Nitra, Slovakia

While Trnava is stuck in the past, NITRA (Nyitra), 40km further east across the plain, has effectively shed its old skin and rushed headlong into the modern world. The result is a clearly divided town: on the one hand, the peaceful old quarter wrapped around the foot of the castle rock; on the other, the ungainly sprawl of modern Nitra, third largest city in the country with a population of 90,000, agricultural capital of the nation and a bustling market town with that symbol of development, a Tesco hypermarket. Sadly, to get to the former you must pass through the latter, since the sights are all situated in the old town, which has a certain national kudos attached to it as a centre of Slovak Catholicism, ancient and modern.