A country on fire ~ Slovakia

Oh my god!! Luckily left on time! 

Yesterday an enormous fire started in the Krasna Horka castle, which is a gothic castle and museum in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

All the sirens and the clouds of smoke were very frightening, especially because just 2 days before we visited the castle with annex museum.

To know that this beautiful heritage and the whole historical collection were destroyed, is simply incomprehensible.

They first thought that the fire started because local residents were burning weeds and a spark blew over to the castle.

But during our passage to Hungary the fire was the talk in every bar and pub and what we heard there was simply unbelievable. Apparently the fire was caused by 2 boys, not older than 12, smoking nearby the castle!! According to the National Slovakian Castle the damage is enormous.

But let’s not forget there is more to this beautiful country than this castle, that I would like to tell you about.

Slovakia is a republic in Central Europe, who separated from Czechoslovak in 1993, thereby causing Czechoslovak to end its existence.

It’s a small country in the heart of Europe, stretched between the Carpathians Arc and the wide stream of the second largest river in Europe, the Donau.

The capital is Bratislava and the main religion is Roman Catholic.

The local kitchen contains lots of potatoes and meat, typical Central European.

On May 1^st 2004 Slovakia entered the European Union and on January 1^st 2009 they joined the euro zone.

From then on the Slovakian people become more European than ever. A lot of them are searching their happiness elsewhere in Europe. 

Whoopssss!! Is it already that late! I should be getting some sleep because tomorrow is an another interesting day; than we are exploring Hungary!

But that is a story Céline will tell you everything about next week!! :-)

Miss you all!! 

Aurélie XOXO

Poland

Hi!

Here we are again :D We’ve just arrived in Poland, I was hoping the weather would be nice but it is very cold! Today we’re in Krakau, the oldest town in Poland with many nice building and other sights. For tomorrow we’ve planned to go to Warschua I really want to see Warschua, I heard from friends that it is a very impressive city!! We want to visit the Sejm, that’s the house were all the ministers come together have discussions just like in Belgium, this room counts 460 members.

The next day we are going to visit Auswitz, you can’t visit Poland without making a stop at Auswitz, a little history to discover. A place where during world war 2 many people suffered pair and grief.

We already met some nice people, they are very friendly and they told us that tourism in Poland grows every year. That’s good news for Poland, but we thought Poland had already a lot of visitors because it is a very nice country with  a lot of history, but it seems that it isn’t that popular. The growth of tourism is very good news for Poland.

Did you know that Poland is a member of different organizations like the OESO and the NAVO, but also the European Union.

The people we’ve met asked us if we wanted to join them tonight to a party, we could meet some friends of them, they promised that it’s going to be a party to never forget. We hope that the music is a bit like in Belgium and not boring or very stupid, because in Poland you have some traditions, some typical dances.

We miss you very much!! But we will be back soon with more lovely news!

Love Céline xxx

Belarus

Through our trip between all these different countries, we would like to find out more about their way of living.

Their cultural activities and artistic buildings, their way of eating or food-culture, their nature and climate.

Our first stop brings us to BELARUS with its capital Minsk. Our first country in Europe. We had to dress up warmly because it was very cold!

As an independent country it once belonged to the Soviet Union. It’s everything I thought a Russian country would be: grey, cold and covered in snow. In fact it’s the same cold weather from December up to April. It reminds me of a song I used to like when I was little: about a carriage (a trojca) in the snow being pursued by wolves somewhere in the woods , from DRS. P – ‘Dodenrit’.

In a local restaurant near the river who divides the town in two, they served us all kind of dishes with potatoes, the local specialty. As we eat potatoes as a side dish here it seems to be one of the principal ingredients!

Gothic castle - Minsk

Otherwise there is not much exiting to do as there is only one cultural event, a gothic castle, which doesn’t charm me a at all, although unesco qualified it as being world heritage.

Central Botanical Garden - Minsk

While walking  in the park we saw such an adorable elephant made of snow and ice at the Central Botanical Garden in Minsk. :-)

                                                                                                                                                                       Hopefully our next stop is more exciting because I’m leaving Belarus with a thought of a cold, grey and boring country. Only the vodka leaves me good memories!

Vashe zdorovie!

<3 Aurélie