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author
Matt Reynolds

Spectacular Slovakia travel writer

List of author's articles

On drinking with Slovaks (from our archive)

A slivovica-soaked memory, vinobranie, and everything you wanted to know about cabbage.

Illustrative stock photo

How to read a Slovak beer label

How does Plato fit into beer-drinking?

Main Square, Bardejov

Bardejov: Kiss my gargoyle statue! (from our archive)

An American traveller gets to marvel at wooden churches and enjoy a spa treatment and more in Bardejov.

Košice

The best way to see Slovakia is from the train (from our archive)

A trip to the eastern Slovak towns of Košice, Prešov and Bardejov.

Hiking in the High Tatras

Slovaks: Getting the most out of life (from our archive)

An unusual Spectacular Slovakia trip to Banská Štiavnica and to the High Tatras, some of the country's top tourist sites.

Vegetarian blues (from our archive)

On Slovak hospitality and a visit to Vlkolínec, the village that was a museum.

Skalnatá Cabin, High Tatras

Slovakia: To the mountains (from our archive)

A weekend of hiking in the Malá Fatra mountains.

How Tokaj is made in Slovakia

The cellars where the famous wine is stored are not the only oddity about it.

How to read a Slovak wine label

All you need to learn are a few simple terms.

Bratislava in 2004

Boots, memories, and 1,000 dollars (from our archive)

American journalist writes about how not to confuse Slovakia and Slovenia as he arrives to the country to write the 2004 travel guide.

The long road back to Slovakia

MY TRIP from the United States to Slovakia last month took me through five cities and lasted 36 hours. I had four flights: from Rochester, NY to New York City, to Reykjavik, to London and to Prague. From Prague, I travelled by car and then train to Bratislava.The night before I set off I stayed up until 4:00 packing, which left me tired and dazed. As the trip wore on, things got hazier. The airports, cars, buses, planes and lounges were like scenes from a never-ending series of dreams.

Rebirth of a cult band

Živé KvetyNa mojej ulici (On My Street)Published by: Slnko RecordsAvailable at: most music storesCost: Sk249 to Sk299A FEW years ago, the quintet Živé Kvety (Live Flowers) changed drummer and bassist, dropped the piano, added a guitar player and took on a punkier sound. They had been an eclectic medium-soft rock band, sometimes compared to the Irish group The Cranberries.

The great beer taste-off

THIS year's beer taste-off was a testament to both democratic cooperation and staunch individualism. A group of 11 judges assembled by the Spectacular Slovakia (the Spectator's annual tourist-guide publication, currently in print) bought the beers, developed the system, and did the tasting. Your correspondent had limited powers to guide them. But once the testing began - and it was a sort-of grouchy free-for-all, with everyone shouting out ratings, boos and insults - the judges generally stuck to their guns no matter how much heat they took.

An interpreter's tale about Roma migration

WE left the luxury hotel in Košice early Saturday morning and headed north in a rented Opel towards a well-known Roma settlement. The reporter (I'll call him Tim) sat in the backseat, reviewing his questions, and I sat in the front seat with a map spread out on my lap, giving the photographer/driver directions."We'll ask the regular things," Tim told me. "Are they going to Britain when Slovakia joins the EU in May? Alone or with relatives? How many of them?"

Rebel without a crown

When characterising Slovak theatre director Blaho Uhlár, few theatre critics confine themselves to simple adjectives or labels. Sometimes the epithets come in odd pairs - vulgar genius, absurd revolutionary, penniless star - while at other times they reinforce each other - drunken iconoclast, touchy egotist. But the descriptions are never simple, and rarely the same.Such ambiguity seems approporiate for the man behind Slovakia's most controversial theatre. Founded in 1991 by Uhlár and designer Miloš Karásek, Bratislava's Stoka Theatre has for ten years been a middle finger in the face of traditional stage production, and sometimes a thorn in the side of the government (especially during the former regime of Vladimír Mečiar). Like Blaho himself, Stoka has been equally praised and put down, deified and dismissed, revered and reviled.

Unique Bratislava house to be spiritual centre

Just behind Bratislava's main railway station, on the corner of Vančurová and Jaskový Rad Streets in Kramáre, the finishing touches are being put on what promises to be the most unusual house in the capital. Wild with color and trimmings, the building seems to spring from the ground like a rainbow, defying the basic principles of geometry and architecture."It's an expression of my more than twenty years of experience in the field of applied knowledge and personal development," said Karol Beláň, the mastermind and creator of the project.While Beláň refused to give his age or say how much the building had cost, explaining that he had "already had problems with the press," he said the project has been financed mostly through loans. In addition, a small construction company he founded before breaking ground seven years ago had contributed to the funding.

Eclipse leaves local observers cold

BRATISLAVA- Slovaks anticipated the coming of a near total solar eclipse with a mixed bag of feelings tending toward the unenthusiastic. On the day before the big event, one 20-something Bratislavan, asked what she was doing for an event that happens much less frequently than weddings, funerals, or name days, said, "We [Slovaks] are not American. We don't celebrate every little thing." Others were less pointed about their disinterest, but disinterest seemed to prevail all the same.Of the handful of Slovak eclipse enthusiasts, many decided to head off to the Hungarian resort lake of Balaton to view the August 11 eclipse in all its glory (100% as opposed to 98.7% in Bratislava), or to southern Austria, leaving those who stayed behind without a place to gather en masse. Some talked of going to the nearby Carpathian mountain range, or of staying near the capital and heading to the castle, one of many local lakes, or to the top of their friends' office buildings.

MUSIC REVIEW: Tiny-town Slovak jazz fest surprisingly good

Jazz. You never really know what to expect when you hear that word. Blues? Swing? Big-band? Mind-blowing expertise? Mediocrity? This is especially true in Central Europe, thousands of miles from jazz's origins, and even more so when the venue for the sounds is a small, Slovak agricultural village of just over a thousand inhabitants.So it was a surprise that the people who came to the Sixth Annual Jazz festival in the quiet southern Slovak town of Domadice found various styles of jazz to chose from, from funk to fusion, straight-forward standards, and a whole lot of blues. Best of all, the music, which filled the streets of the town June 25-26, was played competently-- and occasionally even brilliantly-- by some of the best jazz musicians in Slovakia.

Three liters of bryndzové halušky small work for hefty men in national eating competition

Life is normally serene and simple in Turecká, a picturesque country village nestled between two towering mountains fifteen kilometers north of Banská Bystrica and a stone's throw from where the High Fatra mountain range meets the not-so-low Low Tatras. But once a year an explosion of festivity in honour of the Slovak national dish, the World Championship of Cooking and Eating Bryndzové Halušky, befalls its one hundred and forty permanent residents.This year over a thousand people descended upon the small mountain village June 12 - 13 to watch the fierce competition which has grown up around this simple mixture of shredded potatoes mixed with flour, water, and salt.

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