Eastern Slovak and on to Hungary

After a leisurely morning exploring Zilina, I pressed on to Levoca. This was described as 'old Slovak'. It was certainly different, to the extent that the people looked different (a fair bit darker skinned). I wouldn't have expected to see this by simply crossing a country on my motorcycle, but it will become more and more apparent as I continue towards and through Asia. In the south-east, the people are a lot darker and the roads are less well maintained. Along the tarmac roads, there are basically two grooves from all of the cars and lorries. Whenever you traverse them, the bike has a bit of a wobble, but you get used to them and, much the same of waterskiing, you just make a break for it to cross the wake! I tried to keep to the back roads as they were less dull. They were also less well surfaced, but I'd take them over boring autoroutes any day.
Levoca is a walled city in the Spis region with a fairly large square. It was only slightly touristy during the day and tranquil at night. There is even a cage of shame in the square where they would put out the 'bad' people to be displayed to all. Hotel wise, I had the usual fun and games. The only hotel with parking was full, but they kindly let me park there anyway and I stayed elsewhere. Not a pizza in sight, so double-yeah! Funnily enough, I seem to be able to eat much more of a variety here in Slovak.
This morning, I headed for the Spissky Hrad (the main castle in the area). I arrived at opening time, just ahead of the screaming children who invaded around 10 minutes after my arrival. Spissky Hrad is a real castle - large, a decent amount of rubble and a parapet. After wandering around, listening to my iPod for an hour or so (the only tunes I remember hearing were from Lionel Richie! Must remember to delete them from the iPod!).
Leaving the castle, I took the 'slow road' past a number of other smaller castles, churches and old towns and headed towards the border with Hungary. After good experiences at other small borders, I thought that this would again be interesting and it certainly was. The streets on the Slovak side degraded significantly and the people started to look much more ferrell. I even found a mountain/hill pass which was extremely remote. The views were superb, as was the peace and quiet.
After reaching the border, I branched off towards Eger, a medium sized city surrounded by hills and forests. Even whilst still sitting on the bike, I picked up a much more Mediterranean feel in Hungary. I spent most of the afternoon milling around the town of Eger and then, in the evening went to a natural thermal spring in a neighbouring town for a bit of a dip.
For dinner, I had a lamb goulash with something called 'noodlie' which is basically a type of pasta. Was excellent.
I just rode back to the hotel and whilst I am typing this, the waiter recommended a dessert called 'Egri Gombpalacsinta', which looked like an 'Oef en cocotte' but had a warm cake in the middle. It's quite fun to just leave it up to the waiter and see what you get! Anyway, they're closing the restaurant/bar now, so I'll leave this update here!