What to see in Košice: Milan Bez Mapy’s tips and ideas for active days out

I’d give Košice at least three days, enough for the city and the area around it. It’s one of my favourite cities in Slovakia. Beyond the old town, with its underground and singing fountain, I’d head to Anička Park and Lake Bukovec. Then there’s the day trip to Tokaj. Anyone who claims there’s nothing to see in eastern Slovakia should come and look for themselves.

Quick factsby Milan Bez Mapy

How many days

At least three for the city and the area around it, which is how long I stayed

Where I stayed

Hotel Ambassador, in one of the Invisible Hotel rooms; the package included a ticket to the East Slovak Gallery

Getting around

The Moovit app helped me and Bolt works; check the app for shared scooters

Food

The best mačanka I had was at Villa Regia; at Hotel Slávia, have the perkelt

Anička Park

Half an hour’s walk from the centre; you can fill a bottle with medicinal spring water for free

Tokaj day trip

A guided tasting at Grand Bari; I was shown round by Dominik Lutas

What to see in Košice? You’re in the right place. I spent three packed days here exploring the old town, the rest of the city, the surrounding area and a world-class food scene.

In this article I’ve gathered every tip I picked up, including where to eat and where to stay. Košice is one of my favourite Slovak cities and I’m always happy to come back. Read on and you’ll see why. This article was written in collaboration with the Visit Košice Infopoint.

Where to stay in Košice and how to get around

Where to stay in Košice? Try the Invisible Hotel

Košice has plenty of hotels, but the ones that interested me most belong to the ‘invisible’ concept, which I’ll explain below. Hotel Ambassador, where I stayed, occupies a listed 13th-century building. Inside is one of several Invisible Hotel rooms scattered around Košice.

Each room is one of a kind, created by designers and linked to one of Košice’s ‘themes’. The room at Hotel Ambassador is themed on Košice Modernism (Košická moderna), the city’s interwar art movement, so it feels like staying in your own private gallery. That’s why, when I visited, the welcome pack included a ticket to the East Slovak Gallery (Východoslovenská galéria).

I also tried Hotel Roca, which belongs to the same concept and has a room dedicated to street art. Košice has plenty of good street art, and I’d recommend a walk round the Open Mural Gallery.

Getting around Košice by public transport

As an outsider, I found the Moovit app a great help: it knows the whole bus and tram network, every route and every connection. Google Maps can do the same. Bolt works perfectly well in the city too, and on my visit in 2022 I noticed that locals love Bolt scooters. They rode them absolutely everywhere and, most importantly, knew how to park them. For the 2023 season, though, Bolt launched its scooters in only five Slovak cities, and Košice wasn’t one of them. It’s worth checking in the app to see which shared scooters are running now. I also love the Ubian app, which plans your route and sells tickets too.

If you get stuck with anything in the city, drop into the Košice Infopoint at Hlavná 59. They have maps, brochures and souvenirs, plus the latest programme of what’s on, where to go and what to see.

Where to eat in Košice: restaurants, bars and cafés

What fascinates me most about Košice is probably the food. The city has a huge number of bars and restaurants, many of them tucked away in courtyards. It’s hard to pick the best, so here are the places where I ate, what I ordered and whether I liked it.

• The restaurant at Hotel Slávia is one of my favourites in the city. The hotel was founded by a brewery owner. I’d drop in at least for a coffee, but if you’re hungry, have my favourite perkelt, a paprika meat stew. Trust me, you’ll be surprised by how it looks and how it tastes. I’d rather not even post a photo.
• Hostinec proudly claims the title of the oldest restaurant in Slovakia. It’s one of the places I’d stop at. Come for the beer, from traditional brews to modern ones that keep up with the times, or for the pork tenderloin with forest fruit sauce. Building work to expand Hostinec at the turn of 2018 and 2019 uncovered the Košice Silver Treasure: 700 coins, 500 of them silver. There’s also a sewer shaft down in the cellar. Why mention it? Because it’s a masonry shaft, which means someone of high standing lived here.
• Smokehouse on Biela Street serves great burgers and good beer in a cosy setting.
• Villa Regia is a homely Slovak restaurant where I’ve had probably my best mačanka yet: a sour soup from eastern Slovakia, made with sausage. This is the place to try it.

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Things to do in and around Košice: Milan Bez Mapy’s picks

1. Take a guided tour of the old town
2. See the singing fountain
3. Visit Košice Castle and the lookout tower
4. Go boating at the Ryba Anička lido
5. Sunbathe at Lake Bukovec
6. Catch a film at the Amfiteáter, Košice’s open-air cinema
7. Go wine tasting at Grand Bari in Tokaj

Košice old town and the underground

Košice’s historic centre is the largest protected historic centre in Slovakia, and only five other Slovak towns share its long, narrow layout. I walked round it with a local guide, Milan Kolcun, and you can book his tour too. Look at the stream running down the middle of Hlavná, the main street. It’s actually a man-made fountain imitating the medieval stream that once flowed right here. Like many other restorations, this one happened thanks to former president Rudolf Schuster.

