Slovakia Weekend

A few weeks ago, a friend from school mentioned that his family has a cottage house in Slovakia...and would anyone be interested in going there for the weekend.  Of course several of us jumped at the chance to get away for the weekend with friends, so fast forward to last weekend and off we went!  It ended up being 7 of us...from 7 different countries (Australia, Austria, Croatia, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, and the US!)...and speaking 6 different languages.  It was definitely a weekend of cultural appreciation and knowledge expansion for all of us.  We left Vienna about 9:45 Friday morning...and it would have been a 4 hour or so drive if we had gone straight there...but we stopped a few times, and got to the cabin about 7:30pm...but the journey was definitely part of the fun (my Austrian music knowledge has expanded quite a bit).  

navigation set! (ignore the time in the car...this was taken later)

passing all sorts of little towns complete with castles perched up on hills

Our first stop was for lunch, which was about 2 hours, but really good food, and nice to be out of the car for a bit and just hang out.  Our second stop was at Miro's house, where his mom spoiled us with a seemingly endless supply of sandwiches, coffee, tea, fruit, cookies, etc.  The house and the outside eating space was fantastic, and definitely the perfect tea time stop on our road trip.

our sandwiches, so fresh and so delicious

our first group photo before heading off to the cabin

We did make one more stop in here, to a local sheep farm to pick up some fresh cheese for the weekend...yum yum yum. 

our cabin...we made it!!

our outdoor eating space, where we spent the majority of our time, although the cabin did have a nice living/dining room with plenty of seating and space for us, but the weather was plenty warm for us to stay outside.

the first of our home-cooked meals.  Grocery shopping was a bit of an adventure with all of us, deciding what actually belongs in a salad...what proper side dishes are...(the Russian among us insisted on potatoes, which were really good) but we figured it all out and ate quite well all weekend.

Saturday morning we went on what Miro called "a light hike through the valley" which we all took to mean fairly flat...perhaps by some water...sounded lovely and relaxing.  While this hike was lovely, it wasn't exactly "relaxing".  It was more like hike straight up and then overlook the valley...then walk down into the valley...then back up to the ridge...then back down.  But we did make it.  And there was a cool working mill at the bottom of the valley once we got there.

We aren't entirely sure which way to go

We made it to the mill!

The mill was really neat, and they let you walk around inside, even though water is running through and all these belts and gears are moving around...I guess it's your own fault if you stick a hand where it doesn't belong.

and back up we go...

We stopped in a poppy field on the side of the road to check out the flowers.

After our hike we were all pretty hungry, and eager to try local foods, so we went to a restaurant by a campground nearby and let Miro order a bunch of things for us that we could just pass around.  We ended up with several types of soup, noodles with bacon, trout, pork, potatoes, venison goulash, some other sort of venison, and duck.  I think I remembered everything... 

and we ate just about everything. 

just because we're out in the woods doesn't mean we can't live stream a Euro Cup match on an ipad while we enjoy the fire and a glass of wine...

Saturday evening we cooked another wonderful meal on the grill and all hung out and talked and laughed way into the night.  Sunday morning we intended to get up fairly early and get on with our day, but that didn't exactly happen...but after a nice brunch at the cabin Miro had a few local sites for us to see...starting with the natural thermal pool.

we're only slightly out of place here... 

and then onto a nearby lake

And then it was back to Vienna!  Which still didn't take us 4 hours...we had to stop back by the local sheep farm...and back by Miro's house for "lunch" although I think again that was 4pm.  We made it back about 8pm on Sunday I think.

It was such a fun weekend, such a beautiful country, amazing food, and of course good friends to make it all even better!