Featured photo is of Bratislava Castle. I took the photo in late March 2015.

It’s that time again. Bill has the first 13 days of October off, while he’ll be doing a lot of business travel in September and November. We’re going to take the opportunity to go some places and, hopefully, enjoy a nice rest.

I think we’ve made up our minds to go to Slovakia… but I haven’t yet booked anything. Until I book something, that idea is subject to change. I was considering another trip to Austria, mainly because I want to go to a relaxing spa hotel. But I also want to go to a place I haven’t yet seen much of, and Slovakia fits the bill.

Actually, I have been to Slovakia before. I spent several nights in Zilina back in 1997, when I was meeting my friends Chris and Dawn for part of my train trip through Europe after my stint in the Peace Corps. Chris was getting some computer training at the university in that town, so I met them there while he finished his last couple of days. I took the train to Zilina via Bratislava, having arrived from Vienna.

Bill and I also visited Bratislava for a day back in the spring of 2015. It was a fun day, and I would have liked to have stayed overnight and done some shopping. I noticed they had a lot of cool art for sale there, as well as excellent beers.

Since then, we haven’t been back to Slovakia, and based on what I’ve found while researching, there’s a lot to see there. So… that is probably where we’ll end up going, because Bill wants to go somewhere with mountains and trees.

I had been thinking about maybe going to Malta, since we haven’t been, and October would probably be a good time for it. But I think we have too much time for a Malta trip, and Malta isn’t exactly known for having forests. Maybe we’ll go there in the winter.

The beauty of a trip to Slovakia is that we can stop in the Czech Republic either there or back, or we could go to Poland… Poland and the Czech Republic are also great places to buy art. Maybe we could even visit Auschwitz. I know that would be depressing, but I think it’s important to go there, especially given what’s happening in the United States right now.

Slovakia has a lot of things we like… like waterfalls, fall colors, castles, and wine. The wine is kind of sweet, though.

Anyway… I think today, I’m going to shop for accommodations. Once I figure things out, I’ll update here. Again… this isn’t yet set in stone. I might decide to just bag it and go to Austria, which has what we want, along with some really great looking hotels. We’ll see what happens.