I could have cared less about the quality of the hill, snow or accommodations. That said, we lucked out on those dimensions too. I'd recommend Slovakia for skiing......why??
Made easy - the Jasna resort is smartly designed with loads of hotels built along the lower slopes - makes for tons of ski-in-ski-out....
(Our hotel on the right, adjacent to Zoe's favorite run)
I also LOVE the 'half-board' concept (breakfast AND dinner provided at the hotel). So nice to not have to think about meals
Spring Skiing Tri-fecta: Slovakia also had the 3 ingredients for fab spring skiing
1) warm temps around 0-4 Celsius
2) bright blue skies
3) tons of snow machines
(these things were everywhere)
Less hemorrhaging: While we've come to associate ski vacations as a family of 5, with serious cash hemorrhaging, Slovakia provided better value than most.
- Adult lift ticket ~30 Euros (~1/2 of what we pay at home)
- 30 minute stone massage 10 Euros (OK, he did spend ~10 of those minutes on my butt - but Logan reported the same treatment - making it slightly less creepy)
- Beer in the slope-side hotel ~$2
Cheers to that!
In the spirit of balanced feedback, there was 1 watch out...
Hillside cowboys: Slovakians ski like Ukrainians drive. Look out for yourself & pretty much anything goes.
- runs so congested I'd yell at the boys "don't stop, it's too crowded!"
- collisions and near collisions constantly (X got taken out by a skier, our kids took out several in return)
- everyone mixed in - walkers, hikers, babies, a skier with his husky dog running down the hill
- parents throwing little kids on big runs, then rescuing them in all kinds of creative ways
(don't judge too harshly, Zoe returned from ski school reporting she got a piggy back ride from her teacher several times)
Originally planned as a road trip, we had booked 1.5 days in Krakow on our way home. Now 3 hours out of the way, we had heard so much about it, we went anyhow.
Found a cute town with way too much to see in the time we had
A must see reported by many is the salt mines....I was dubious - but the deep caves and giant labyrinth mines sounded intriguing, we voted (salt mines vs. castle) & headed to the mines.
Some 130 meters deep we found a world of salt:
Walls of salt, stairs of salt..
Statues of salt
A whole ballroom of salt
(floor tiles, chandeliers - all salt!)
The 2 hour required tour walked us through what felt like miles of this stuff. Key take aways:
- Xavier & Zoe - "we're bored & where's the gift shop?"
- Quincy - "That was so cool. I learned some really interesting things"
- Merilee - "DON'T lick the walls of a place 1 million people visit annually!" (about 6 hours after leaving, I got a 'pot-trash can' kind of 24 hour bug - my brother labeled 'the Krakow')
As the week came to an end, we sadly heard increasingly more about another Cowboy (the one to our East) & his antics...
Now back in Kiev, when discussing what's going on Zoe asked "But how does someone just take someone else's country?"
A fine question.
No one knows how it will play out. For now, things remain relatively calm in Kiev. The airport & roads look the same, schools are open. That said, friends are evacuating left & right and there is way too much 'front page news' for comfort. Ukrainians have proven themselves strong & feisty. Russia is always the bad guy in the movies I saw growing up
Here's hoping whichever way things go, it is without another drop of blood
In the mean time, we will put a little more hurry up in our packing up
Peace out & we can all sleep well
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