Levoča is a sleepy little walled town in eastern Slovakia with beautiful old buildings, surrounded by rolling green hills. At 10.30 on a sunny Monday morning, the women are congregating in the parks with their strollers, and the men are congregating outside the cafes to drink beer. The cinema has two showings of movies, whether Hollywood or local: one at 7.00 on Friday, the other at 7.00 on Saturday. That’s it; end of run. Must be quite an event.

It does seem like the whole town centre is a free wireless network, though – hence I can sit in the square and write this.

Here are some of the buildings:

And here is the city gate:

The church of St. James (which is the second largest in Slovakia, after the one I saw yesterday in Košice – though not that big really) has a huge golden altar which was carved by a local carving master called Paul about 500 years ago. He didn’t use a single nail to hang this together – it was all done by fitting the wood:

That’s beautiful, but around the corner there was another church (in baroque style, not quite so old) which was full of gorgeous light and even more colorful:

Finally, in the main square is this cage, which they used to put people in who had misbehaved themselves. I hope none of the guys drinking beer at 10.30 in the morning end up in there…