When you compare Slovakia to India, we are really small because the size of our country is just about 50,000 square kilometres. But even though we are relatively small, you can find almost everything in Slovakia: about 120 medieval castles, almost 4,200 churches and cathedrals, nine national parks, over 7,000 natural caves, 1,600 mineral and thermal springs, 40 spas and aqua parks, more than 50 ski resorts with hundreds of cable cars, and almost 150 wineries. We can boast of 30 records on the UNESCO list of world heritage. Not to mention the dozens of festivals, cultural events, galleries, museums and nightlife, of course. You can find everything in Slovakia, except the sea.

In recent years, the Slovak Republic has become even more popular as a tourist destination. For example, in 2017, about 2.2 million foreign visitors came to Slovakia. This number is surely even higher, but statistics only include travellers staying in Slovakia for at least one night. If you take into consideration that the total number of Slovak citizens is only about 5.5 million, you will find our tourism sector remarkable. Tourism in Slovakia generates revenues of roughly €5 billion every year, which represents 5.2% of our total GDP.

To be honest, it is really difficult to recommend only a few, but I will suggest some tips that include universal interests. For those who prefer nature, mountains and adventures, I would recommend our pride: High Tatra mountains, Slovak Paradise National Park as well as our famous Demänovská Ice Cave and Ochtinská Aragonite Cave that are listed in UNESCO. For those who are interested in the history of medieval castles, we have our Bojnice Castle, Red Rock Castle, Bratislava Castle, Spiš Castle, Orava Castle and many others to see. All of them are fully renovated and wonderful. Those who would like to get to know Slovak culture and traditions should visit our open air museums of traditional villages like Pribylina or Bardejov, and of course, they should not miss our traditional folk festival Východná held every July.

I believe that all the above. We understand that travel preferences are very individual. Someone might like mountains and nature, others might like history and culture, while some others may prefer to enjoy nightlife. But as I explained, Slovakia really has something for everyone's taste. Especially if you want to escape from the Indian summer heat and humidity or polluted air in winter, Slovak touristic resorts may offer you pleasant climate and fresh air all the year round.

Last year, we recorded that more than 11,000 Indians visited our country and stayed there more than one night. In this regard, I would like to highlight that Indian tourists on average stayed in our territory for more days than other tourists. There, however, is huge potential and we believe that we will attract even more Indian visitors in the future.

Just recently, we doubled visa capacity at the embassy and launched our cooperation with VFS Global in three cities, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, which adds to tripling the visa capacity as compared to 2018. Our latest initiative was an event presenting Slovakia as a tourist destination organised by the Slovak Embassy on March 6. It was a very successful event and we are planning to organise more of them in the future, maybe even in collaboration with some agencies or organisations.

Our visa issuing process has to follow the Schengen Visa Code strictly, so we can say it is the same as in any other EU country. But at this point, I would like to recommend to every applicant to please read the visa application instructions carefully and make sure everything in your application is correct and complete. Applications submitted ahead of the planned travel is likely to get an easy and fast approval. Majority of Indian Schengen Visa applications in 2018 were for business trips and the average visa processing time was four calendar days.

There is a convenient flight connection via Dubai to Bratislava, and also direct flights to the Vienna airport, which is just a half-hour drive from our capital, Bratislava. And from Bratislava, it takes only 2-3 hours by car to get to most of the above-mentioned beautiful sites, mountains and attractions.

My wife and I arrived together in June 2018 and since then we are trying to enjoy a variety of regional and traditional Indian cuisines.