Kosice

Joanna has gone on about Slovakia previously, having visited there on her university holidays. So we had to go back. And it's just dead brilliant. People are lovely, the countryside is beautiful, everything's set up wonderfully, everyone speaks english, their town centres are very nice...

It's not very citified either. Kosice is the 2nd city, with about a quarter of a million people. The capital, Bratislava, is only twice that size. But that's far west of where we got to. We made it to Kosice in the dark from Ukraine, so we're not sure what the east of the country looked like either.

As a slight warning, only pizza places seem to be open after 10pm in the city. We're a bit bored of pizza. Forget American cultural imperialism, it's Italian pizza you can't get away from all over Europe. You're out looking for local cuisine, and what do you find? Pizza, pizza, or, indeed, pizza. So we were forced to have McDonald's. We guess one should occasionally give them some money to keep up their international toilet facilities.

We were only in Kosice for 1 night, and that was the only downside. The central square is beautiful, with this church in the middle:

And the historic city centre is beneath - you can go down and look.

And whilst the bell tree played "Yesterday" to signal the hour:


We got a text from Ben's brother announcing his engagement: Well done David & Katrina!

The excitement got a bit much for Joanna:


And then it was time to head off to the Tatras for some walking...