Bardejovské Kúpele

Bardejovské Kúpele sits in forest above the town, a spa built around mineral springs that were used from the middle ages and developed formally from the eighteenth century, with a colonnade, a promenade and villas among the trees. Empress Elisabeth of Austria took the waters here. Beside the spa is an open-air museum, the oldest in Slovakia, holding wooden churches and houses from the Šariš region.

What you actually see

• The colonnade - the covered promenade with the drinking springs along it.
• The spa villas - nineteenth-century buildings among the forest.
• The skanzen - Slovakia's oldest open-air museum, beside the spa.
• The springs - mineral water drunk to prescription in the pump rooms.

When to go

May to October is the pleasant season, though the spa works year round. The skanzen is open in the warm months. Autumn colour in the forest is good.

Honest expectations

It is a working medical spa and a day visit gets little from it. Some buildings are dated Soviet-era construction. The skanzen keeps separate hours.

Nearby

Bardejov is south, and the Polish border is north.