One week Slovakia family holiday

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One week Slovakia family holiday
Our Slovakia family holiday was a six night trip over the October half term. Although it was only a short visit, the holiday gave us a great taste of what Slovakia has to offer. We picked Slovakia as it represented good value for money and offers a range of fun activities for families. We love being outdoors and exploring – Slovakia is perfect for active kids.
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Although Slovakia is located right in the centre of Europe, it felt quite off the beaten track. Everyone speaks English in Bratislava but once you leave the capital behind, the country feels quite different and we certainly didn’t meet any other international tourists. Our visit to the Tatras Mountains fell during a national holiday – All Saints Day – many Slovakian families had travelled to the mountains for a long weekend. There was a great atmosphere with trains, restaurants and walking trails busy with local people enjoying the autumn scenery and fresh mountain air.

We split our stay in Slovakia with two nights in Bratislava and four nights at the Tatras mountain resort of Tatranská Lomnica in the north of the country. If you’re after a car-free holiday in Slovakia, it is easy to travel between these two locations by train but we decided to hire a car so we could explore en route. We stopped at a couple of towns in the centre of Slovakia which gave us an interesting contrast to the capital and the mountains.
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What is Slovakia like?
How would I sum up Slovakia? It has a cosmopolitan capital, mountains covered in dense forests, tiny villages hiding in the folds of hillsides. There are castles galore and well preserved UNESCO-listed towns to explore.
Wintertime is high season for Slovakia tourism when the Tatras mountains are (hopefully) covered in snow. Autumn, spring, summer are great for hiking. Autumn – when we visited – is exquisite, with hills covered in ever-changing colours.

Slovakia is a good value holiday destination in terms of flights, car hire and accommodation. Once you’re there, eating out is slightly cheaper than the UK but not massively so. We stayed in self catering apartments to keep costs down and cooked our own meals for much of the week. Beer and wine is very good value (cheaper than the sugary soft drinks our children chose) so we enjoyed having a few drinks in the evening before heading home for dinner.
Is Slovakia family friendly?
Yes! Slovakia is a brilliant family holiday destination year-round. Kids will love the compactness of the capital and the lack of tick-box attractions – it’s more about enjoying the atmosphere in the cafes and bars. Bratislava has lots of public sculptures to spot as you’re wandering through the old town, this is a great way to keep children engaged.
Despite our visit falling in November, there were plenty of ice cream parlours doing a roaring trade and all the cafes had blankets so plenty of people were sitting outside enjoying the sunshine.

Hills and mountains are everywhere – there are walking trails for all abilities and you never seem to be too far from a café to refuel in. We saw lots of Slovakian kids out hiking during our visit, it felt like a very outdoorsy country.
Slovakian cuisine has quite a few similarities to that of its neighbour to the north, Poland. Most menus feature schnitzel – breaded pork or chicken which our kids loved. Sheep’s cheese and potatoes are staples of Slovak cuisine. The potatoes are fashioned into dumplings and stuffed, very filling so don’t over order! Some children might enjoy bryndzové pirohy – similar to ravioli but with quite salty sheep’s cheese in the centre.

We came across trdelník in a shopping centre one day – this is a large tube shaped donut, cooked on a spit and then rolled in an inch of sugar. We also enjoyed sampling the Slovak pastries at breakfast. Our favourite was smothered with sweet cheese and blueberry jam. I ordered an interesting dessert at a very family friendly fast food joint in Banská Bystrica. It was like an apple crumble but with thin pasta twists on top of the apple. Sounds strange but works well – very filling.
Needless to say, all the usual kid-friendly fare is also found throughout the country – pizzas, pasta and burgers are easy to come by.
Cafe culture, music and ice creams in Bratislava
We spent two nights in Bratislava which amounted to two evenings and a day in the capital. Set on the Danube River, Bratislava is within easy reach of its neighbouring riverside capitals Vienna and Budapest.

We enjoyed seeking out some of the sculptures which are dotted across Bratislava. Most famous is Cumil – Man at Work, a man emerging from a manhole, but also rather fun were the two penny farthings in Primaciálne square, outside the 18th century Primaciálny Palace.

It’s an enjoyable climb up a steep path to Bratislava castle – great views from there of the capital and its otherworldly UFO bridge (complete with revolving restaurant). There’s a decent little playground too in case you need something to lure little legs up the hill.

