Blogs from Old Town, Bratislava, Bratislava Region, Slovakia, Europe

So the decision to come here happened a little over a year ago, it’s one that I’ve continually questioned, but, as has been the norm of my life since that first BIG trip to South America, seven years ago, I’ve tried to go with the flow and make the most of the situations and the people which I find myself with – you often get asked two questions, in either order, but both accompanied with the vague expression of WTF… a) where is Bratislava? And 2) Why are you going?!!! (Cue inane laughter and the distant loony-bin sirens drawing closer…) Well, 9 months in and I’ve started pretending that I moved here at Christmas; my limited amount of Slovak is embarrassing – I really am better of in thai!!! I can ‘ahoy’(but still without murmuring 'sailor' ... read more

Okay, you ready??? How-about we play a little game... I’ll give you ten seconds to name five famous Austrians... ............................................................,eight.......nine.........., That’s it. Times up! So, how did we do? Well, I’m guessing the Austrians amongst you actually found this pretty easy. The rest of us, though, probably struggled a bit. The sad truth is that outside America, there are very few people who are truly world-famous, who will live on in our collective minds forever. Think a little longer, though, dig a little deeper, and you’ll come to realise that almost everywhere has its own little list of notable heroes and villains, and Austria, it has to be said, has some real crackers... Adolf Hitler, Niki Lauda, Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart... more than one or two stories bet... read more

Since some viewers of our blog have asked about the photo Nancy put up earlier today, I will post it again along with it's story. In the literature our room at the Hotel Michalská Brána there was a description of the life of the man in the photo whose real name was Ignác Lamar, nicknamed Schöner Naci. The receptionist was kind enough to make a copy of the short article about him. I have changed a few words for clarity. Here is his story: He was called Schöner Naci or Handsome Naci During a stroll through Bratislava, visitors like to take photographs of the statue of Schöner Naci tilting his hat in greeting. On our first visit to Bratislava we saw the statue and did not realize that it was of a real man who lived ... read more

The Witch I love the witch. What a wonderful witch. She has the look that any self-respecting witch should have. "Hee, hee, come into my house little one." Can't you just hear her cackle, "Come into my house, dear child"? The Man I can't figure out if this is a woodman, a dunce, a peasant or just what he represents. Perhaps in different stories he can be any one of these characters and more. I looked at him and wondered, "Hmmmmmmmmm, is this the way I look when I am feeling green? The King and ........ The king seems pretty obvious, at least to me Why is it the king is almost never the hero? The prince and the princess are always young, beautiful and smart. What happens so that by the time a prince becomes ... read more

By Train to Bratislava Off we go on another trip, another adventure. We are glad you have decided to join us on a trip away from Prague to Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. As usual we chose travel by train since it is the most comfortable, most enjoyable form of travel for us. We reserved two second class tickets for Saturday morning, October 13th with a return reservation for Monday afternoon. The train pulled out of the Prague station on time. This was not surprising as in all the train travel we have made in the last seven years only one has been late. Though it was a Saturday morning the train had very few empty seats. The train was uncomfortably warm for a short time before the air conditioning got going full speech as ... read more

Greeted by a giant "Welcome to Slovakia" sign at the train station in Bratislava gave me high hopes that we were going to have just as much fun in this city as we have had in all the rest. Fourteen seconds later we were greeted by a bunch of people wondering if we were looking for hostels, similar to previous trips that we have taken; 17 seconds later we went outside to see two chicks in a crazy WWF wrestling match. Okay... not quite like the countries we just left but there is still hope! After buying our transit passes and then figuring out that no one wanted to help us find where we were going as Binnson got sent in every direction twice at the train station, we finally settled for a camera phone picture ... read more