Medzilaborce and the Warhol museum: Andy Warhol’s family roots and the Dukla battlefields

If you ask me, the north-east of the Prešov Region around Medzilaborce is quiet, green and surprisingly little known. See the Warhol memorial room in Miková, the Krásny Brod monastery, the sunrise from the Kyčera lookout tower and the Valley of Death near Dukla. Before you go, download the free Prešov Region Travel Card app with discounts and trip ideas.

What to see in the Prešov Region? A few weeks ago I went to find out for myself, with my own eyes and on my own wheels. The Prešov Region has just launched the Prešov Region Travel Card, a digital tourist card that puts discounts, trip ideas and an overview of events across the whole region in one place on your phone, from the Tatras all the way to the Poloniny. I headed for that second part, a corner of Slovakia I knew surprisingly little about before.

What to see in the Prešov Region: tips from Milan Bez Mapy

I did the classic thing and flew from Bratislava to Košice, picked up a rental car there and drove straight to Medzilaborce, where I was also staying. On the way I was surprised how quiet and green this part of Slovakia is, and even more surprised that Medzilaborce is a real two-hour drive from Košice, much further than I would have guessed from the map.

Tip from Milan You can compare flights from London to Košice on Omio, and rental cars on Discover Cars.

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What the Prešov Region Travel Card is, what discounts it offers and how to get it

The Prešov Region Travel Card is a free mobile app launched this year by the regional tourism organisation KOCR Prešov Region together with the Prešov Self-Governing Region, with support from the Slovak Ministry of Tourism and Sport. It is the first card in Slovakia that covers a whole self-governing region, from the Tatras to the Poloniny. Here is the download link.

In the app you’ll find discounts and perks from dozens of partners, from accommodation and restaurants to museums and wellness centres, plus an overview of current events and trip ideas based on where you are right now. You download it to your phone for free and it works like a digital guide to the whole region in your pocket. According to the region, the app is available in several languages, so visitors from abroad can use it too.

The Warhol memorial room in Miková, where the road to Pittsburgh began

I started the trip in Miková, the small village where Julia Warhola (Júlia Varcholová in Slovak), Andy Warhol’s mother, came from. Getting into the memorial room takes a little planning: check the opening hours and call the phone number listed on the website in advance, so the mayor can come and give you a tour. Plan on thirty to forty-five minutes.

The strongest part of the whole room is a documentary by the Slovak artist Petra Toth, who travelled in person the route Julia took a hundred years ago from Miková to Pittsburgh: through Poland, Belgium, the port of Dover, Liverpool and New York’s Ellis Island. It’s a good first stop and definitely worth it.

I was at Ellis Island in New York myself not long ago. There is a database of the ancestors who came to America for a new life, so try looking up members of your own family. It’s really interesting.

Krásny Brod Monastery, destroyed three times and still standing

A short drive from Miková I stopped at the monastery in Krásny Brod. I originally thought it was one of the best-preserved monasteries in Slovakia, but when I checked, I found out the opposite. The monastery, said to have been founded in the 14th century by Theodore Koriatovych, was destroyed three times in its history: first in 1603, then during the Estates‘ uprising of 1703–1711, and finally for good in 1915, during the First World War.

Since then only ruins of the original church remain, which people also call the Rusyn Devín (after the castle ruin of Devín near Bratislava). Next to them the Basilian monks built a completely new monastery, consecrated in 2002, and a new church in 2009. I got there in the late afternoon and I can recommend exactly that time: at sunset it looks its best.

• Tip from Milan I saved the Krásny Brod monastery for just before sunset, which is when I think it looks its best.

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What to see in Medzilaborce

I stayed right in Medzilaborce, and in the centre the first thing that caught my eye was the big, handsome church that dominates the town. But the town really lives off one person: Andy Warhol. Just while I was there, the fully renovated Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art reopened, the only museum in all of Europe devoted specifically to this artist.

It was founded back in 1991 with twelve works. Today it has more than four hundred, plus roughly another hundred and twenty by artists such as Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy. The renovation took three years and cost almost sixteen million euros, and it added a walkable roof with an amphitheatre.