Mostly, it was fun just to wander, and to pause at a café for an coffee or a beer. We stayed over a Sunday and Monday but the streets were full of people as if it were the middle of summer. Venturska was a fun evening venue with interesting snack food for the kids while we sampled some local drinks.

There was a jazz band playing outside a bar not far from our apartment while the one of the city squares played host to BassFest, attracting an appreciative crowd enjoying the double basses.
Where to stay in Bratislava
Accommodation in Bratislava is good value. We stayed a stone’s throw from the old town in a very spacious apartment. Beneath the apartment was a café and a vegan bistro and there were plenty of other breakfast venues vying for our attention each morning. The apartment was booked through Airbnb and cost around £100 per night.
There are plenty of other apartments all within easy reach of the centre and a good selection of hotels too.
Car hire in Slovakia
It’s a 10 minute drive from Bratislava airport to the city centre so we hopped in a taxi to return to the airport to collect a hire car. Incidentally, car hire was incredibly good value. We paid a total of £75 for a VW Golf size car for 5 days and they upgraded us to something slightly larger when we arrived.
The most beautiful road trip
The drive from Bratislava, in the far south west corner of the country, to Tatranská Lomnica in the Tatras Mountains which border Poland, takes around four hours. We drove across the centre of Slovakia and the scenery was incredible for pretty much the entire journey.

I expect Slovakia is a handsome country year-round but, with its dense forests, in autumn it looks particularly spectacular. The road winds through the Low Tatras – hilly, undulating mountains which are a contrast to the spikey peaks of the High Tatras in the north of the country.

There are small settlements strung along this artery through the hills with industrial sections and ski resorts here and there. But the forests aflame with colour are a constant feature of the journey.
Beautiful towns in Slovakia
We would have liked to do more of a circuitous route in our drive between north and south but our limited time and the short autumn days meant that we stuck to the main route through the centre of the country. This gave us the opportunity to visit two impressive Slovakian towns – Banská Štiavnica and Banská Bystrica.

Banská Štiavnica was particularly enjoyable to explore. A former mining town, where gold and silver ore were extracted for hundreds of years, Banská Štiavnica has quite a wild west feel to it. The main street snakes up a steep hill with elegant 16th century townhouses on either side. The town has been beautifully preserved earning it UNESCO status.

We just stopped in Banská Štiavnica for lunch and a walk but if you have more time to spare, there are trips down into the old mines. The town sits in a caldera, created millions of years ago by the collapse of a volcano. There are interesting walks in the surrounding hilly countryside.
On our inbound journey, we stopped for lunch at Banská Bystrica. The city has a long central square with wide pedestrianised streets leading from it, lined with shops and cafes and smart townhouses. A 16th century clock tower looks out onto the square and can be climbed for views of the town.

We only managed a brief stop at Banská Bystrica but if we were to return, I’d pay a visit to the Slovak National Uprising Museum. The central square -SNP Námestie – honours the local resistance to Germany when the Nazis invaded Slovakia in 1944.
Whilst we were staying in the Tatras Mountains, we visited another UNESCO listed town – Levoča. It has colourful buildings lining its main streets and a large Renaissance church at the central square. We had planned to take a look inside the church – it is famed for having the tallest wooden alter in the world – but our meal of venison stew and dumplings in a nearby restaurant overran and the church was closed by the time we finished.
Slovakia’s High Tatras mountains
The Tatras Mountains form a natural border with Poland. It’s a drive of around two hours from the border to Krakow.

The Tatras are part of the Carpathian mountain range. Not as mighty as the Alps but just as stunning and a fair bit quieter and cheaper.
As well as the well known Polish ski resort of Zakopane, Slovakia’s Poprad also offers easy access to the slopes – it’s served by Ryanair from Stansted.
I’m keen to return to the Tatras in summer and try out some of the hut to hut hiking trails. Slovakian food is rich and hearty – made for fuelling long days in the mountains. I’m sure it would be a fantastic experience. I’ve heard good things about Travel Slovakia which offers guided and self guided tours in the mountains – have a read of Kevin Rushby’s review in the Guardian.
Tatranská Lomnica
We chose the resort town of Tatranská Lomnica as our base in the Tatras Mountains. It’s a fairly modern sprawl of holiday accommodation – hotels and apartments – with a railway line running through the centre.
Aside from the city of Poprad to the south, Tatranská Lomnica is the largest settlement in the area and perfect for families who want to enjoy easy access to the mountains. There are several shops (just one supermarket) and plenty of restaurants.

