It was not love at first sight.
This town looked like an incomplete chapter of a boring book.
Until we took a closer look.
And the town started to reveal its stories to us.
About one king, who in 1328 granted it royal town privileges.
A Slovak Golden Town.
With gold mining and coin minting and with famous “Kremnica ducats”, which were used as an international
means of payment as a result of their consistently high purity of gold.
Kremnica.
175km from Bratislava.
One of the richest towns of the Kingdom of Hungary, with the world´s oldest still-operating mint, established in
1328.
There is an old Romanesque and Gothic church located on a hill.
4 km from Kremnica.
In its garden lies hidden the geographical centre of Europe.
This town is cool!
And it´s mystic!
With 2,000 year old Slavic lettering on the andesite rocks at the mysterious Slavic place of sacrifice, Velestúr,
where Slavic priests made offerings to their gods. It is named after “Veles”, the arch Slavic god of earth, water,
and the underworld.
This town is pure adrenaline with the hardest Via ferrata in Slovakia, Skalka.
This town is fun and it is home to the European festival of humour and satire and the unique Museum of Kitsch.
And this town is musical! Its Gothic Church of St. Catherine hosts the popular European Organ Festival.
In Paulo Coelho’s novel “Alchemist”, an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago travels from his homeland in
Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids.
And what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within.
In Slovak writer Jozef Banáš´s novel “Velestúr”, his hero after lingering in delusion, superficiality and the rock
star life, discovers the same treasure and happiness in altruism and beating his ego. All while on a symbolic hike
to mythical Velestúr mountain to read its secret message.
So come search for treasure. Maybe it´s just outside your door.
Or in Kremnica.
