I thought I knew Ko拧ice very well as my brother lives there and I've been there countless times. It turns out there are still many places that I haven't visited yet or haven't even heard about. A couple of weeks ago, we've been there with my mom and my aunt. My brother took us to the castle ruins on top of a hill towering above Ko拧ice from where you can enjoy great views of the city and its surroundings. Today, you can't see much of the castle ruins, but there is an observation platform and a tower that you can visit. And this is where I want to take you today.
You can get to the foothill by bus, but we went by car. I generally don't enjoy public transportation and when it's almost 40 degrees Celsius it means literal hell to me. Plus it's so much easier to go directly from the parking area. On top of the hill is a caf茅 which I thought was in a building, but it's a truck that I found really cool. As you can see it's about 1 km away from the parking which was perfect. I went ahead with my husband and the rest of our family was walking slowly behind us.
There were various wooden and stone artworks on the way. I didn't see any sings, so I can't tell you more about them, but it was nice to see that the forest is being taken care of and everything is well maintained.
This is the only kind of lynx that I have ever seen. Apparently, they live in the woods in the part of Slovakia where I used to live, but I haven't seen any of them in real life even though I spent my entire childhood running around the woods. Luckily, I didn't meet any bears either.
After a short while we already saw the observation tower. We decided not to wait for our family, but to go ahead and order some drinks for us. They came just in time when the drinks were almost ready. We sat under the trees for a while.
Then we walked around the medieval village which featured a few houses and goats. They were really friendly and came to people who started to feed them.
My husband (being as na茂ve as he is in such situations) tried to take a selfie with this beauty. And this beauty tried to eat him when he looked away. It scared the s*** out of him and gave me a great laugh. I don't think that he will approach a goat anytime soon.
These constructions are copies of what it looked liked a few centuries ago. They are mainly agricultural buildings which were used to store hay or some sort of grain.
This was a potter's workshop which felt very relevant as it's what I'm doing. I must say that my conditions are more advanced 馃槉
I wish I knew more about this building. It was kind of strange as it was rather tiny...
But we came for the views, right? This is the pathway that will take us there...
Some views are already popping up from behind the trees...
I have waited for a few minutes until there was nobody on the platform, and then I hurried my family to get there before other visitors, so that we can have a nice photo. Why is my family so slow? On the other hand, they always ask me why I'm so fast, and we somehow never meet in the middle.
Ko拧ice is the second biggest city (after Bratislava) in Slovakia. As you can see we don't have large cities like other countries, but its size surprised my husband anyway. We usually don't go to residential parts as my brother lives in the old town, so he didn't expect that it was this big.
I must say it's bigger that I expected too...
This was only the platform, so now it's time to go to the observation tower from where we should see much farther...
In the beginning we didn't see much...
It was the first time when I saw a counter in such a touristic spot. It's perfect as it never gets crowded. I think that the limit was 20 people, but the platform is so big that you don't really notice them. And there are the views, so this should be your focus point anyway.
It doesn't matter in which part of the platform you are, you always have 360 degrees views...
Going up and we can see farther and farther away...
I enjoyed being there so much as there was a lot of wind, so it felt like the temperature was much lower than it actually was.
I thought that this was the entire city, but I changed my mind when I went one level up...
Some parts were a little bit scary and exciting at the same moment...
And on the left is the part of the city that we could see only from the top part of the platform...
It looks like somebody really needed that tile at home. They must have very specific decoration style as they took this tile.
On each side you can pinpoint certain landmarks and this is something what I enjoy, so I could have spend hours and hours there, but I was thinking about those people waiting for us to leave, so that they can have their turn, so we didn't stay there long.
Look how pretty it is!
2 more photos before going down...
How I wish it would be so windy there too!
I don't remember what time we left, but it was the worst time for a car ride to where my mom lives as it took us about 1.5 hours and all the time the sun was shining directly at me in the car. It was so hot that even the aircon didn't help and I couldn't be happier (and grumpier) when we finally got there and I could step out of the car.
It was really a great day spent with family when I forget about the car ride 馃槉
Thank you for reading!
