My August 2022: Central European travels & excavations

In August, my summer travels continued. It was a full-on month with a journey through Central Europe, 2,5 weeks of excavations in rural Slovakia and a spontaneous trip to Budapest at the end of the month!

Destinations visited in August 2022

Germany

• Berlin

Poland

• Wrocław
• Jelenia Gora
• Chojnik Castle

Czech Republic

• Prague
• Kutná Hora
• Brno

Slovakia

• Northwest (Považská Bystrica, Považský Castle, Súľov Rocks, Trenčín)
• Southwest (Nitra, Dražovce, Nové Zámky, Radava, Podhájska, Vráble, Vel’ké Lovce)

Hungary

• Budapest

Top 3 favourite new destinations

1. Súľov Rocks, Slovakia
2. Jelenia Gora, Poland
3. Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

Travels and other adventures

Berlin days

The month began with some slow days in Berlin with my boyfriend: we walked around the city, ate lots of mock duck, worked in his amazing office and prepared for our upcoming trip. I like Berlin more and more, and I’m starting to even feel at home there. It’s baffling to my countryside heart!

Two hectic days in Wrocław

On August 3rd, we set off on our trip through Central Europe. We had planned hardly anything, all we knew was that Wrocław would be our first destination, and we’d end up in Slovakia somehow in the end. We chose Wrocław, the fourth-largest city in Poland, based on recommendations from other travellers and my younger brother. For many years, I’d felt like I’d missed out because I skipped the city on my trip around Poland in 2015, so I was really excited to finally see the city.

But for some reason, Wrocław didn’t quite do it for us. The old city centre is beautiful, all the sculptures are interesting, and I really enjoyed exploring the bohemian neighbourhood of Nadodrze with all its thrift stores and cozy cafés. But we weren’t overly impressed. Maybe it’s because we spent half a day at the hospital because I had bad stomach aches (they found nothing and it went away after a few days, but it was not a fun experience trying to find the right place with our broken Polish and waiting for hours on end to be examined…). But I’m also wondering if it’s because I’ve seen too many cities in my life. It’s hard to impress me now, unless we’re talking about nature. Mother Nature continues to impress me. Man-made cities, not so much.

The unexpected beauty of Jelenia Gora

After two days in Wrocław, we desperately wanted a change of scenery. We wanted mountains, good views and some hiking. So, we looked at the map and randomly chose a city near the Polish mountains. That city was Jelenia Gora.

The city is small, home to around 80,000 people, but due to its proximity to the Karkonosze National Park, it’s a well-visited destination in the summer. By locals. Much like most of the rest of the world, we’d never heard of Jelenia Gora before randomly deciding to make it the next destination on our trip. Jelenia Gora turned out to be an amazing choice.

The city’s history dates back to the 10th century, and many of its historic buildings are preserved as it was spared during the Second World War. There was plenty for us to see in the city, despite its small size, lots of great Georgian food (I’m still wondering why, but it was awesome!), and we even explored an abandoned house!

Our mountain-hungry hearts steered us towards the national park, where we spent a day hiking up to the Chojnik Castle ruins from the 13th-14th century, located atop a hill at 627 m., overlooking the picturesque Jelenia Gora valley. It was a gorgeous day which ended in a heavy downpour while enjoying drinks at the lively main square in Jelenia Gora. One of my favourite memories from our trip!

A long-awaited revisit to Prague

After a few days in the mountains, it was time to get back to city sightseeing, more precisely to Prague! We went there primarily to visit friends of my boyfriend, but also because I hadn’t been there since I was six! My memories of that trip are blurred and incomplete. I desperately wanted to see the city with adult eyes, as Prague is often named one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It pained me that I couldn’t remember anything from this great city!

Our days in Prague were a bliss. I hadn’t done any research whatsoever, I just let myself be guided and taken around to all the “must-sees”. I get why Prague is so popular, it’s incredibly beautiful, and most of all, magical! My favourite memories were seeing the beautiful city from the hills, chilling by the river Vltava, eating veganized Czech cuisine, and reconnecting with a local friend whom we’d met back in September in Georgia!

Kutná Hora, a cultural hotspot

I got to choose our next destination, and since I’d heard lots about Kutná Hora from other travellers and because I love visiting UNESCO sites, this little Czech town was where we went next.

