Easter adventure

I've been spending the last two weeks with my family. We came here to celebrate Easter. My family is half Catholic and half Orthodox, so we celebrate Easter and Christmas twice.

For Christmas there are fixed dates for both religions, but for Easter the dates may vary each year. We could celebrate in one weekend or there could be a few weeks in between. This year, the orthodox Easter is one week after the catholic one, and therefore we stayed for a couple of weeks to celebrate both.

The weather wasn't in our favour for more than a week, but now it's getting better, so we go out as much as we can as it can change anytime. A few days ago, we went to a village nearby to visit a museum where we found an Easter exhibition, and then we walked in the forest to check out an old sightseeing train which will be at work in a couple of years ago.

Let's start!

I remember this village from my childhood. The houses were old, the roads were almost non existent and there was really not much to see. However, there is a huge progress and the townhall takes great care of the village now.

There is a museum, renovated wooden and clay houses, old mines which can be visited now, and marked signs to multiple trails in Poloniny mountain range.

The museum normally shows the history of the village as well as the region, and it's a meeting point for the elderly who come here together to create some items that they sell at local markets.

Today, there is a special exhibition for Easter.

The building is dominated by an old chimney which was built together with the house. The exhibition is right behind the chimney.

There are many Easter traditions in Slovakia. One of them is decorating of eggshells. There are multiple techniques and some of them are real pieces of art, such as the ones below.

Another tradition is for men to throw cold water at women and to hit them (hopefully lightly) with a special string (below). This is done for women to stay beautiful for the entire year. I must admit that I'm not a big fan of this tradition, and luckily it is not practiced so much in my family anymore. The funniest thing is that as a woman you are supposed to gift something to men as a thank you for hitting you. It could be those decorated eggs, some chocolate eggs, a shot of alcohol or some Easter food. Some families gift some money to little boys too.

As I mentioned, some of the eggshells are real piece of art. The eggshells below are all handmade. In the past, we could buy them, but the artist passed away, so his wife only lends his work for exhibitions now.

Look at the intricate detail...

This is another technique to decorate them...

And these eggshells were for sale. We didn't pick any, but as you can see some of them were missing, so people purchased them.

Another tradition is to hang decorated eggshells on branches of Pussy willow. I really hope that this is the right name of this plant in English 🙂

After we saw everything in the museum, we went to check out the old train in the forest. We came across some information for tourists which was great as I'm happy that the region is developing and expecting people to visit.

This region is known for its various industries. Here we can see an example of a charcoal pile which was a device used for production of charcoal for the iron industry. Burning charcoal was one of main activities of the local inhabitants.

There was also a mining adit. Unfortunately, it was closed but it should be open in summer. It is now too cold and humid to enter. This is where men searched for locations with iron ore. There are many tunnels hidden behind this heavy door.

The restoration of the mining adit was done in cooperation with Switzerland which was cool as this is where we live. What a coincidence!

There were some charming visitors too...

And the flowers are finally coming out after the long winter...

We are getting closer to the train...

It was a bit muddy, but we managed to get there. As we say: There is no bad weather, only bad clothing or in this case bad shoes 🙂

Some stairs to reach the train...

And here we are! We were able to open the door and go inside, but it was too high and slippery, so I rather stayed outside. The railways is being constructed/renovated and once it's finished it will be open to public. It will be connecting various spots in the region and hopefully it will attract some tourists.