Wooden Churches
We moved on even further east as we wanted to see some of the wooden churches there. Again, our problem was where to stay but we had read someone’s blog about his Slovakian trip and so headed to a campsite near Snina that had been recommended. When we got there it was raining, it was late and it was closed. However Sheila decided to phone the number on the board and despite her lack of Slovakian and the owners lack of English she managed to communicate enough to produce a man with the key. The campsite was in a beech forest and in better weather would have been worth staying a few days but instead we opted to get in a couple of famous wooden churches of eastern Slovakia before heading for Hungary.
The first was a very elegant 1792 (rebuilt 2004) building in Jalová and the second an C18 building in Topoľa which had a rather dull exterior but – as we were to find – a wonderful interior. The second church was locked so – following a suggestion in the guide book – we looked for a little old lady and made a key motion. She then called her daughter, who called her husband and he got the key and opened the church for us. There were only two tiny windows so it was almost completely dark ( no electricity) in there but the decoration was amazing. This second church has an 18th century iconostasis, which is the painted wooden screen shown in the picture below.
There are lots of wooden churches in this area which reflect the local Rusyn culture but we headed for the ones we thought we could reach in our big van but in a smaller car and with a couple of days to do it you could overload on wooden churches.
A little known fact - Andy Warhol's family were Rusyn and in this remote part of eastern Slovakia there is an Andy Warhol museum. We did not visit.
By this time we were about 8km from the Ukrainian border – unfortunately our insurance did not cover a trip there this time, but we may look into it further next year.
There are lots of wooden churches in this area which reflect the local Rusyn culture but we headed for the ones we thought we could reach in our big van but in a smaller car and with a couple of days to do it you could overload on wooden churches.
A little known fact - Andy Warhol's family were Rusyn and in this remote part of eastern Slovakia there is an Andy Warhol museum. We did not visit.
By this time we were about 8km from the Ukrainian border – unfortunately our insurance did not cover a trip there this time, but we may look into it further next year.
Click on this link to visit the page on Vlkolinec
