After the hotel breakfast I ordered an Uber, while the others all walked to the station. The journey only cost £3.31 which I thought was good value and saved me dragging my case up the hills and down the steps en route.
The straight forward train journey landed us in Trencin around 11:30 and it didn’t take us long to walk to the Elizabeth Hotel where we are staying for the night. The hotel has been recently fully refurbished with lots of glass walls and glass lifts. The rooms are standard fare for a business hotel and it’s probably the only one in town. An authenticated Roman inscription on the first floor dated 179 ad marks a unique feature to the building. Unfortunately Garry had the only room ready for occupation so we all left our bags there and marched off to see Trencin town centre.
I wanted to see tonight’s Champions League semi-final so I managed to locate a bar that promised to show it at 9pm. We passed through the town centre where we located the synagogue, Built between 1912 and 1913 it suffered along with its congregation during the nazi and communist eras. The structure underwent major £2 million restoration and reopened in 2025.
Time to sit down and eat at ‘Paddock’ a cafe/sandwich shop. We waited for at least an hour to be served our drinks and sandwiches. Thankfully the cheese and ham sandwiches were delicious if over large. I couldn’t finish mine.
From Paddock we decided to climb up to the castle a steep slope and many stairs brought us to the entrance.
We walked around the outer walls and found a skittle game abandoned. We set them up and had a mini tournament which Nick won and I came last.
From here we climbed further where had our first view of the town below. The weather has remained kind to us and we could see for miles from our perch.
Much of the interior remains closed to visitors and the open rooms have few objects of interest. The final part of the tour, Matthews’s tower takes you up to the very top up several series of narrow staircases. Eventually you emerge and can walk all the way round the tower and see further and more fully the panoramic view. In three sides the town of Trencin lies below you with the river Vah, the life blood of the city over the centuries. Directly beneath us sits the town centre with the newer suburbs stretching out on both sides of the river. On the third aspect you can see forests running from close to the tower and into the distance. Trencin used to rely on exporting wood down the Vah for export as its major industry. Having completed the Castle tour we descended to our hotel at the bottom for some much needed rest.
The evening started at 5:15 when we left the hotel and sauntered down the high street and sat outside The restaurant and brewery Lanius. The guys all ordered beers while I picked out the lemonade from the menu. My drink came in a jug with straw filled with mint leaves lemon slices and water.
A delicate flavour of both ingredients and I sipped it slowly while the others during the course of the evening ordered several more pints. When the sun set on our seats we adjourned to the inside of the pub/restaurant and I picked out the steak while others choose less expensive options. The bill for the evening, and we stayed until 8:15 came to €23 each.
We then walked down the road to Trencin’s answer to a sports bar where I had a 0.5% beer and Jon and Garry had another two pints. The non-English speaking barman switch channels to the semi-final of the Champions League at 9 pm, after the ice hockey final between Slovakia’s two top teams. We only watched the first half of a brilliant match with PSG 3-2 up. The final score turned out to be 5-4. The guys had drunk so much liquid that they needed to return home.