Slovakia

Slovakia, the land of mountains and castles! And apparently rain. I spent one night in Bratislava before renting a car and driving all over the country for a week. It rained just about every day. This put a bit of a damper on my plans of hiking up lots of mountains and taking photos of beautiful mountain landscapes, but I had a great time none the less. And got a fw decent pictures too.

I had a beautiful day in Bratislava, and beautiful day driving out to the Tatra Mountains, but the storms starting moving in my first night in the mountains. When there’s some contrast in the clouds they can actually make landscapes more dramatic

After that first night with the clouds moving in, my photo opportunities were not great for the next few days. I spent three nights in the small town of Ždiar close to the boarder with Poland, and for the first two days I wasn’t sure if there were actually any mountains there. I spent each evening either wander the hillsides outside of town, or driving around looking for interesting compositions and breaks in the endless white clouds. The shot below was taken after a long evening of driving around in circles. I actually found a town that has signs, roads and sidewalks but no houses or buildings yet! And a little while later I spotted this shot while driving and quickly pulled over. I like shots like this where it’s very much a landscape shot, and there’s no people or human made structures, but you still get the evidence of human activity with the crop rows.

The following night the clouds really broke and nature put on quite a show for me. And I glad I was there to capture it! I was both above the clouds and below them, and the mountains came out to say hi. And of course the wildflowers were in full bloom. I was hoping to get a shot from these hillsides, but these conditions surpassed anything I could have asked for or imagined.

I saw this roof my first day in town and just had to come back with the mountains out.

I honestly don’t remember what castles these are. There are so many castles in Slovakia, and they all seem to sit on steep little hills like these. I visited many, and saw many more from the distance. This part of the world has had a very turbulent history and it was very interesting to learn a little about about the struggle for this land.

I spent one night in the second biggest city in Slovakia, Košice. It’s a fairly small city by many standards, but big for Slovakia. I don’t know if there is much for a tourist to do in this city, but it has a beautiful old city center that’s a wonderful place to wander around for an evening.

And one last castle!

Slovakia is a great country to visit. The people are so nice, the scenery is beautiful and the food is delicious. What else could you ask for? Hopefully next time I visit it doesn’t rain non stop everyday.

Slovenia

Budapest

Mike Levine