Kutná Hora is Czech Republic’s cultural hotspot with its UNESCO-inscribed gothic cathedral and eerie bone chapel. It’s a place that many tourists visit on a day trip from Prague, but we chose to spend the night to explore it more in depth, and also to escape the crowds by exploring in the evening and morning.

We stayed in a beautiful Airbnb in the outskirts of the town, with a view to the gothic cathedral. We both woke up randomly half an hour before sunrise, and saw the most gorgeous colours in the sky behind the silhouette of the cathedral. Some hours later, we took our time exploring the interior of the cathedral (one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen), walked around the old town centre, visited the cathedral in the nearby village of Sedlec, as well as its famous bone chapel.

A second chance for Brno

I desperately tried to steer us away from visiting Brno on our way down to Slovakia, but my boyfriend really wanted to visit the city, so I caved.

I first visited Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic, in October last year, en route to Serbia. I didn’t like it much; in fact, I thought it was quite ugly. But to be fair, I only saw a fraction of the city while on the hunt for a restaurant. And none of it was in daylight. I never gave Brno much thought since. Didn’t think I’d ever return. But I decided to keep an open mind and give it a second chance.

I liked Brno much more in daylight. It’s a small and cozy city, full of students and with hardly any tourists. The cathedral is beautiful. The views from the castle are great. But there’s not that much else to see. I’m glad I gave Brno a second chance, because now at least I don’t think it’s ugly, but it’s also not a favourite of mine.

To the Slovakian mountains

After Brno, it was finally time to get back to the mountains. Again, we looked at the map and randomly chose the small city of Považská Bystrica as our first destination in Slovakia, because it was close to the mountains and had a somewhat cheap hotel room.

The city itself is an eyesore, but mountains and beautiful scenery was exactly what we needed after a week of travelling from city to city. On our first evening, we took a hike to the local ruined medieval castle, Považský Hrad, which is beautifully located atop a 497-metre-high hill overlooking the river Váh. We arrived shortly before sunset, and watched the spectacle from the castle walls along with a few locals. Such a gorgeous evening.

The next day, we caught the train a few minutes north to hike up to the gorgeous Súľov Rocks. I had never heard of these otherworldly rocky crags until the day before going there. Our only plan was to go hiking somewhere in Slovakia’s mountains, and then we stumbled upon this place when researching what to see near our hotel. It turned out to be the best decision of our whole ten-day journey!

We spent the whole day hiking up to the rocks, climbing some of them, relaxing with amazing views and exploring the medieval castle ruins within the rocks, which is one of the most difficult castles to access in Slovakia. It’s also one of the smallest castles in the country – oh, and probably also the castle with the best view!

Trenčín and Nitra, two small Slovak cities

With just two days left before my excavation would begin, we decided to spend a day each in Trenčín and Nitra, two small cities in western Slovakia, close to where I’d soon be working.

Trenčín is the cutest little city with a hilltop castle. We found Trenčín randomly when looking at western Slovakia on Google Maps, and immediately knew we had to visit. The castle and its quaint city centre were the main draw, and I’m so glad we went. It was small enough to see in a day, but big enough to fill our day with adventures and beautiful views. A medieval gathering was taking place at the castle, a highlight of our visit!

We stayed the night in a rather ugly town that I can’t remember the name of, somewhere in between of Trenčín and Nitra, and spent the following day exploring Nitra. Nitra is quite a bit larger than Trenčín, and the fifth largest in Slovakia, but it’s tiny by European standards (heck, even Bratislava is tiny in comparison to most European capitals!). Nitra is also one of the oldest cities in Slovakia, but we didn’t find it very interesting. The view from the castle is nice, but the castle itself is nothing special, and there’s not much to see in the city centre itself. BUT there was one place we visited that I truly enjoyed: the little stone church of Dražovce.

It required a short bus ride to reach the village of Dražovce, and then a short but steep hike up a rocky cliff where the church stands on the edge in complete solitude. The Romanesque single-nave church dates from the 11th century, and is one of the oldest churches in Slovakia. It’s no longer in use, and unfortunately, it was closed when we visited.

The little church and its idyllic rural setting had me feeling like I was suddenly in Walnut Grove, hanging out with Laura Ingalls and her friends. I love this series so much, and I love to randomly find places around the world that bring me back to the feeling I get when I watch it. The stone church of Dražovce certainly did that!