There’s a cable car which takes visitors half way up the mountain where there’s a restaurant, small lake and plenty of walking trails. From this point, there’s a further cable car which looks like something out of a James Bond movie. For a considerable sum, this small capsule rattles a select few to the summit of Mt Lomnický štít – the highest peak in the Tatras range, 2,634 metres.

We pondered whether to fork out for this attraction but we’re glad we didn’t. We watched the little cable car disappear off into the clouds each day with only the final day offering a clear view of the summit. Due to its size (it only holds 14 people), you have to book in advance so you’re at the mercy of the ever-changing mountain weather. There were plenty of other stunning vistas to be had at lower altitudes.

Elsewhere in Tatranská Lomnica, we had fun riding on Tatrabob – part toboggan, part rollercoaster, I was surprised how much I felt the need to apply the brakes of my metal box as it whizzed me down and around the course. In summer there are also “mountain carts” – three wheel non-motorised go-carts which travel down mountain paths. They look like fun. There was a rather unofficial man with a quadbike who agreed to let our boys (and their dad) drive the quadbike around a makeshift track.
Tatranská Lomnica has a good range of eateries – traditional fare, pizzas, burgers and plenty more. There are lots of places to grab a beer or a varené víno (hot wine) and the atmosphere, even in November, felt festive.
We stayed in three bedroomed Apartment Juli – 10 minutes walk from the centre of Tatranská Lomnica. It was spacious and well maintained and a lovely place to retire to in the evenings. It cost around £100 per night – good value we thought.
The Tatra Electric Railway
Tatranská Lomnica sits at the end of the line of the electric mountain railway. The train travels along the foothills of the mountains stopping at the many little settlements along the route. There’s a branch south to Poprad or you can stay heading west to the terminus at Štrbské Pleso. Pleso means lake, by the way.
The train was absolutely packed on the day we took it. It was All Saints Day – a national holiday – and the weather was great so there were lots of families enjoying a long weekend in the mountains. Most people changed trains at Starý Smokovec to get the connecting train to Štrbské Pleso our destination too – so we followed the crowds wandering across the tracks.
Hiking from Štrbské Pleso to Popradske Pleso
We enjoyed a brilliant walk from Štrbské Pleso to Popradske Pleso. Štrbské Pleso is quite built up and not a very attractive town. The streets are lined with a multitude of stalls selling knickknacks made from sheepswool and other tourist essentials. I’d imagine it’s a more appealing destination when some of the concrete is hidden under snow.

Anyway, we left Štrbské Pleso and set off through the forest on the trail to Popradske Pleso. It’s a round trip of about 12 kilometres according to my Strava app. The route is very varied – rocky and steep in places, dense woodland, as well as open stretches which reveal stunning mountain vistas once the clouds part.

Once you reach Popradske Pleso, there’s a large welcoming restaurant with lots of outdoor seating. Although it was quite chilly up there, a big plate of chips and a mysterious hot alcoholic drink kept me pretty warm. The walk around the lake is lovely – the mountains soar above you with each view very different to the last.

There’s a slightly different track which you can choose to take on the way back down to Štrbské Pleso. Although the outbound route and the lake area were packed with families, this inbound trail was completely empty and I felt slightly anxious about the interpretation boards which included information about the resident bear population. My children had previously concluded on a trip to Yosemite that as the slowest member of the family I am the first to be sacrificed if we come across any negative wildlife encounters.

Spis Castle
Slovakia is famous for its castles so we took a day trip out of the mountains to nearby Spis Castle – around 45 minutes east from Tatranská Lomnica.

We were among a handful of visitors to this vast hilltop fortification. Dating back to the 12th century and rebuilt over the years to become a palace for wealthy noblemen, the castle – one of the largest in Europe – has gained UNESCO status.
Final thoughts on our family holiday in Slovakia
Although we only spent a week in Slovakia, it’s given us a real taster of what the country has to offer. We only scratched the surface. There are many more mountains to explore, cycling trails, caves and lots of castles to visit. I’m also keen to try a bike ride along the Danube to Vienna on our next visit.
Have you enjoyed a Slovakia family holiday? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.