Fülek - Filakovo

I am going to relate about my journey to Slovakia. I went to an IT competition with a group of kids from the school, with their IT teacher. She asked me, if I wanted to accompany them. The competition lasted for 3 days, 2 days we spent in Filakovo, Slovakia and one in Sajgótarján, Hungary.

First of all, this was my first trip abroad after Romania joined the European Union. We passed quickly all the borders, showing only our passports or our identity cards to the officers.

Filakovo is a pretty little town, near the Slovakian-Hungarian border. The town is inhabited by both Slovakians and Hungarians and other nationalities.

View of Filakovo from the fortress

There are few remarkable sights of historical interest: the Castle of Filakovo, the Roman Catholic Church with a Franciscan Monastery, the Herold's Manor House, which is now the Gymnazium (grammar school), and the Town Hall with the watchtower.

The Castle is situated on the top of a volcanic crater, the bases of the walls are carved in the volcanic rock. The fortress had an important strategical role in the middle age, during the Turkish invasion, but was blown up in 1682, losing it's importance. Nowadays it is under reconstruction, using EU fonds.

Arch

View








The Catholic Church is decorated in Baroque style and has a low tower, situated unusually on its north-eastern side.

The Catholic Church







Inside the Catholic Church








The Gymnazium

Old and new










Apart from these touristic information, that you can find everywhere, here you have my personal observations. In Filakovo you can find the best ice-cream ever! It is a tongue-twister, to ask for it in Slovakian language, but it is worth the effort!

ZMRZLINA = ice-cream in Slovakian

The local beer, the CORGON is very good, smooth and tasty. You can buy also excellent juice at the local markets, black-currant with hip juice and strawberry with banana juice. They are awesome!
The local wine is not very good, as our tour guide explained, when Petőfi, the famous Hungarian poet visited the town, he was complaining about the wine and said: "If the Turkish invaders had tried this wine, they would have left the town immediately."

Salgótarján

Salgótarján is a modern city, the capital city of Nógrad county, in the north of Hungary. The development of the town began in the mid 19th century, when a brown-coal mine was opened nearby. The ambitious project to create a modern city centre begun in the mid-sixties, having all the aspects of the architecture of that period: rows of modern blocks of flats, high buildings, open squares. The city was the first to receive the János Hild prize in 1968 for achievements in city architecture.
Personally, I don't like this architecture style, as it reminds me the communist architecture in my country.

"Socialist-realistic" statue in Salgótarján


Square








As Salgótarján is surrounded by hills, during the expansion of the town, a lot of hills were leveled and now half of the city is built on the hills, having hundreds of stairways. It is fun for the first time, but when you have to climb up and down several times a day... you get very fit at the end!

Stairways


The coal mines have been closed years ago, leaving the city with high unemployment rates. Today visitors can see the remains of the mining industry by visiting the Coal Mine Museum, which is located next to the main entrance of the mine. While you are going down to the mine, you can see the specific activities that miners used to do, while extracting the coal. There are live-size gyps figurines, presenting the miners in different working situations, and in the darkness of the mine, they look like real people. In some places the tunnels are so low, that you can hardly squeeze through. The guide, a former miner explains all the activities and shows everything around. Sometimes it was a bit scary, when he told about the danger the miners faced every day or when presented the ventilation system and turned on the pumps that were extremely noisy.

Down in the mine

Outside the mine it is a park with old machines, you can climb on them. Of course, I tried all!

Hey, stop the train!

Bees and flowers - Méhecskék és virágok

Yesterday I was walking in the cemetery, which is like a nice, quiet park. There are awesome blooming trees and bushes and beautiful spring flowers all around. And bees... Here I show you some... They were not very keen on posing for me, they were more interested in searching for flowers and their nectar, but I succeed to take some photos of them.

Tegnap kint jártam a temetőben, ami olyan mint egy szép, csendes park. Most tele van csodálatos virágzó fákkal és bokrokkal és szebbnél szebb tavaszi virággal. És persze méhecskékkel... Íme egy néhány... Nem igazán álltak modellt nekem, sokkal inkább érdekelte őket a virágok keresése és nektárgyűjtés, de azért néha sikerült őket elkapni.

Here you can see some, having a feast in the flower.

Itt is van egy néhány, éppen lakmároznak a virágban.