Right in front of the building stands a big Campbell’s soup can, exactly like the ones he made famous in his paintings. And here is the kind of paradox I love most about places like this: Andy Warhol himself never set foot in Slovakia, and his mother Julia never went back to eastern Slovakia either. She left for America as a young girl and spent the rest of her life there.

The statue of Prince Laborec in Habura, patron of the whole valley

When I wanted to stretch my legs a bit, I turned off to nearby Habura. Above the village stands a bronze statue of Prince Laborec, more than five metres tall, by the sculptor Ján Ťapák, unveiled in 2014. Its stone pedestal, almost two metres high, holds a casket with soil from 106 Rusyn villages, a symbol of their unity.

According to legend, Laborec was a Slavic prince who, around the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries, was hunted down by the ancient Magyars, caught and executed on the bank of the river Sviržava. Since then the river has carried his name, Laborec, and Medzilaborce itself is named after it.

Sunrise from the Kyčera lookout tower above Medzilaborce

In the morning I got up early and set off for the Kyčera lookout tower above the town while it was still dark. It’s about an hour’s climb through the forest, but it’s worth it, because the tower gives you a lovely view of the sunrise over the whole of Medzilaborce. Both the tower and the path up to it are well looked after, and the nature around is pleasantly quiet.

Havaj, a Slovak Hawaii without palm trees or sand

On the way I also stopped in the village of Havaj, a real local curiosity. Purely by chance, its name is the same as the Slovak name for the islands in the Pacific, Hawaii. It was first mentioned back in 1403, long before anyone in Slovakia had any idea that a place called Hawaii existed on the other side of the world. Two folk legends explain the name, and both link it to the Hungarian word for butter. If you can’t stretch to a plane ticket to the Pacific, at least you can get a photo with the Havaj village sign this way.

The Valley of Death, site of the fiercest tank battles at Dukla

What hit me hardest on the whole trip was the Valley of Death (Údolie smrti). In the valley of the Kapišovka stream, between the villages of Kapišová, Kružlová and Nižná Pisaná, the fiercest tank battles of the entire Carpathian–Dukla Operation were fought from 25 to 27 October 1944. Historians speak of roughly eleven thousand soldiers killed on both sides, around five thousand of them from the Red Army.

Local legend says the stream turned red with blood. To this day, tanks stand along the road, placed to look like an attacking tank company, and at the entrance to the valley there is a big ÚDOLIE SMRTI sign that reminds you of the Hollywood sign in the hills. It’s a powerful experience and a good reminder that for some people in Europe, tanks are part of everyday life even in 2026.

Opal mines in Slovakia

The last stop of my trip was the opal mines near the villages of Zlatá Baňa and Červenica, which are among the oldest opal mines in the world. Mining here ended in 1922, and the underground only opened to the public again in 2015, after almost a hundred years of silence. The tunnels stay at only about four to six degrees Celsius all year round, so I really recommend bringing a sweatshirt.

The largest opal ever found, named Harlequin, comes from right here and is now in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, and Queen Victoria had opals from Dubník in her coronation tiara too. Tickets have to be bought online in advance, and parking at the mine is paid.

• Tip from Milan I had to buy my ticket for the opal mines online in advance, and I brought a sweatshirt, because the tunnel is only a few degrees all year round.

The weather played along for the whole trip, which is not a given in the east in September, and I’m glad it did. What surprised me most, though, was how many places in eastern Slovakia I hadn’t known before, and how varied the region is, from pop art and Rusyn villages to war history and opals underground. I’m glad I got to know this part of Slovakia, where I had never been before, thanks in part to the Prešov Region Travel Card.

The Prešov Region continues in Šariš and Bardejovské Kúpele

Medzilaborce and Upper Zemplín are just one corner of the Prešov Region. It also includes Šariš Castle in Veľký Šariš, which has the most towers and bastions in the region, the Zlá diera cave near Lipovce, a private cave in dolomite with a character of its own, the manor house in Krivany, which the village is restoring step by step, Čergov with its chairlift up to Lysá and a new educational trail, and finally the spa town of Bardejovské Kúpele with its open-air museum and healing springs, together with the historic centre of Bardejov, protected by UNESCO. Each of them will soon get its own article too.

My trip around the Prešov Region was arranged by the regional tourism organisation KOCR Prešov Region. The project was financially supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Sport of the Slovak Republic.

Go travel!