Vienna & Bratislava, Part 2

The drive to Bratislava was an interesting one. There were wind mills everywhere on the Austrian part of the drive. All other countries whose borders we've driven across have made the border fairly non-descript. At most you might see a bunch of gas stations around it, but more often then not the only way you know you're crossing a border is a big blue sign with a circle of stars and in the center, the name of the country in the local language of the country. Slovakia was completely different. You had to slow down from 130km/h to 30km/h (80mph to 18mph) over the course of 200 meters. The road had concrete blocks up along the side so once you drove past a certain point, you were committed. It looked like the over pass that you drove under that marked the border was built in the 80's based on the colors, so we were thinking this probably where they had armed guards when the Soviet's had control of the country back then.

Once over the border, and close to the city (but not quite in it yet) we started the see the old Soviet era apartment buildings.  Mostly grey, all uniform looking, and no sense of style or distinction at all.  This was a stark contrast to the actual inner city of Bratislava, though.  When crossing the bridge over the Danube into the city, it was a completely different experience.  It had an "old" feel to it, with the palace up on the hill, a large church, cobblestone streets, and plenty of historical architecture.

We eventually got to our hotel, got checked, and headed to the room. What we'd eventually come to realize was that things were extremely cheap here.  The hotel was 60 Euros a night here, was located almost in the heart of old town, had air conditioning (which is rare in Europe), a spacious room, and the bathrooms were separate, meaning you had one room for the shower and one room with the toilet.  Shanna found a sheet in the room with a list of Massage prices.  They had a 60 minute neck & back massage for 22 Euros.

After we were settled in, we went out to get dinner.  Our friends Kate & Charles had been to the city before and told us about a street they were on with a row of restaurants & bars for dirt cheap.  It just so happens this street was adjacent to the street with our hotel.  In doing research to find the name of some places they stopped at, Kate found a brewery that she emailed me about.  Turned out the brewery was literally located next door to our hotel.  I swear I didn't know any of this when I booked the place back in early April.  We decided to try the brewery for dinner and were not disappointed.  I had a delicious plate of Goulash, and Shanna had Duck Leg.  The beer was ridiculously cheap.  A half liter of their lager beer was 1.70 Euro.  Their dark beer was 1.90 Euro.  The beer was fantastic too.

After dinner, we walked along the street next to our hotel and stopped in various places.  We went to one bar where we watched a soccer game.  Soccer isn't really a sport I'm interested in, but just about any sport can be fun in a bar with a bunch of passionate fans.  It was Manchester United versus Barcelona.  We weren't sure who the locals would be cheering for, but it didn't take long to realize they were all rabid Man U fans.  We also ended up going to a Slovak Pub nearby that had a rustic feel to it.

Sunday morning we had tried to schedule a walking tour, but they didn't have any available.  We told the receptionist we were looking to schedule a tour for Tuesday morning at 10am, and she said she'd take care of it.  The only scheduled thing we had on Sunday was taking the 2:30pm boat trip up the Danube to Devin Castle, a 1st century Roman Castle ruin.  The castle had been in use by various people up until the early 1800's when Napoleon's Army destroyed it in a siege on the city.  There are other "reminders" of the siege that you'll see in the pictures, including a cannon ball still lodged in one of the buildings in town.  Since we had time to kill, we found the old town square, and walked around.  The city was absolutely beautiful, and we couldn't have asked for better weather.  Since we couldn't do the walking tour we decided to take one of the bus tours with the audio guide so we'd at least have an idea of where things were.  After the tour we walked over to the river front to buy our boat tickets and found a few memorials there, including one to the Soviet Liberators.

One odd thing we noticed was the plethora of free WiFi hotspots.  Every restaurant & bar had one, McDonalds had one, and there was even free WiFi all along the river front area.

One of the places we stumbled up while walking around was the Norton Cafe!

Eventually it was time to head to the boat.  One of the first things we noticed when looking at the Danube river was how fast it was moving.  To give you an idea, the boat ride to the castle we were taking was an hour & a half from the dock to the castle, but the ride back (same distance) was 30 minutes.  It was nice sitting back, feeling the breeze off the water, and watching the landscape go by.

Eventually we got to the castle and got off the boat.  It was a 5 minute walk around the castle to get to the entrance.  At the bottom of the hill that the castle was on there was a small town, and they had vendors there selling local wine.  We tried some of it and it was amazing, so we bought some later after touring the castle.  Once we walked up into the ruins, the view of the river was beautiful.

We also had great views of the small town below us.

We walked around for about an hour, exploring the castle ruins and the surrounding area.  We also came across a Christian Chapel that was found in the 1970's during excavation.  The chapel was from the fourth century and had a stone carving of Jesus on the cross inside.  Eventually we made our way back down to the bottom of the castle.  While down there we came across a monument that been erected in memorial of the over 400 people who were shot & killed trying to cross over the Iron Curtain that ran through the former Czechoslovakia (before the country split after the fall of the Soviet Union).  I'm not sure if the bullet holes depicted here are real (implying the material came from the Iron Curtain) or put here for effect.

We made it back to the boat, and from there it was a short ride back to the city.  For dinner we were so impressed with the food from the brewery that we went back & tried something different.  I got pork medallions in a cream sauce that was amazing, and Shanna got dumplings with sour cream & bacon.  If we lived in Bratislava, I think we'd be at this place fairly frequently.  After dinner we walked around the old town area and went back to a place we'd seen on the tour...the thinnest street in Bratislava.  To show how tiny it was, I stood in the street and stretched my arms out.

That's it for Part 2.  Click here or any of the above pictures to see all the pictures of the trip.  I'm breaking the posting up into 3 parts, but not the pictures.  The first part of the pictures are from Vienna (Friday/Saturday/Monday) and the second half are from Bratislava (Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday).

Click here for Part 3!