Three weeks of excavations in rural Slovakia

On August 14th, we met up with a bunch of archaeologists from Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, India and Australia, some of whom I’d worked with in Serbia back in October and March. I was really excited to work with them all again, especially because the sites were incredible! We stayed in the tiny cute village of Radava in the middle of nowhere – and I loved it. I loved the silence, my quiet morning runs between fields full of wildlife (and sometimes with Lenki, our excavation dog!), long walks through the village, and the gorgeous sunsets over the low forested mountains.

We worked at Podhájska the first week, where a rondel from the Lengyel Culture (ca. 5000-3400 BC) had recently been discovered. I arrived after they’d already worked there for three weeks, and it was rather chaotic. We had to dig pits of 2-5 metres in depth in 35+ degrees and full sun. It was really hard work, but with loud music (and lots of Trip to Valhalla, thanks Vic!), it was bearable. We had some amazing single finds that I’m not allowed to go into detail about, and made some killer profiles!

The first weekend came around, and so did the rain. I desperately wanted to go hiking, but the weather was bad the whole weekend, so instead, I worked on the blog, got to know some of the others, went shopping in a nearby town and spent Saturday night at a local concert with a few of the others. We befriended some locals, I got a drumstick from the band and we even danced the Macarena with a bunch of local girls! So much fun!

The rain continued until Wednesday, so we spent the first two days of the second week doing indoor work. Some cleaned artefacts, some cleaned the cars, some worked with documentation, etc. Ruby and I spent the days taking photographs of the most important artefacts, and Ruby also spent some hours drawing the most interesting lithics. I loved watching her, wishing I had her talent!

When the sun finally returned, it was time to head to the second excavation near Vráble. There, a bunch of skeletons had been discovered in a ditch surrounding a settlement from the Linear Pottery culture (ca. 5500-4500 BC). It was incredible to work with human skeletons (my first time, excluding two cremation burials that I excavated recently on Lolland). I’m not allowed to share the facts, but just know that it was amazing, and our results were groundbreaking! I worked four days with the skeletons, and spent the rest of the last two weeks excavating in ‘the cool trench’ where we played loud music, dug out a ditch, found a crazy interesting find in a deep pit and excavated a stone feature. The work was quite hard but nothing like Podhájska, and it was a lot of fun most of the time!

We worked through the last weekend, but since we had half of Saturday off, I decided to go on a 15-kilometre hike in the countryside surrounding Radava. Apart from being eaten alive by little annoying flies, it was great and a much-needed break from being around a ton of people. I enjoyed the peace, and I’m happy I had time to explore a bit of the place I called home for three weeks this summer.

To Budapest we go…

A friend of mine from Kiel visited us at the excavation along with two of his friends, and they invited me to the 28th EAA Annual Meeting (an archaeological conference) which was held in Budapest at the end of the month. Going there meant having to leave the excavation two days early, but since we weren’t super busy at the end and they had lots of students, I was granted permission to leave and join the conference. I was only able to attend two days, but it was so much fun, and I’m really glad I went!

I enjoyed revisiting Budapest as it’d been six years since I was last there. I heard some interesting talks and enjoyed the fun parties, but my favourite part was surprising my colleagues and best friends who had no idea I was there! Surprises are my forte.

New on the blog

Most popular post

•  My July 2022: The beginning of a summer of travels – As per usual, my monthly recap was the most popular post!

The other posts

• Summer at the Zeiteninsel: Our Stone Age Gathering 2022 – All about the annual gathering for the ultimate Stone Age nerds!
• Weekend in Belgrade: An early spring return to Serbia – The first of many posts from my March trip to Serbia!
• To Danevirke and Hedeby: A roadtrip in the Danish/German borderland – A fun and interesting trip, and an equally fun and interesting post to write!

Most popular Instagram picture

My favourite new destination of the month also yielded the most popular photo on Instagram!

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Et opslag delt af Mel (@north.trotter)

Coming up in September 2022

September began rather unexpectedly in Budapest, and two days into the month, I was off to my beloved Faroe Islands where I’m currently enjoying life a lot.

This month is all about rediscovering my favourite country, showing my family around for a week, visiting local friends and showing my boyfriend around for the second week. I also hope to visit a few new places, such as the Vestmanna bird cliffs, Fugloy and the village of Selatrað!

On the 18th, I’ll be flying back to Denmark and going “home” to Lolland for three more months of excavations. I’m super excited to go back to work; I miss it and I miss my colleagues and host family! I’m also looking forward to more local adventures on and around Lolland!