We would like to invite you for a two-hour walk, during which you can see almost everything, what the town centre offers. To those, who love sights, we recommend taking one of the stairs up towards miner houses and further to the hills over the town.
The walk starts on Holy Trinity Square (Námestie Svätej Trojice). Here the main characteristic feature is a monument of plaque epidemic. The square is surrounded with bourgeois houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Some of the houses later served as public buildings, e.g. the House of Hellenbach (Berggericht in German), in which the Miners’ Court was situated. Nowadays there is a tourist information centre. We recommend visiting it. There you can get a town map, information booklets and all the information necessary for your stay.
In the first house on the left there used to be a parsonage and later a forestry department of Academy. The walk continues along splendid bourgeois houses up the square. It turns left over the building of Lyceum, towards Starozámocká street, until we arrive to Starý zámok castle (Old Castle). From here we return to the town, passing staircase with landings towards Knocking Tower Klopačka. At present there is an interesting tea house, but in the past miners used to be called to work through knocking on a wooden board right from this tower. Formerly the Miner Treasury was located here and later even a prison. From Knocking Tower Klopačka it takes only few minutes to Nový zámok castle (New Castle), visible from a long distance, with an exhibition about the fights against the Turks. From Nový zámok castle (New Castle) we walk down along an open air theatre and at the building of a Special school we turn right and take a narrow path, which continues to the left and changes into a long staircase. This way we get to main street of Andrej Kmeť.
The main street splits into two downwards and we take the upper, left path. The front side of Kammerhof is clearly visible when looking from the statue of a priest and scientist Andrej Kmeť. Along the building of a former Catholic association and the parish church on the right we approach the gate of upper section of the Botanical garden with an extraordinary complex of four buildings, in which there used to be Mining and Forestry Academy.
Around 250 woody plants, domestic as well as exotic, grow in the garden. After the visit of the garden we continue to street Dolná ružová ulica from which you can again enjoy beautiful view of the historical centre and typical miners’ settlements located on opposite hills. In this way we can sum up our walk up to this point, while returning past this street to Holy Trinity Square.
Trotuár
At least a very little of Štiavnica is like Paris. Trotuár is an elevated pavement which surrounds the main street of Štiavnica, beginning at the statue of Andrej Kmeť. There always used to be small shops, cafés on Trotuár, a “promenade” was full of life. Now the Trotuár starts to remind the old busy times again.
“Mushroom” (Hríb)
Although the citizens of Štiavnica are more or less conservative, they have been always keen on technical innovations. They replaced horse-drawn carriages with cars among the first in Slovakia. Public transport was provided with buses as soon as 1928! Old horse feeding on Radničné námestie square was replaced by an extraordinary building of gas station. Thanks to its unusual look it is nicknamed “Mushroom” (Hríb) by the citizens. You can find a tobacco shop in the Mushroom and behind it there are public restrooms.