I visited Slovakia for a few days while traveling around East Europe and was sufficiently taken by it to end up moving there to live. It's located centrally in Europe, bordering Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary. This makes it rather good for traveling around the region, and puts quite a few places in reach by overnight train rather than flying.
The cities tend to have beautiful centers, with any uglier urban sprawl spanning out from there. Bratislava's center is small (then, it's a small capital city of just half a million or so), but a joy to wander around, which no shortage of beautiful buildings. Go on a tour and it feels like every other building has been some kind of palace at some point in history! The city is set amongst hills on which there are many vineyards - Slovak wine is said to be very good (although I'm certainly no great wine connoisseur).
Further east - about four and a half hours away by train - you will find the pride of Slovakia: the High Tatra mountains. Good for skiing by winter and trekking by summer, they are a compact mountain range but still reach up to altitudes well over 2,500m. Trains and cable cars make it an easy area to explore, and the trails tend to be well marked.
