From December through February, temperatures push below freezing even in the lowlands, and are bitter in the mountains. There is no real 'dry season', and the long, sunny hot spells of summer tend to be broken by sudden, heavy thunderstorms. The driest regions are Slovakia's southern lowlands. Winter brings 40 to 100 days of snow on the ground (about 130 in the mountains), plus fog in the lowlands.

Bratislava
Bratislava (Pozsony in Hungarian, Pressburg in German) is Slovakia's largest city and has been the capital since 1969. Here the Carpathian Mountains, which begin at the Iron Gate of Romania, finally come to an end. As you arrive at the main train station, you'll see vineyards on the slopes of the Little Carpathian Mountains, where they meet the Danube River. The Austrian border is almost within sight of the city and Hungary is just 16km away. Many beautiful monuments survive in the old town to tell of its past under Hungarian rule, and Bratislava's numerous museums are surprisingly rich. Franz Lizst visited Bratislava 15 times, and the opera productions of the Slovak National Theatre rival anything in Europe. Bratislava isn't as swamped by Western tourism as are Budapest and Prague (except on weekends when the Austrians invade).
The old city and the castle are the best parts of Bratislava - the rest of the city is pretty drab. The old city is packed with museums (such as the Municipal Museum which comes complete with torture chambers and the Museum of Wine Production) and palaces (such as the Primate's Palace, where Napoleon and the Austrian Emperor Franz I signed a peace treaty in 1805, and the rococo Mirbach Palace). The castle, built above the Danube, was a frontier post of the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 5th century. Since the 9th century it has been rebuilt several times, most recently between 1953 and 1962. Climb up for the great views and to check out the very interesting Museum of Folk Music within. The Slovak National Museum and the Slovak National Gallery on the river are also worth a visit.
Hviezdoslavovo námestie (square) is a convenient orientation point, with the old town to the north, the Danube to the south, and Bratislava Castle to the west. Bratislava's main train station, Hlavná stanica, is several km north of town. Most of the cheaper hostels and mid-priced hotels are north-east of the centre. The food market in the centre of town is a good place to eat; there are ritzier restaurants in the vicinity of the castle.