We actually got picked up quite quickly from Kosice which was nice because it was raining quite heavily. It was only a short trip to Prešov and we didn't really actually have anything planned there other than staying the night at Mario's friend Dominik's place and then heading off the next morning. Our driver was nice enough to drop us right at the front door of Dominik's place though and then even wait with us to make sure we had the right place before leaving. There are a lot of really nice people out there you find when travelling this way.

Although we didn't really do anything here, we were totally spoiled again. His step mum made these amazing crepes which we had with amazing homemade jam and whipped cream, for dinner. Life is good. After dinner we went out to a couple of bars. First one was kinda a hipster bar with heaps of books and stuff and it went under ground 3 stories. It was pretty cool though and had good beer. Then we went to another one for a few more beers then went back home and watched some youtube.

We were on the road again the next morning, trying to hitch to Levoča. Dominik showed us a good spot to hitch from as he had done it himself a few times. It didn't really take all that long to be picked up. It was only a short trip to Levoča so we were there quite early. This was a little town with town walls. We had no host here and there were no hostels and only quite expensive hotels, so we had to camp. We put up the tent Nikki had but it was way too cold so we ended up staying in a little cabin. It wasn't too bad.

Out plan today was to go to Spiš Castle which is one of the largest castles in central Europe, though it is just ruins now after burning down a few hundred years ago. It was pretty tight getting there in time but we did make it with about 90mins to walk around inside. It was a fair hike up hill to even get to the castle. But well worth it. The castle was huge and just amazing to walk around. There's not really much to say that can't be better said by the photos.

On Thursday we walked around Levočaa little bit but there wasn't much to see. The one thing that might have been cool was that the church there has the world's largest wooden altar. But guess what, the church was bloody under construction wasn't it, so I couldn't see it. So we took a bus to a little place called Spišský Štvrtok and then on to a camping place in the Slovak Paradise. That night we just chilled with some beers and movies. We had a lot of hiking to do the next day.

On Friday we took one of the popular hiking trails in the Slovak Paradise and it was awesome. This was no simple hike. It started out just walking along a creek which wasn't too bad, every now and then it was broken up by little wooden walk ways across the trickier areas. But then it started going upwards, and at some points it was basically cliff which nothing but a metal ladder to go up. These ladders were kinda wet and slippery and often required you just stepping off on to a small cliff edge and shimmying across holding a chain on the wall. It was all quite perilous and a fall would have almost certainly meant death or at least a few broken bones. I'm not sure you could do something like this back home without being connected to safety ropes.

After a day of hiking we again just relaxed with some beers and movies. The next day we went to the ice cave near Dobšiná. It was kinda cool, but a little disappointing too for the 7 euro we paid for the tour which only lasted 20 mins and we weren't even allowed to take pics. We did stealthily snap a few though.

Through a series of miscalculations we found ourselves in Dobšiná which was a very small little village and completely dead. We had to wait there a few hours to get a bus back to where we wanted to be.

On Sunday we went to Poprad at the base of the Tatra mountains.