Kežmarok sits at the foot of the High Tatras in northern Slovakia, and on a clear day the jagged peaks of the smallest high mountain range in Europe rise above the town like a wall. It is an old town with a mixed history: founded by German settlers in the Middle Ages, it was a free royal town and a centre of trade and crafts, and its wealthy citizens built a castle, churches and fine houses around the square.
The town's most remarkable building is its wooden articular church, built in 1717 by the Lutheran community at a time when Protestants were allowed to build churches only of wood, without stone foundations or towers, outside the town walls. The interior is a masterpiece of carved and painted wood, with galleries and a magnificent organ, and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Wooden Churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathian Mountain Area. Next to it stands the New Evangelical Church, a striking building of the late nineteenth century in an eclectic mix of styles, which contains the tomb of Imre Thököly, a Hungarian prince who led a rebellion against the Habsburgs.
The riding around Kežmarok is excellent. The roads along the foot of the Tatras, through Poprad and the resort villages of Starý Smokovec and Tatranská Lomnica, offer views of the mountains, and the road over the border into Poland, through the Belianske Tatras, is scenic. To the north, the Pieniny mountains and the Dunajec gorge are within reach. The roads are generally good, but traffic can be heavy in the Tatras in summer and during the ski season. The weather in the mountains changes quickly, with storms in summer afternoons.
Kežmarok, a town of sixteen thousand, has fuel, shops and restaurants. Its castle, a Renaissance fortress, houses a museum. The local food is hearty: bryndzové halušky, potato dumplings with sheep's cheese, kapustnica, sauerkraut soup, and pirohy, filled dumplings. The town hosts a folk festival in summer. From the square, looking up at the Tatras in the evening light, you understand why this town has been a gateway to the mountains for centuries.