A nice enough place but not worth a long stay.

The castle at Orava
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I got to Zilina on the bus to find that there were a lot of people in town. There is some sort of festival in September which seems to be quite popular with Slovaks even though no foreigners seem to know that it is even on. The hotel that I was going to stay in has gone upmarket since the LP people were last here so I headed into town to go to tourist information.

Cheap accomodation is impossible to get once Uni has gone back it seems so I had to stay in something a bit more expensive but definitely not that much more upmarket than a hostel unless you count that it had its own bathroom. Which did have truly awesome water pressure by the way. Oh and please excuse some of the weird punctuation in this entry. The keyboard is set to Czech and lots of the keys are either in a different spot and I cannot find them or work out how I get them to work. Like brackets and apostrophes. Sorry!

Travelbear and me on the bridge at Oravsky Podhradie
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The man at the tourist office was very helpful even though we did have to speak German as it was easier for him. He found me a room in a penzion and gave me instructions to get there and some brochures about the town. Really though there is not much to do in Zilina. I looked around the entire old town in a couple of hours during the afternoon and it was not exactly exciting. The square is pleasant enough and there are plenty of cafes to sit at and while away the time but that is much more fun when you are with someone.

I imagine that the castle does look quite sinister in the dark
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I had another weird vegie pizza for dinner. They seem to be a Slovakian speciality. This one had asparagus, tomatoes, artichokes and cheese, not a combination that I would usually choose. That night I dyed my hair. Now that I am not getting the sun anymore, my roots and tips were becoming more and more obviously different colours. So I dyed the whole lot the middle colour and it looks heaps better. It was so nice to have my own bathroom so that I could sit naked and wait for the dye to do its thing and spend ages in the shower washing it all out.

It is really well restored and you can go into most of the buildings.
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The reason that I came to Zilina was not for the town itself but to go to Orava Castle in the Orava Valley about an hour away. Orava Castle is an old gothic castle and one of the best preserved in Slovakia with most of the inside restored. It was used in the original Nosferatu film as Draculas castle. The town itself is rather pretty except for the large industrial section as you first arrive.

Just a tip for people who are coming here from Zilina or somewhere else that have to travel through Dolny Kubin. There are two train stations in Dolny Kubin and surprisingly enough trains do actually stop at both of them even though one of them looks like it has been deserted for centuries. I found this one first and decided that it could not possibly be the station and then hiked all the way back across town to find the other station which looks much more like it should. I should have stayed on the bus for one more stop and then I would have got off right next to the station instead of ten minutes walk away.

View from one of the towers down into the courtyard.
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At the castle you have to join a tour and they are only run in Slovakian. There are not many foreigners here and I did not actually see any other english as a first language visitors in the time I was there. There are some texts in English and German in some of the rooms but often they are missing pages and you also have to read and remember for several rooms as they are often only in the first room. The texts also do not tell you as much as the guides unless the Slovaks have a very round about way of saying things. They also were not as amusing.

Looking up from the courtyard at Orava Castle
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The original castle was built in the 13th century before getting gothic additions in the 16th century. It was damaged by a fire in the 1800s but was rebuilt. It was restored during the 1950s to its current state. Most of it is still gothic and romanesque. Inside there is a large collection of furniture, paintings, ceramics, armour from various periods. It is really quite well put together. There are a lot of stairs though, I am talking a lot. Probably 200 to 250 to get to the top tower and then all the way back down the whole lot to get back out again. There was a couple who had brought their 4 yo with them and not only was she bored after 15 minutes but she also had to be carried up and down all the stairs.

At the end of the tour some of the group did the Church of St Michael which is really lovely and probably one of the best restored sections of the castle. After the fire it was redone in Baroque style but actually quite tastefully for Baroque. I know that is not saying much! They have put a glass floor in one section so that you can see the coffins in the crypt.

After seeing the castle and having a quick walk around the rest of the old town which is not all that big, I had lunch in the park and then headed off to the train station to head back to Zilina. It turns out that there are not many trains out of Oravsky Podhradie during the day only in the early morning and late afternoon. So I had to hang around for a couple more hours. It was such a burden having to go and sit in the park and do nothing for a while. Then I caught the train all the way through to Kralovany and swapped for the train to Zilina.

That night I had one of the best meals I have had in ages. It was at a cafe in the square in Zilina called Voyage Voyage. I had turkey fillets crumbed with oats and sunflower seeds and potatoes and tomato salad. And the salad that came with the turkey did not have beetroot in it. Or grated raw onion! It was home style food with a slovakian edge and it was really nice and fresh. Definitely somewhere to go to if you happen to be in Zilina.