Get online for free at Bratislava's squares
LAPTOP users can connect to the Internet while sitting at benches at two locations in central Bratislava. The two hotspots, which use wireless Wi-Fi technology, are at Hviezdoslavovo and Primaciálne squares.
Follow writer Martin Rázus on a bike
THE FOURTH annual competitive cycle-marathon that traces the paths followed by writer Martin Rázus, Following Martin Rázus' Traces, will take place August 20.
The event starts at 08:45 in the Vrbica part of Liptovský Mikuláš, where the writer was born. The 182-kilometre route will continue to Liptovský Hrádok, Brezno, Banská Bystrica and return to Liptovský Mikuláš, finishing at the writer's memorial.
For more information and registration contact Ján Bether at Liptovský Hrádok at 044/5221-528.
SLOVAK girls enjoy the Euro-forest.
photo: Courtesy of Lesy SR
Slovakia grows "European" trees
EACH European member state is represented by a tree in the Open-Air Forest Museum in Vydrová valley near Čierny Balog. The Euro-forest was opened on July 23 at the Day of the Tree event organized by the national forest company Lesy SR.
"There is no such forest in any of the European countries," said organizer Ján Mičovský. "It's a unique act, which reflects the needs of European forestry to create traditions."
Knights' accolades at Bratislava's church
BRATISLAVA visitors can watch accolades being handed out to the knights of the Gold Skid order at the Franciscan church in Bratislava's Franciscan square. The ceremonies take place every Saturday at 17:00 until the middle of September.
"The actors, dressed in period costumes, perform to impressive reproduced music. Recited and sung period texts of Slovak origin are projected for the foreign tourists on a wall in German and English," Zuzana Janogová from the Bratislava Tourist Service told the SITA news agency.
Part of the event is an exhibition of 19 sculptures of kings who were crowned in St Martin's Cathedral. The works are made by renowned sculptor Ľudmila Cvengrošová. Visitors can also see the Franciscan treasury at the church.
The event brings attention to coming annual Coronation Festival, which will take place September 2 to 4.
Salgada photos tour Slovakia
AN EXHIBITON from the world-renowned photographer Sebastiao Salgado entitled Workers, travels around Slovakia. Three post train carriages, "a gallery on wheels", will stop at 11 Slovak towns on the route from Bratislava to Košice and back.
In his black and white photographs, Salgado captured the diminishing world of manual, often very demanding work. He worked on the project for six years and visited 27 countries.
The exhibition ran in Bratislava until August 14. From August 16 to 21 it will stop in Žilina. Then it will continue to Poprad, Košice, Trenčín, Piešťany, Prešov, Humenné, Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, Nitra and close in Bratislava (October 25 to November 6).
Renowned painter passes away
LEADING Slovak painter Ester Martinčeková-Šimerová died at the age of 96 on August 7.
Born in 1909 in Bratislava and living in Liptovský Mikuláš since 1951, she was inspired by the Paris school, developing the avant-garde movement on the Slovak art scene. Among many artistic styles she most favoured the synthetic cubism and purism of the 1920s. She focussed on still-life works, landscape paintings and figurative compositions. She received the Matica Slovenská Foundation Prize of Miloš Bazovský for her life's work.
Her first husband, medical professor František Šimer, was executed by the Nazis. After the war she married Martin Martinček, an important Slovak photographer.
Prepared by Spectator staff from press reports
