Millions are traveling to Paris, Rome, London, Madrid, Florence or Barcelona, often only running through them in 2-3 days. Only very few tourists visit small, less-known cities with centuries of history and medieval feeling. One of them is Bardejov, a town in North-Eastern Slovakia. (64 kilometers from the airport Kosice.)

Wars, especially World War II made a lot of damages in Europe, some cities – Munich, Berlin, for example – have almost no medieval buildings anymore.

In many towns, only churches, town halls and a couple of palaces were reconstructed.

The few remaining towns where greater compounds of buildings, entire city walls, or city centres are left from the ancient times, should be highly appreciated.

One of them is Bardejov, and the town is also on the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites list. I chose several times travel destinations from this list, and never regretted it.

One important historical part of the town is the large remains of the old city walls, with a bunch of towers and bastions.

The other, the main square, with the town hall and main church.

But, to tell the truth, all the town was only a little more extent than the main square, as you see on the model in the museum. I love these models, which are showing the real medieval look of a city or castle. (Late-medieval or early-modern era.)

German: Bartfeld, Hungarian: Bártfa, Rusyn: Бардеёв, Ukrainian: Бардіїв, Polish: Bardejów
– wrote Wikipedia about the town’s name. The mixed ethnic background of the region can be seen also in the old cemetery, with thumb stones in 4-5 languages.

Near town, you find also an open-air rural museum, with folk architecture (for example this wooden church).

You better also make a walk in the forest, but better don’t touch mushrooms. Some of them, maybe just the most beautiful ones, are really poisonous, mortal!

Some buildings may be in a better state today than at the time of my visit, for example, this one was renovated some years later:

Ancient door-lock in the museum:

People in old times took care of details ignored in modern times. Small wooden sculptures on the seats in the church:

And this guard sculpture of the town hall was used by enemies as a bulls-eye (shooting target), now it rests in the museum:

And, as a final word, let’s wish a happy life to the people in town, as well as to this married couple (I’m wondering how many children they had, this wedding was many years ago):

(Camera: Konica-Minolta compact.)

Other posts in my series “Slow down, tourist” you may want to read:

• Less Known Places In Prague
• Dark And Light Stories Of Nürnberg
• Autumn – means death?
• Homage To Catalonia

You can find me on Discord, I suppose.