The plan was to visit the castle and the skanzen* in the morning and then do something else after lunch, but it took all day. That’s O.K. It was really a beautiful day.
Likava Castle
Castles, in a way, are like Cathedrals. They are all over the damned place in Europe, everywhere you go they are listed as sites that must be seen, and they’re all the same – seen one, you’ve seen them all. Perhaps I’m over simplifying a bit with castles. They fall into two main categories. Those which are intact, some of which are still used as something or other, and those which are ruins. In both cases, though, it has been my experience that the best part of any castle tour is the walk up to it and around the area. The tour of the castle itself is invariably a disappointment.
Likava Castle was no exception. We could see it from quite a distance, standing majectically at the peak of a mountain (This is the difference between a castle and a palace. A castle was built for defense, and are almost always, therefore, at the top of a mountain, or at least a strategically placed hill) overlooking the Vah River Valley. It fell into the ruins category, but enough of the walls were still standing that it looked pretty majestic. I thought it was a bit cheeky of them to charge admission to it, though, because there wasn’t much inside except a few instruments of torture which may not have even been originals, and they wouldn’t let anybody into the upper part, due to the probability that it could fall over if anybody breathed on it funny. Nonetheless, we’d walked up, so we paid.
After that, we were all feeling a bit hungry so we stopped for a snack which turned out to be lunch and quite a nice lunch, too. Helena’s cabbage soup was excellent, and I say that as someone who is not generally a fan of cabbage soup, but it had generous portions of sausage and potatoes, too. We were seated on a covered terrace, with a beautiful view of the mountains all around.
The kids were ready to call it a day, they weren’t interested in any old skanzen, but I insisted, because it’s educational, you know, and I’m a big believer in making the kids suffer because it’s good for them.
Vlkolinec
It was really pretty, log houses and wooden furniture and implements, the gallery had some local crafts and the stream was channeled through wooden tubes and there were pumps to drink from at regular intervals which was great, because it was another stinking hot day.
Like with the castle, however, the best thing about it was the walk up (large numbers of black butterflies with just a bit of orange trim) and the view from the top.
*there’s no one-word translation for skanzen in English. Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, or the Living History Farms west of Des Moines are skanzens. The closest English translation is living history museum.
www.gurukalehuru.com 