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As explained in part 4, I was nervous about the castle being open so I got up early on Friday and, around 8AM, I called the number for the castle just in case. To my surprise, someone actually answered! I practiced saying: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Slovakian. Do you speak English?” in Slovakian, thanks to my handy-dandy cheat sheet. The person answered, in English, that it was not a problem and asked me what I wanted to know. To my question about whether the castle was open that day, and to my absolute glee, they answered that it was open from 10AM to 5PM. I thanked them – in Slovakian, natch! – and prepared to go take the train. According to the Slovakian rail site, there was a train I could take about an hour later.

Now, here is where it gets interesting, at least to my brain. The website of the town of Čachtice indicated that there was a 45 minute walk from the town up to the castle ruins. However, I had also found a site called Goulash Train that indicated that I could take a train to a town called Višnové (the one in the Trenčín region) which was right underneath the castle. According to Google Maps, a 20 minute walk would take me up to the castle. A look at the Slovak rail site showed that both Čachtice and Višnové were on the same rail line, with Višnové being one stop after Čachtice. So I decided to take the train to Višnové, walk up to the castle, then walk back down to Čachtice, where I could take the train back to Bratislava after visiting other things that the town’s website suggested. It is important to note that I think this was one of the BEST DECISIONS I HAVE EVER MADE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. The story of this trip, as described below and in the next couple of posts, should make my reasons for thinking this very clear.

I walked to Bratislava’s main train station, which is a pleasant, even if mostly downhill (hey, going downhill is hard on knees with osteoarthritis!!), 30 minute walk from Erich’s place. I got to see some cool street signs and nice, winding streets. When I got to the train station, I once again to practice apologizing for not speaking Slovakian, which turned out to not be a problem at all. (It turned out that this was not a problem in most places I went to in Slovakia. It hadn’t been a huge problem in more touristy places in Budapest either but in some small out of the way areas, it had been a bit more of an issue.) Not only was the agent able to sell me a one-way ticket to Višnové, via Nové Mesto, but they were able to sell me a one-way open ticket from Čachtice to Bratislava. They also were kind enough to write down the times of the trains leaving from Čachtice!

After some confusion involving me trying to figure out which track I had to go to (I didn’t know the final destination of the first train to Nové Mesto, so I wasn’t sure where I had to look), I got on the train, happy as a clam. The inside of this train, mostly populated by communters, it seemed, was interesting. Instead of having seats on both sides, there was a passageway on the left with cabins on the right. Each cabin had 6 seats, with 2 rows of 3 seats facing each other. The cabins weren’t really private – both the door and the wall separating the cabin from the passageway were transparent. When I entered a cabin, there was only one other passenger, but it filled up fairly quickly. Then off we went!

This ride was also uneventful. A fellow passenger and I had a laugh at the first stop  – Bratislava’s other train station – when two other passengers in our cabin realized at the last minute that they were about to miss their stop. They had been so immersed in their work that they hadn’t noticed we were stopped. They looked at each other in alarm after one of them looked up and realized where they were. They made it out, though.

Nové Mesto was a much smaller station, so I was able to easily find my connecting train. To my elation, that train turned out to be the cutest train I have ever seen in my life! There were only two cars, and these cars felt like they were wider than those of a typical train. Maybe it’s because they were so short. In one of these cars, there were a couple of long seats where several people could side. In the other, there were 8 sets of 2 cushy benches facing each other. The train was already fairly full when I got on. I wanted to make 100% sure I was in the right place so I walked to the end of the car, where there was a separate section with one person sitting all by themselves. Since they were sitting at what I thought was the head of the train, I assumed they were a conductor or something. I said: “Višnové?” while pointing at the train, trying to make it obvious that I was asking if I was on the right train. The person, who was a senior citizen, started to earnestly list all the stations in order, one on each finger: Čachtice, Višnové, and so forth. I nodded and said “Ďakujem” (thank you), and questioned whether they were a conductor or a passenger who comes here often. Then I found the actual conductor and repeated my query. They provided me with a more certain answer, so I sat down. Soon after that, we were off.

