Slovak National Uprising

Got our bags all packed up yesterday morning at 10:00am and asked the desk girl if we could leave our bags in their office until late afternoon. Turns out that she didn't speak any English. So it was Google Translate to the rescue!

I ran back upstairs and grabbed Ruth's little netbook and went back down and and typed my questions into the box and google translated it into Slovak for the girl to read. What a neat thing! What did we do in the olden days?? Too funny.

Sure enough, we were okay leaving our bags in the office.

So then what did we do? Well, we went for a hike! Only a short one though, about 6 kms (3.8 miles).

The first part was a switchback trail.

But it led to a great view of the city of Banska Bystrica.

We had some lunch after our hike, and then we went to an interesting museum. We had no idea that this area played such an important role in World War II and there is a museum here all about the Slovak National Uprising against the Nazis.

The museum is the interesting building on the hill.

There was a remembrance ceremony here only a few days ago.

Essentially, there was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement in 1944 during World War II. It was launched on August 29 of that year, and in this town which is why there was a ceremony here recently. 

Part of the museum is outdoors.

And it includes some German WW II vehicles.

Strange machinery!

The museum houses over 200,000 artifacts from the war.

A large display of uniforms.

Even had English explanations of things!

Entrance to the museum cost only €2.00 ($2.50). Well worth a couple of hours of your time to visit this museum if you're ever in the area!

We met our couchsurfing host Adriana at the arranged time of 5:00pm and took a bus to her flat. Unfortunately we won't be able to spend much time with her, but we did manage to chat for a while in the evening.

This morning, we're off to Budapest, and our stay at the newly renovated Casati Budapest Hotel!