi and his star-crossed, unrequited-imagined love, etc. The teens are talented in theater and dance. All is in Slovak, but there is an English cheat sheet outlining the story was helpful. We got most of it, I think.

Be sure to check the schedules in advance, or be in there by 5 or 6PM, when the last tour-play launches. Details at www.bojnicecastle.sk/PROG/prog-en. The full program takes an hour and a half. It is worth every minute as you tiptoe through the rooms. The interior is darkened, so there is the same impact even if you miss dusk and go through at 9AM the next day, as we did. A fine hotel is just below the castle.

The actor-dancer-mimes follow the tale of the narrator in a '30's vintage hat. She takes us through - in groups of perhaps 20, in the darkened castle, and then through courtyards and back staircases, and gardens where ghostly brides waft behind the yews. The groups go through continuously 9AM-6M, with the actor groups staying put, and repeating their particular scenes the whole day.

Coffins and grieving and dances of death.

Part of the tale is told with the help of a big screen flash-back, while family members gather for a reading of the will.

A This is a family affair, where the goal is not to terrify little children or anyone else at all. Even the startling is measured and fun.

Figures just glide up from behind, or from hidden doorways, and stand there until you notice, or slowly kneel to a child, head down, and then raise the face and eyes and glare until the child giggles.
Here are some cast members filling up at the street party outside.

Other events year-round, but how could they top this one? We numb our kids with loud noises and horror. Slovakia at this castle instead educates, really entertains without revulsion, and brings history to life. Salute!

Bojnice - Street Party - Festival of Ghosts and Spirits

2007-06-02T11:05:00.000-04:00

Bojnice - fairy-tale type castle, near Priedvidza, mid-Slovakia, northeast from Bratislava.

Each year, it celebrates the castle's Ghosts and Spirits and for five days, a great street party of vendors, food and attractions mushrooms up.

Here are "American Indians" that sounded fine and were very colorful, but were probably Andean or Peruvian, judging from those wonderful multiple flutes that I have heard from other Andean groups, and these knew no English. No problem. Tom-tom rhythms, some dancing, crowds, all for it.

The castle was not made for Disney. An heir in the early 19th century had remodeled parts of the original medieval structure to try to win a lady's heart, several centuries ago.
Seewww.slovakheritage.org/Townsvill/bojnice.

We were there for the festival in late April. Fine hotel right there, not exorbitant, and no reservation needed.

Fast food as anywhere - but far less fatty than here. Sausages looked and tasted as real meat parts, not the sweepings from some cutting room floor swept up and sold out to the next hot dog maker. Fried food well drained. And the additional restaurants, pubs and shops on the regular street.

We enjoyed Slovak and Czech and Polish sausage-hot-dogs any time, especially breakfast.
No oil slicks.

Parents and kids like anywhere else.

We saw virtually no traditional dress, except for dress-up in hotels (waiters and waitresses sometimes). We were in remote areas as well as these more-trafficked. An occasional old person in black, but very occasional. Modernity that doesn't fit the stereotype, and shouldn't. The world is not a stage. It is people's lives.

Bratislava - Following Napoleon

2007-06-02T09:19:00.000-04:00

Sculptures in Bratislava, the Old Town, some distance below and away from the castle. A spur to learn history. This is Napoleon's soldier leaning affably over a bench, old town.

Napoleon I was there in 1805, and in 1809, his army blew up the castle. See a history of Bratislava at slovakia.hotels.hu/info/bratislava/history-of-bratislava.en.

Other sculptures: worker poking his head out of a manhole and a photographer periscoping his lens around a corner. See photos at www.bratislavahotels.com/bratislava-old-town-statues. We did not focus on finding them. Prefer the spontaneous discovery.

Towns in other countries also use sculpture to tie in history - see Pula, Croatia, where James Joyce is seated at a cafe table, Croatia Road Ways, and at our hotel in
Prague, was another bronze somebody ing on the bench just outside.

Bratislava - old capital, near Vienna; Dell likes it

2007-06-01T12:57:00.000-04:00

Bratislava basic orientation, similar to most towns where defense was an issue: Castles at the top, old town section somewhere below, and may be at some distance. A tourist cannot head for the castle and expect to find the old town necessarily in the same area.

Bratislava is geared to river tourism, not cars. So, when your are lost in your little car, head for the river. Go in any direction until you find the cruise ships. Where they dock, you park, and then follow the linked golf carts to the old town. Tourist train drivers know where it is.

Old town sections can begin just behind a section of modern storefronts, and not visible easily as you walk by.

The river is the Danube,. Look at the huge size of some of the cruise ships . Some of these
go the length of the river, from the Black Forest in Germany to the delta in Romania. See its overview at www.danube-river.org/en_fluss-fasz. ships are smaller daytrippers from Vienna.

Many smaller tour packages do the trio of Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest.

River touring is misleading. Leave everyone off at the stage set. Then whisk everyone away again. For some, it is the best option.

For us, car travel offers a more comprehensive look at a city's life, but also there is no recourse for the daily stress of finding your own way in tangled one-way streets.

Bratislava is also home to Dell - its biggest European headquarters. Financial Times Slovakia 2/20/07.

Castles in passing

2007-06-01T12:21:00.000-04:00

Look to the hilltops. Defense, defense. I wrote down "Kosino Hrke" near one castle, and can't locate it on the internet. I think this is it, on the way to Kosice. Or it is the one near Zilina? The trick is to get into images on the internet, and look for silhouettes. We welcome ID's.

Slovensky Raj National Park

2007-06-01T12:20:00.000-04:00

Rugged country in the mountain areas, with much sliding, crumbly karst, near Slovensky Raj national park. Like little ball bearings under the tires.

