From Slovakia with thoughts

At the end of September I went to Slovakia on a work trip - part of which involved a flight in a Hind Military Attack Helicopter (video), which was awesome - and I realise I never wrote anything on this. So now I will. Stand back...

Slovakia was a very interesting, pretty country - I saw the cities of Presov and Košice, the second and third largest, as well as a bit of the countryside as we travelled about by coach, and above from the air. The streets were classic Eastern European - covered in tram lines, little cafes, bistros, odd looking alleyways heading here and there and so forth. But there were clear signs of modernism too with Tesco, Pizza Huts and M&S all to be found in among the old gothic facades of the local shops. There were plenty of pinks, yellows and blues on the fronts of buildings too, giving it that chocolate-box (cliche?) feel you often get in quaint European cities and while there was little clear evidence of the Cold War or the Second World War there was a definite sense of history among the streets; the church in Kosice for example had that air of the old world, of the dates 1759 or 1816. The women were mostly stunning, the men, less so.

A few days in either town would probably suffice I imagine, but it was nice to have seen a couple of interesting places in Europe I doubt I would otherwise ever visit. It was strange to realise too that we were just 70km from the Ukraine.