St Anna's Church and bell tower in Strážky. (source: SITA)
A PROJECT called Historical Journey through the Town of Spišská Belá will be launched in May. The local government received financing from the EU’s Operational Programme for Cross-Border Cooperation, Poland-Slovakia, for the period 2007 – 2013. The total cost of the project will be more than €54,000, with 5 percent co-financed by the town, 10 percent from the state budget and the remainder coming from the EU.
The main goal of the project is to preserve the cultural and historical heritage of the Spišská Belá region by creating tourist and educational materials. An educational route will be constructed to serve both domestic and foreign tourists, the TASR newswire wrote. It will include promotion of local services and interesting sites for tourists so that the region’s visitor offering is as comprehensive as possible.
Part of the historical route will include informative panels at selected historical stops, a multimedia tourist guide, a folding tourist map and also large exterior maps at the most frequented tourist sites. An electronic tourist guide will be available for rent at the mansion in Strážky, in the J. M. Petzval Museum and in the information centre, according to the plan, which states that the project will be completed by the end of 2011.
The route will show tourists the 20 most interesting sites of the region from a historical point of view, the SITA newswire wrote. Apart from monuments such as the Gothic Roman Catholic Church of St Anthon the Pilgrim, the mansion in Strážky, Renaissance bell towers in Strážky and Spišská Belá, the route will lead tourists to a former Jewish synagogue, a mill, and the Church of St Valentine and tell visitors more about influential people who were born or worked in the region. The hope is that visitors will stay at least one day in Spišská Belá.