Filakovo, Karst,

2007-06-01T11:23:00.000-04:00

Filakovo Castle. A wrong turn turned out to be right - here is the castle at Filakovo, on our way to Kosice.

Folk architecture. Note the squared top of the fort-like structure at the wall, with the pyramidal top. There are also entire houses built in this useful, economical shape, in many parts of Eastern Europe, and it is written up at http://www.iabsi.com/gen/public/arch3, in the article on house types in Poland, Ukraine and other eastern European countries. It is also just a sensible fort form, seen at many large and small castles, where ladders the enemy might use to try to get in, can't get over the overhanging eave and the archers get them from above.

Driving, it is hard to tell whether a sign is for a by-pass around a town or to the town. You may intend to keep on the main road, and find yourself elsewhere.

Many of these castles became a defense against the Turks in the 16th Century.

We went into a supermarket for a snack, and at the checkout line I got out my camera to take a picture of Dan (who is a bagger at home at Big Y) and the cashier stopped us. No pictures. Oh? Is there something wrong? No pictures. No. No? No. Ok. There is a climate of fear among the citizens cited on the internet (a tourist would not know), and read the politics as a start at antiwar.com/orig/nagle3, "The Slow Strangulation of Democracy in Slovakia," and then find other human rights concerns at www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?ReportID=20&CountryID=21, the British-Helsinki Human Rights Group.

Zvolen - Architectural, structural evolution

2007-06-01T10:46:00.000-04:00

Be sure to walk around the castles to see if you can find the earliest sections, then later additions and architectural influences.

Here at Zvolen, the view from the main road (there to the far right) is deceiving - flat and remodeled-looking, with unconvincing crenellations, those fence-forms at the roof walk.
Seewww.heartofeurope.co.uk/trav_castles_zvolen.

From the side and back, though, the changes through the centuries show. There was a period, I understand, when castle-owners emulated castle ideas from Germany and France and the Renaissance. Knowing that, the various forms make sense. Here is a good discussion of the castle's history: www.zvolen.net/main.php?id_menu=5228&firmy_slovenska_flag=0

Also look at the patterning on walls. These are sometimes painted, and sometimes outline the actual stone-work. See www.slovakheritage.org/Townsvill/zvolen

Here is a fellow who was in Zvolen (and Banska Bistrica) as part of a 3-continent bike saga. Scroll down to the Zvolen section at www.travelpod.com/print-travel-blog/jnewcomb/cycletour-2005/tpod. The street view of the castle is so uninteresting that maybe even he didn't bother to photograph it. But do see his travels.

Levice - Kalvaria (the old fort) and newer castle

2007-05-31T09:48:00.000-04:00

Eastern Europe - Constant reminders of histories of invasions and repeated devastation, for countries in the path. The rest of Europe benefited from this area serving as its buffer, because various groups were indeed stopped before getting to its heartland.

Levice is in two. The first fortress and town were overrun in the early 1600's by the Turks coming up the Danube lowlands. All destroyed - just a ruin left, now being refurbished and a tea-room restaurant planned, says a sign.

The new Levice has its castle. See www.tourist-channel.sk/levice/indexen.html for an overview of the area.

Memorial: can anyone translate? "HRDINOM. Boha a prace za oslobedenie ceskoslovenskey republiky nacecnu parnat 1944-45." Sounds like formation of the Czechoslovakian Republic, now dissolved into its two components. You can learn some Slovak here: www.heartofeurope.co.uk/dictionary_vocab.

On the way to Levice - sign on highway, out in farmland area, for Erotic Ranch, near Krskany. Sign in English. Help the patrons find it. In an area where people are pulling handcarts. Are the servers in the Ranch really making voluntary choices?

Links

2007-05-25T17:49:00.000-04:00

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Precautions

2007-05-24T18:09:00.000-04:00

1. For a specific festival, try an advance reservation, but don't worry about it.
We emailed a request to Bojnice for their annual ghosts and spirits festival at the castle, no response, went anyway, and there were plenty of hotel rooms.

2. No credit card numbers over the net. Do a broken fax if you hear back from the hotel - two or more faxes, each with some of the numbers required. Then when you get back, change your credit card numbers. Every time. Notify the companies in advance where you are going so the card will be unlocked and not flag blocks.

3. Keep minimal balances in debits.
I do not give credit card numbers over the net, but do a broken fax - two or three faxes separately to the hotel, combined to give the card if necessary. Safe? Probably not. I change all numbers when I get back, notify all credit cards of where I will be so they will expect and not block charges, and my husband keeps checking on them while I am there. Keep minimal balances in any ATM debit card, and have someone at home ready to keep replenishing as you go.

Look in your guidebooks for each country to see what special events may be taking place during your visit. In Holland and Belgium, we found the VE Day celebrations and were at those places (for the Canadians at Nijmegen, and the US at Bastogne) by May 8. Know VE Day. Europe remembers. We often don't because the events were not in our backyards.

Customs - a useful background website

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Go to www.slovakia.org. There you will find advance information about cultural-customs differences, and some are personal observations, from Slovakians.

Late evening food may not be available in rural areas. Cities may offer late food on weekdays, but not on Sundays or holidays. Shops will probably close Saturday noon. Museums are usually closed on Mondays.

Customer service may reflect a tradition where extra effort was not rewarded under communism. Accept what we get, politely ask for what we need, and stroll frequently and without fuss over to the cluster of waiters watching the TV and get their attention. We chat, no complaints.

Read James Michener's "Poland" from 1973 to get an overview of the effects of non-capitalism (no reward clearly tied to your own effort) on countries previously part of the USSR.