Tourist Guide Pieštany
Pieštany is a small spa town of approximately 31,000 residents, situated
in a valley in the west of Slovakia, near the lower stream of the Váh,
the country’s longest river. The town is also the seat of government for
the district of Pieštany, which incorporates 27 nearby villages. The town’s
position ensures that it is protected from the worst of Slovakia’s winter,
with a partially cloudy, dry, and mildly windy climate.
The area around Pieštany was first settled in the late primeval age, when
mammoth hunters came here to take advantage of the hot thermal springs. An important
archaeological find from this period is the Venus of Moravany, a sculpture of
a voluptuous woman carved from the tusk of a mammoth.
Pieštany was part of the masterdom of Mathias Czaky from Trencín
in 1299 and again from 1301 to 1321, when, upon his death, the Anjou king Karol
Robert seized part of the territory. The town changed hands numerous times,
until Karol VI handed the estate to Jan Leopold Erdödy in 1720. The town
remained in this family’s control until 1848. Jozef Erdödy constructed
the first brick spa buildings in the early 1800s, when the first specialist
began working in the area and the spas became widely known for their healing
properties.
