We had a quiet nights sleep in the city carpark, and this morning we went for a walk into the old town to have a look around.

Banská Bystrica is actually a really nice town nestled in the mountains. The Old Town was all cobblestones and colourful buildings. Fountains splashed in the square, and people sat in cafes, enjoying their morning coffee. A fancy church with twin towers rose at the end of the plaza, clearly thinking he was the star. We took a photo with a rubbish truck in front of it, just to bring it down a notch.

There was also a museum here about the Slovak National Uprising which I think would have been interesting but it wasn’t in English, so we didn’t bother. But there were some old tanks to look at and this was good enough for me.

It was lunchtime by the time we moved on. Where to? No idea. It was going to be a hot day, and I just wanted to find somewhere in the shade to stay. But it’s impossible. 

We drove a windy road through a gorge and forest, and while it was very beautiful, the car and motorbike drivers were crazy. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog how drivers overtake without caring if it’s a blind corner, a solid white line, or if a car is coming the other way. The same applies to motorbikes. We were on edge for most of the drive. One motorbike overtook us on a blind corner just as a car came around it causing a near miss. How they didn’t collide is beyond me. And the whole drive was like that.

Fun fact: Slovakia has a slightly higher population than NZ, and a lower road toll. How? I have no idea. Maybe their drivers are just more switched on.

And the impatience isn’t limited to the roads. At the supermarket, a woman came barrelling toward me with her trolley, clearly expecting me to leap out of the way. I didn’t as I was looking at something, and she huffed as she swerved past. 

Then we continued our drive up towards another castle. But this was no ordinary castle. It was a proper fairytale one. Okay, some of the others were fairytale too, but this looked more like it belonged in a Disney film than the middle of Slovakia.

The place has been rebuilt a few times over the centuries, but the current look is due to a rich Count in the 1800s, clearly going for a theatrical vibe. It might have been nice to look around, but it was a Saturday and the streets were crawling with people, so we just looked at it from the outside and headed on, along another windy road.

I am having so much trouble finding suitable camping spots in Slovakia. The last two nights have been in city carparks and we really wanted somewhere we can just sit in the shade, maybe do some washing and chill out. I  keep reminiscing of that beautiful river spot in Poland, with the friendly Polish people and their campfires and sausages. But nope, there was nowhere like that to be found, not even a camping ground.

At 6.30 I found a place overlooking a lake in a city, which was quite picturesque and we sat and chilled out in the shade for a while. But with the motorway on one side, and a train line on the other, it was quite noisy. So we packed up and drove to the Czech Republic!

Not much changed as we crossed the border. We stopped at a service station for one of their sausages (they call them hotdogs here) and considered that dinner. And we drove and drove, finally finding a carpark up on a hill with beautiful views over the countryside. It wasn’t ideal, there would be no shade in the morning, but for now, at 9pm, we considered it home.