Today was a beautiful drive through the northern Slovak mountains to Poland, but my first stop was at the biggest wooden statue in Slovakia, which is situated in Stará Bystrica. It's the world's youngest astronomical clock. It figures the sitting Virgin Mary - the patron of Slovakia. The heart of the astronomical clock is called "astrolabe“ i.e. an hour circle with astronomical data. It is the astrolabe that makes the Slovak astronomical clock the first and only astronomical clock in Slovakia. It's satellite controlled software allows it to display true solar time, which makes it the most accurate astronomical clock in the world. Quite a find in this tiny village in the northern Slovakia! From there it was a 3 hour drive through the mountains (via a historic forest railway museum which provided a great walk).
My arrival in Poland was greeted by a number of head to tail road accidents - It was weird, the 120km highways had turning lanes - It was also weird that lanes just disappeared when you least expect them - however I arrived at my hotel in the burbs and tonight walked to the centre of Krakow when I was stunned by its amazing old town, which happened to be celebrating an annual folk festival. Krakow has the largest medieval market square in Europe (Rynek Glówny). Eastern Europe really test's your comfort zone. Language is so different (but thank goodness for Google Translate), traffic rules seem non existent! and there is nothing I recognise on the menu - however I did manage to eat some Pierogi (Polish dumplings) full of meat - delicious! Tomorrow I visit Auschwitz.
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