(source: One2We)
On a summer day, a small ambitious girl stands in front of her classmates and declares her intention of creating something really significant in the future.
Several years later, she stands in the middle of a futuristic laboratory, dressed in a white lab coat with a gray-green logo “Theranos” on its pocket. It was just as she said it would be.
She created a unique blood-testing company, one of Silicon Valley's unicorn startups, valued at an estimated $9 billion. A phenomenon? Or an illusion?
Elisabeth Holmes, the world's youngest female self-made billionaire.
And then it all came crashing down.
Her eternal desire for power and fame destroyed her.
The home of the Bloody Countess
It is a rainy day.
Countess Elizabeth Báthory sits in front of her mirror.
She looks at her reflection.
Slowly. Intently. Critically.
She counts her wrinkles. She's heard about a miracle; one to protect her beauty and youth. A bath of blood is waiting.
A horror story? Fiction? Or reality?
Countess Elizabeth Báthory tortured and killed between 100 to 650 girls.
She's said to have believed that the blood of virgins would maintain her youthful-looking skin.
Her desire for eternal beauty destroyed her.
Young and beautiful?
The eternal desire for power and fame.
And eternal beauty and youth - an everlasting obsession for women.
Even ladies of the Stone Age sitting in a cave around a fire searched for make-up.
Nefertiti and Cleopatra took milk and honey baths.
Sissi used a special shampoo of cognac and raw eggs, along with a facial mask from strawberries and beef.
And today?
Coco Chanel once said: “Beauty begins at the moment women decide to be themselves”.
And maybe beauty begins on a hard road to the top of mountains.
Or within the castle ruins towering on a rocky hill somewhere in Slovakia.
Where is Čachtice?
Čachtice castle is located in the small village of the same name.
It is a one hour drive from Bratislava.
It is the northernmost piece of Podunajská nížina lowland, where the Little Carpathians meet the White Carpathians.
The steep walls of the castle hill are covered by a forest steppe with bird songs echoing all around and flowers perfuming the air from afar.
The majestic castle ruins loom from above.
They saw flourishing times.
They saw arrogance and vanity.
They saw collapse.
Because every pride has its fall.
One2We is an incoming company concentrating on active, adventure, bike and sport tours in Slovakia, in the unique, authentic and safe country, far away from mass tourism. We offer undiscovered and amazing places, tailored-made solutions and very professional individual guiding.
