Záhorie: the unbeaten north-west area of SLOVAKIA

Dear explorers,

a new spring season is just started and soon I had a chance to set off by car with my girlfriend to the north-west area of Slovakia known as Záhorie, the name itself means “by-the-mountains” because it is a extended wooded flat area enclosed by the Little Carpathians (Malé Karpaty) on the east and the Morava river on the west, in addition to that, Záhorie itself is segmented by the two regions Bratislavský kraj (capital region) and Trnavský kraj (region of Trnava).

We focused on the upper-east part which is in the region of Trnava and it boundaries with Czech Republic, we had chance to visit three key towns:

Skalica
Holíč
Šaštín-Stráže

Living in the capital city Bratislava and travelling to our first destination Skalica was simply impressive to observe how big is the potential of Slovakia with plenty of woods and forests all around, although nowadays most of Slovakia attractions have become very attractive and therefore very popular and overcrowded, in here it seems there is no such hordes of visitors around 🙂 We could even afford to park the car for free at the edge of the main square (imagine yourselves to do such a thing in any other bigger town).

Skalica was worth the trip for three reasons:

the suggestive Calvary at the top of a very small hill
Rotunda SV Juraja (Round terrace of Saint George)
the city walls which surround the centre of the town

The third one recalls the age of the Great Moravian Empire conflicting with the Austrian-Hungarian empire and since Skalica was founded in the middle-age therefore it was a big concern to be protected by the external attacks.

After we spent two hours by enjoying a chilly walk around as well as photo-shooting to catch up all the most relevant spots (soon a new selected photo set will be uploaded on my Flickr page), we had a lunch break and then we moved to our second destination Holíč.

Holíč is famous for its baroque-style chateau which was originally built during the middle age as a water castle and later on 1736 it was re-built during the aforesaid baroque century by František Lotrinský, the interior of such a great chateau was unfortunately closed however according to the details it counts of almost hundred of rooms. (Look at the pictures below)

Such a cultural visit from the exterior took us one hour, so then since the day light was generously going on, we further drove to our third destination
Šaštín-Stráže.

This is one of the youngest village in Slovakia because was settled as town municipality on year 2001. According to the history background it was the result of merging two separate villages: Šaštín and Stráže nad Myjavou.

It is renowned for its imposing basilica in which comes in for several pilgrimages once per year on Pentecost, however (fortunately) that was not our case and we enjoyed all the surrounding areas with a peaceful environment 🙂 Moreover, we have found out that there is even a railway station as well as quite some refurbished houses with huge gardens which are a great inspiring idea of a relaxing living town.

To sum it up, if you wish to spend an inspiring chilling Saturday away from the capital city, this tour could be a great choice to discover some new great and alternative aspects of the country-side in Slovakia. Moreover, I feel like to recommend it for a cycling tour, we have noticed that cycle tracks are pretty much everywhere, then especially around Skalica.

Giuseppe