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.

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