Zilina

Time to change countries again! Loaded up the car and headed out of Brno, again with a bit of traffic. I think we made the mistake of getting a place in the city centre when we didn't need to - we've spent all of our time outside the city and haven't explored here at all.

Quite a long drive today, approx 4 hours from Brno south-west to the isolated little town of Vlkolinec in Slovakia. It was bitterly cold outside, only a few degrees, though thankfully no snow! Except in one part where we drove over a mountain pass and through a ski resort - lots of snow on the slopes and buildings, but none on the road. There are handy temperature read-outs at regular intervals, telling you both the air temperature and the road temperature so that you know when to expect ice.

Had a quick lunch at McDonalds and kept on driving, eventually arriving at Vlkolinec (vill-collEEN-etsh) around 2pm. It's a small mountain village, only about 50 houses, and is apparently a great example of what traditional Slovakian mountain villages are like. I'll be honest - these aren't my favourite type of world heritage site, but it was moderately interesting I guess.

Quite pretty with snow on the roofs, little bits on the grass and so on. Some brightly coloured houses too which was quite nice. Did our filming which didn't take long, then hopped back into the car as we had one last stop to make.

Drove for another hour or so out of the mountains and arrived at a tiny hamlet of Hronsek, where the last of our wooden churches was located. This is one of the Slovakian ones (as opposed to the southern Polish ones, and the Polish/Ukrainian ones). We weren't intending to go inside but it was open so we went in, and although the lady operating the place didn't speak English, there was another couple inside she was showing around, and the man spoke English so kindly translated a little for us.

Had a good look around (though couldn't film inside), then headed off again. And just in time, since it was now about 3:30 and the light was fading fast. Daylight savings had ended a couple of days prior and it now gets dark around 4pm.

Back to the car where we drove to our hotel for the night at the town of Banksa Stiavnica. A mountain town that's also a world heritage site which we'll be checking out tomorrow. Found ourselves a parking spot right out the front of our hotel, settled in, then grabbed some dinner from a nearby cafe. Had a local delicacy of cheese samosas, topped with two other types of cheese. It was .. interesting.Read more