Štrbské Pleso - Grand Hotel Kempinski

Mon-Tue

Grand Hotel Kempinski is located on shores of Strbske Pleso 1346m, second largest mountain glacial lake in Slovakia that is fed by underground springs and has no visible outflow stream. Its surface remains frozen for around 155 days per year.

Hotel offers 98 rooms and fantastic Zion Spa & Wellness. You can enjoy the views of Kriván Peak right from your balcony or while you're swimming in the pool. If you're into cross country skiing, then you would love this place.

Chopok, Jasná - Hotel FIS

Wed-Thu

Jasná is a well known ski resort in Low Tatras including 55km of slopes. Ski Boutique Hotel FIS is highest situated hotel in the ski resort of Jasna at 1220m and just a few steps walk from a gondola lift to Chopok. Amenities include a restaurant, along with a rustic-chic après-ski bar with an outdoor terrace.There is sleek Spa & Wellness with outdoor hot tub.

Chopok 2024m is the third highest peak of the Low Tatra range in central Slovakia. The peak offers a panoramatic view of High Tatra, Liptov and the valley of Hron.

Lomnický Peak - PanoraMic Mountain Residence

Fri-Sat

Lomnický Štít (Lomnický Peak) is one of the highest and most visited mountain peaks in the High Tatras mountains. Connected by cable car from Tatranska Lomnica, its summit is 2634 metres above sea level, making it the second highest peak in the High Tatras. You can stay at the top for 50min and enjoy breathtaking views of highest peaks of High Tatras and enjoy tea or coffee in the Café Dedo, the highest placed Café in Slovakia :)

Hotel PanoraMic Mountain Residence is luxurious self catered hotel style chalet in Smokovec surrounded by the High Tatras National Park and offers accommodation in modern apartments offering panoramic views. Each apartment is decorated with rustic elements and fitted with hard-wooden floors. All apartments feature a southern-oriented terrace providing valley views and northern-oriented with mountain views.

We were at the dinner on a cold October evening when one my friends mentioned that he can get super cheap fly tickets from Prague to Seoul and after few words we had a plan. I was in Asia only once, few months ago in Singapore and I was really looking forward to see more of it. The only catch was that we will only have two nights in Seoul and then we have to fly back, but the price was too good to not do it.

Flight from Prague Ruzyne Airport with Czech Airlines was more than great as plane was almost empty and we had literally whole back part of the plane just for five of us :)

When we arrived at the Incheon Airport in Seoul, it was slightly after the noon and it was freezing cold with gusting wind but as we managed get a bit of sleep during the flight, after check in to Parkwood Hotel we've decided to explore the city a bit..

It turned out to be a pretty spectacular sunset so we made it to the top of Namsan hill to check out N Seoul Tower. It's one of the few places in Seoul that is not a NFZ for your drone so i was pretty excited to snap few shots from above.

We've spend about an hour at the top of the tower and then went downtown to try some street food in Myeong-dong, apparently the most famous street with food in downtown Seoul.

Parkwood Hotel isn't probably the best hotel, but it was cheap enough and very conveniently located just few stops on Maglev train from Incheon Airport and about 45min from downtown Seoul. We were pretty tired when we arrived there and fell to our beds.

Second day was a beautiful weather, still damn cold but sunny, so we decided to visit old town at Bukchon Hanok Village and then one of the largest royal palace, Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was pretty impressive but I'm sure it would be better to enjoy it in the spring when everything is in bloom.

After that we moved back downtown, done some shopping, visited a few hipster coffee and tea places and end up in Myeong-dong again for some more street food. I'm pretty sure that Seoul must have a a highest concentration of Skin Care shops per citizen, it was literally in every second shop :)

After dinner we went back to the hotel to get some sleep as in the morning we had to get to the Incheon Airport and fly another 11 hours back to Prague.

Here are instagram accounts of my travel buddies if you want to check them out.