Košice is where one of Europe’s largest treasures was found: the Košice Gold Treasure. Workers came across it during building work just a few metres from the plague column, which holds a relic of St Valentine. The plague column shows humanity’s three greatest disasters: epidemics, famine and war. I half suspect its builders could see into the future.

On your walk, keep an eye out for Hotel Slávia, which I mentioned above. At the top of its façade is a painting of a man bending over a beer tap. It’s a hidden reference to the hotel’s founder, who owned a prestigious brewery. I also liked the Košice underground. It does a good job of showing how the devastating fire of 1674 and the plague of 1710 swept through the city. Look out for the original wall from 1290, too.

How did Košice get its singing fountain? Thanks to Rudolf Schuster

Rudolf Schuster, who later became president of Slovakia, once went on a work trip to the Russian city of Vladimir. The singing fountain there caught his eye. He asked for the patent and had one built in the centre of Košice, back in the days of Czechoslovakia.

After a major renovation, the fountain was switched back on in April 2024. Its central jet now reaches up to 24 metres.

Košice Castle and the lookout tower

Košice Castle is something of a puzzle for archaeologists, and for the people of Košice too. Why? It was never finished, and it’s far bigger than it needed to be. The area uncovered so far covers 6.5 hectares, enough for exactly 6,000 people. That’s baffling, because when it was built, towns had no more than 300 inhabitants. The builders used local materials, so nothing had to be brought in from elsewhere. The walls are surprisingly thick too, up to 3.5 metres in places.

Another oddity is the round tower in the middle of the castle. Nobody knows why it’s there, since castles usually had theirs on the edge. It was a residential tower, 20 metres high. Castles later lost their purpose. They were hard to maintain and usually stood on a hill. Unless there was a well, water had to be carried up. People moved down to the valleys, by streams, and into towns, where everything was closer to hand and life was simpler.

I’d pop up here at the weekend and visit the information centre and its replicas of period costumes. Look out for the woman in yellow: she’s meant to be a prostitute, with bare ankles, loose hair and yellow clothes. There are also events you can join, such as local workshops, making plaster the traditional way or carpentry. The city restored the Hradová lookout tower and reopened it in May 2026. Entry is free.

Anička Park, boating at the Ryba Anička lido and the open-air cinema

What to do in Košice on a hot weekend? Anička Park and the things to do around it. It’s half an hour on foot from the city centre, so I’d take a scooter. Anička is a nature park that made its name with a medicinal spring. You can fill a bottle with its water for free, right in the park.

At the Ryba Anička lido you can hire a boat and drift around the calm water of the pond next to it.

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Lake Bukovec: paddleboarding and a naturist beach

People in Košice love Bukovec. If they’re not in Anička Park on a hot Saturday, they’ll be at Bukovec. You can get here by suburban bus or by Bolt. Bukovec is a man-made reservoir that acts as a safety net in case anything goes wrong at the nearby US Steel Košice steelworks. You can hire a paddleboard with a lesson from splavujeme.sk and glide across the calm, clean water. You can also grab a langoš, a deep-fried flatbread, or find the small naturist beach in a quieter corner of the lake.

Parking is no problem. There’s a large pay car park behind the lake, and when I visited it was well organised, with seasonal staff running it. After a full day at the lake, I’d recommend the Amfiteáter, an open-air cinema a short way from the centre of Košice. All summer it shows new releases and classics. It’s three stops from the centre by tram.

Day trip from Košice to Tokaj and the Grand Bari winery

And I’ve saved the best till last. Fancy a day trip from Košice to the Slovak part of Tokaj, one of the world’s first officially demarcated wine regions? Then a guided tasting at Grand Bari is the way to do it. I was shown round by Dominik Lutas, a young guy whose enthusiasm and knowledge of wine made my visit, and the article you’re reading now, much richer. I’ve written about Tokaj before, in my piece on visiting Tokaj, if you want to read more.

This independent winery picks all its grapes by hand. It’s also known for putňové wine, the sweet Tokaj wine made from nobly rotten grapes. Thanks to the local climate, it can only be made in the Tokaj region. Why is Grand Bari called Grand Bari? After the Tatars devastated the area, King Béla IV invited settlers from the Italian city of Bari to rebuild it.

Grand Bari makes wine both the traditional way and the modern way. The traditional method takes about three years to produce one litre, while the modern one needs just five months. That’s thanks to controlled fermentation, which can now be steered by temperature. Lowering it slows the fermentation or stops it, and raising it speeds it up. Only an experienced technician can manage that, though.

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Cassavita, the official wine of Košice

The winery has a wide range of its own wines, but the one that interested me most was Cassavita, the official wine of the city of Košice. From every bottle sold, €1 goes towards improving the city. On the cellar tour at Grand Bari, keep an eye on the black mould on the walls. It’s a special kind, Cladosporium cellare, which only appears where there’s wine. Just like me. It protects the wine from other moulds. Tokaj wines were among the first from what is now Slovakia to be drunk at the French court. Do stop by.

Next time someone comes out with the old nonsense that there’s nothing in eastern Slovakia, send them this article. Košice and the area around it have plenty to offer, whether you’re the sporty type or prefer spas, lazy days or wine tasting. So go and see Košice for yourself. This article was made possible by the Visit Košice Infopoint.

Happy travels!