As I sat there, surrounded mostly with people who had spent a good chunk of their life in communist times, my mind returned to communism. I noticed that older people here seemed less grim than the older folks I had encountered in Budapest. I had entertained the idea, in Budapest, that the grimness of many seniors was either because of their memories of hard times or the realization that capitalism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Being unfamiliar with Slovakian history, other than the well-known things like it’s past status as part of the Hungarian empire, as a part of Czechoslovakia, and as a former communist state, I wondered if times had been less harsh here as the older person sitting across from me happened to look up and offer me a smile that seemed at once friendly, shy, hopeful, and tired. Around this same time, a young person walked up to another senior nearby and laughingly accepted an orange and returned to their seat, as they discussed whatever it is that a (?) grand-parent and a teenager might be discussing on their way to wherever they were going. Across the aisle, someone about my age wearing what looked like pyjama pants pulled out a pair of reading glasses and got to studying what seemed to be a biology textbook.

Me inside a cute train!
The interior of the cute train!
Cutest little train!

Now, this train ride is one of the reasons going to Višnové was one of the best decisions ever. The part of the trip between Čachtice and Višnové went around the very mountain upon which sat that castle ruins! Not that I could see the ruins – we were much too close to the foot of the mountain. But it was so beautiful! I really got a sense, then, that I was in the Central Europe that I had been dreaming about for nearly 20 years. You can see a 12 minute film someone took of the train ride here. Not only that, but it drove it home for me that I was in the Carpathian Mountains! Little old me! Wow! There was a mix of people on the train, but mostly seniors. This train ride was also one of the few places where I saw dark skinned people in Hungary and Slovakia. Up until now, most of the people I had seen on my trip, other than very obvious tourists, appeared white. There will be some musings on this in a separate post.

Thanks to Google Maps, I knew that we were coming into Višnové when the train slowed down. But the nice conductor pointed at me as they passed by, nodded, and said: “Višnové”. I grabbed my backpack and stepped off the train, in love at first sight with this small town surrounded my mountains and forest, straight out of a fairy tale. Then the conductor, who had stepped off the train before all the passengers, pointed up and said: “castle”. I thanked him and looked up. And there it was. I can’t even express what I felt right then, at that moment. I was so mesmerized that I had forgotten that I wanted to take a picture of this cute little train. By the time I whipped out my phone and had the camera on, it was already a bit far but I managed to take a distant picture. You can’t see it in the picture above, but there were several people standing in that little section in what I had previously thought was the front of the train looking out in what I thought was a very grim way. It was almost creepy. But cool. You can see a better image of the train in this video someone made of their visit to the caste, at about 8:44.

At this point, I was hungry. But looking around this tiny little town, it seemed like eats were not to be found here. I could have walked around the town a bit more, and one of my only regrets from this trip is that I didn’t spend more time in Višnové. But I was in a hurry to get up there and I was worried that it would take me more than 20 minutes since, I was likely in worse shape than whoever wrote up the blurb on Goulash Train and I might possibly get lost in the woods. But I did take a few minutes to just bask. I looked around and admired everything from the tiny deserted train station that didn’t really look like a train station, the tiny old church, the small roads, the very European looking houses, and the two seniors who stood chatting by the tracks.

I walked a little ways down the track, in the direction everyone else had gone, and spotted a sign with Čachticky Hrad (castle) on it. I followed the sign and a small road took me over a stream and along some houses that looked like they were from a fairy tale. As I walked along, I felt like I was in one of the fantasy novels I like to read, where the protagonists walk through small villages on their way towards . . . something. The smell of burning wood from stoves made this feel even more real. After passing by a few last houses, some of them with animals in the yard, I headed on the path indicated by a sign for the castle on it. Another leg of the day’s adventure was about to begin!

 

Zooming in on the castle from Višňové
On the right track!
Višňové
Višňové
Višňové
Višňové
Višňové
Višňové

To read about why I wanted to visit this castle, read this post about the Blood Countess! (Warning: you might learn more about me than what you’d like. Nothing overtly sexual but ….you’ve been warned!) To skip to the castle visit, read part 6 here.