This was a flying visit - a Friday night to Sunday morning - so please excuse its brevity but I hope it can be of some use to those contemplating a visit.
Kosice is Slovkia's second city after Bratislava. The main street Hvlaska is pretty and has the main sights and is close to all the nightlife - you'll want to stay near here.
GETTING THERE:
Direct flights on Wizz from London Luton to Kosice or Poprad-Tatry airports. Poprad-Tatry is a smaller town about 90 minutes away by train (a beautiful, scenic and cheap ride).
THE GIRLS:
Are cute. I personally would say at a similar level to Czech Republic. Lots of brunettes with light skin. Reasonably friendly. This is a University town with a big medical school which means of the demographic, a fair number of young people.
THE NIGHTLIFE:
Overall, disappointing. For a 2nd city there is a surprising paucity of options. Bizarrely, whilst Friday was fairly busy, Saturday was quiet. I was told that the locals tend to go out on Friday not Saturday which seems bizarre to me. Drinks are cheap - about €2 for a beer or a vodka. Being a foreigner had some limited value but don't expect to be the first they've seen for a while - there were plenty of Spanish and Middle Eastern students of the male variety hitting on the local girls.
RETRO CLUB: Long, narrow bar upstairs and small club with an entrance fee downstairs. Upstairs it was table service. On the Friday we stayed upstairs where it was about half capacity. On Saturday it was similar and the basement was empty.
JAZZ CLUB: Your best bet. Upstairs gets quite busy and is the closest you'll find to a pub, with some people standing you can talk to. Downstairs there's a club which although small was pretty busy on the Friday night. Enjoyed my time here and locals were friendly.
DIESEL IRISH PUB: Was empty when we visited. Looked fairly ropey.
IBIZA: Need to get a taxi here from the city centre. When we visited gone midnight on a Saturday, we were the only people in the club. Standard nightclub setup.
KULTURFABRIC: There was a special event happening the Saturday night we tried to get in, with a huge unorganised queue. We waited for half an hour to get in then quit. The crowd was shabbily dressed - teenagers wearing baseball caps under hoods, etc.
THE BEER HOUSE: Typical EE bar, all seated, long beer menu as you might expect. Abysmal food.
CONCLUSION: I had a good time here and you might well do too but I cannot recommend Kosice because it doesn't have many nightlife options, and those it does have were small, and not especially busy (although Jazz is worth a visit). I am an EE veteran in terms of weekend trips, and for the guy looking to game at night, this is one of the less fruitful places I've been. Although it is Slovakia's 2nd city, it definitely has the feel of a 3rd tier EE city. For the record my favourite EE cities are Vilnius and Bucharest, both of which have been well covered in this forum.
Kosice is Slovkia's second city after Bratislava. The main street Hvlaska is pretty and has the main sights and is close to all the nightlife - you'll want to stay near here.
GETTING THERE:
Direct flights on Wizz from London Luton to Kosice or Poprad-Tatry airports. Poprad-Tatry is a smaller town about 90 minutes away by train (a beautiful, scenic and cheap ride).
THE GIRLS:
Are cute. I personally would say at a similar level to Czech Republic. Lots of brunettes with light skin. Reasonably friendly. This is a University town with a big medical school which means of the demographic, a fair number of young people.
THE NIGHTLIFE:
Overall, disappointing. For a 2nd city there is a surprising paucity of options. Bizarrely, whilst Friday was fairly busy, Saturday was quiet. I was told that the locals tend to go out on Friday not Saturday which seems bizarre to me. Drinks are cheap - about €2 for a beer or a vodka. Being a foreigner had some limited value but don't expect to be the first they've seen for a while - there were plenty of Spanish and Middle Eastern students of the male variety hitting on the local girls.
RETRO CLUB: Long, narrow bar upstairs and small club with an entrance fee downstairs. Upstairs it was table service. On the Friday we stayed upstairs where it was about half capacity. On Saturday it was similar and the basement was empty.
JAZZ CLUB: Your best bet. Upstairs gets quite busy and is the closest you'll find to a pub, with some people standing you can talk to. Downstairs there's a club which although small was pretty busy on the Friday night. Enjoyed my time here and locals were friendly.
DIESEL IRISH PUB: Was empty when we visited. Looked fairly ropey.
IBIZA: Need to get a taxi here from the city centre. When we visited gone midnight on a Saturday, we were the only people in the club. Standard nightclub setup.
KULTURFABRIC: There was a special event happening the Saturday night we tried to get in, with a huge unorganised queue. We waited for half an hour to get in then quit. The crowd was shabbily dressed - teenagers wearing baseball caps under hoods, etc.
THE BEER HOUSE: Typical EE bar, all seated, long beer menu as you might expect. Abysmal food.
CONCLUSION: I had a good time here and you might well do too but I cannot recommend Kosice because it doesn't have many nightlife options, and those it does have were small, and not especially busy (although Jazz is worth a visit). I am an EE veteran in terms of weekend trips, and for the guy looking to game at night, this is one of the less fruitful places I've been. Although it is Slovakia's 2nd city, it definitely has the feel of a 3rd tier EE city. For the record my favourite EE cities are Vilnius and Bucharest, both of which have been well covered in this forum.