Slovakia tours from Bratislava – east

Košice - the second largest city of Slovakia

The first stop of the Slovakia tours from Bratislava is Košice a city in eastern Slovakia, close to the Hungarian border. Nearby, St. Urban’s Tower contains a museum of wax figurines. In Košice is located Spiš Castle, The East Slovak Museum and The Slovak Technical Museum.

The ruins of Spiš Castle in eastern Slovakia from one of the largest castle sites in Central Europe. The castle is situated above the town of Spišské Podhradie and the village of Žehra, in the region known as Spiš.

The East Slovak Museum in Košice is one of the oldest Slovak museums. It was founded in 1872. A neo-renaissance building was erected in the early 20th century. It was the first building in the town designed to serve its needs as a museum.

The Slovak Technical Museum is a major Slovak technology museum, based in the eastern Slovak city of Košice, with branches throughout Slovakia. It was established in 1947 and opened to the public in 1948, under the name Technical Museum.

Tokaj – natural and cultural heritage

The second stop of the Slovakia tours from Bratislava is Tokaj a geographically closed area of viticulture and winery in the Bodrog river basin, northern of Slovakia bounded by the Zemplín Hills, the Rozhledna Hill and the south of Hungary.

The Slovak Tokaj wine-growing and wineries are the smallest, but the most valuable wine-growing region in Slovakia. Together with part of the area located on the territory of Hungary, there is a unified Tokaj wine-growing and wine-growing region.

The Tokaj wine region represents a distinct viticultural tradition that has existed for at least a thousand years and which has survived intact up to the present. The entire landscape of the Tokaj wine region vividly illustrates the specialized form of traditional land use that it represents.

The quality and excellence of wines is also reflected in the amount of prizes won at domestic and international exhibitions. A notable success and appreciation is also the regular inclusion of wines in the list of the National Salon of Wines.

Poloniny - UNESCO world natural heritage

Another stop of the Slovakia tours from Bratislava is Poloniny National Park in northeastern Slovakia at the Polish and Ukrainian borders, in the Bukovské vrchy mountain range, which belongs to the Eastern Carpathians.

The park is located in the Snina District in the Prešov Region. The National Park is the easternmost and least populated area of the country. Hiking trails starts from several villages, most notably Nová Sedlica but also from Runina and Topoľa.

Particularity of the territory is the occurrence of the largest complexes of original, in places virgin, beech-fir woods in Europe and the rare concentration of threatened animal and plant species. The land is characterized by the occurence of brown bear, wolf, catamount as well as wisent that only occures open in NP Poloniny.

The UNESCO defined the territory as the Biosphere Reserve of Východné Karpaty in 1993. The primeval forests of Stužica, Rožok and Havešová in the Bukovské vrchy Mts. were added to the UNESCO list of world natural heritage in June 2007.

Wooden churches – unique elements of traditional folk building methods

Another stop of the Slovakia tours from Bratislava is Carpathian Wooden Churches the name of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that consists of nine wooden religious buildings constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries in eight different locations in Slovakia.

They include two Roman Catholic (Hervartov, Tvrdošín), three Protestant (so-called Articular churches in Hronsek, Leštiny, Kežmarok) and three Greek Catholic churches (Bodružal, Ruská Bystrá, Ladomirová) plus one belfry in Hronsek.

The wooden churches offer an outstanding testimony to the traditional religious architecture of the north-western Carpathians region and to the inter-ethnic and inter-cultural character of a relatively small territory where Latin and Byzantine cultures have met and overlapped.

The Lutheran churches serve as an exceptional example of religious tolerance in Upper Hungary. In addition to these churches there are about 50 more wooden churches in the territory of present-day Slovakia mainly in the northern and eastern part of the Prešov Region.

Bardejov - one of the oldest Slovak city

Another stop of the Slovakia tours from Bratislava is Bardejov a town in North-Eastern Slovakia. It is situated in the Šariš region on the Topľa River. It exhibits numerous cultural monuments in its completely intact medieval town center. In Bardejov is located Basilica of St. Giles, The Bardejov Spa and Šariš Museum.

Basilica of St. Giles in Bardejov is a Gothic sacral building, which is situated in the northern part of the Town-Hall square. The construction of the temple, that exists today, began in the mid-14th century when German colonists settled the territory.

The Bardejov Spa has a long history. The biggest treasure of the spa is its natural mineral waters. Their composition ensures their place among the most important mineral waters in Europe. The Spa has all the conditions to provide appropriate treatment for ailments of the respiratory system, circulation conditions etc.

The Šariš Museum was founded in 1903 as The Museum of Šariš County. Nowadays it is known because of its natural history and historical exposition, but also because of its ethnographic open-air exposition. It is one of the biggest museums in Slovakia with its collection of 700 000 objects.