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BANSKA BYSTRICA |
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Lying at the very heart of Slovakia's mountain ranges, the old
medieval German mining town of BANSKÁ BYSTRICA (Neusohl) is a useful
introduction to the area. Connected to the outlying districts by some of
the country's most precipitous railways, it's also a handsome historic
town in its own right - once you've made it through the tangled suburbs
of the burgeoning cement and logging industries.
Námestie SNP , the old medieval marketplace, is still the centre of life
in Banská Bystrica. The black obelisk of the Soviet war memorial and a
revolving fountain, enthusiastically chucking water over a pile of mossy
rocks, form the square's centrepiece. One or two of the burgher houses
bear closer inspection, particularly the Venetian House (Benického dom)
at no. 16, with its slender first-floor arcaded loggia. The sgraffitoed
building opposite is now an art gallery. Just a few doors down is the
most imposing building on the square, the honey-coloured Thurzo Palace
at no. 4, decorated like a piece of embroidery and sporting cute oval
portholes, and now housing the town museum (Mon-Fri 8am-noon & 1-4pm,
Sun 9am-noon & 1-4pm), with a small selection of folk art and period
furniture.
At the top end of the square, beyond the leaning clock tower, there's an
interesting ensemble of buildings which is all that's left of the old
castle. The first building in view is the last remaining barbican ,
curving snugly round a Baroque tower. Next door, the former town hall or
radnica (Tues-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm), a boxy little
Renaissance structure, is now the town's main art gallery, which puts on
temporary exhibitions from its extensive catalogue of twentieth-century
Slovak art. Behind it is the rouge-red church of Panna Mária , which
dates back to the thirteenth century; the north side chapel contains the
town's greatest art treasure, a carved late-Gothic altarpiece by Master
Pavol of Levoca.
A short distance southeast of námestie SNP on Kapitulská, 200m south of
the clock tower, is the SNP Museum at no. 23 (Tues-Sun: May-Sept
8am-6pm; Oct-April 9am-4pm), looking something like an intergalactic
mushroom chopped in half and dating from 1969. The museum deals as best
it can with the complex issues raised by the Slovak National Uprising (SNP)
against the Nazis (and the Slovak puppet regime), which began on August
29, 1944, in Banská Bystrica and which was eventually crushed by the
Germans two months later, just a month or so before the town's
liberation. Outside on the grass you'll notice an exhibition of tanks,
an armoured train and guns from the uprising amid the bushes and the
town's last two surviving medieval bastions.
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