If you didn’t read the description close enough, let me reiterate- BEARS IN MOAT! Also, for anyone struggling with the meat emphasis czech cooking is known for, there is an excellent vegetarian restuarant called Laibon near the Krumlov Castle.

Well, if you make it to Czech Republic just around the corner are five of the UNESCO sites located in my homeland of Slovakia. One in particular, Banska Stiavnica, is close to my heart, as I spent my high school years there attending mining and metallurgy boarding school which is known to be the first mining academy in the world. The city is so unique. I’ve never encountered anything that compares to it in my travels, and everyone I know who has visited it concurs. For one, the whole compact city is built on hills sloping into a crevice-like valley and because it was built in the middle ages, the neighborhoods are packed tightly with one-lane road access at best. You can spit on your neighbor’s roof from your window. The feeling you get is of being in a labyrinth in the dark ages. My favorite part of Banska Stiavnica is what surrounds it: at least thirty man-made reservoirs hidden in the hills and dales, each connecting to the next by an intricate web of tiled channels, to create a source of energy that powered the ancient mines. It blows your mind to come across the old structures of this massive system while walking through the peaceful, uninhabited hills. Watch out, though. You can easily stumble into a mine shaft. No one knows where the old tunnels are, and to this day new holes are discovered after heavy rains. This was a place that produced a quarter of the world’s silver production in the 1700s. But what is most appealing, and this goes for Slovakia as a whole, is that it hasn’t been negatively effected by commercial reconstruction, at least beyond the surface. All the mysteries, dangers, and secrets are still there that always were. It’s not made into a movie set for consumption of tourists – you can still experience it in its original form. The women are beautiful, the beer is good, and the hospitality is of its own category.