Blogs from Slovakia, Europe

Slovakia from 30 May to 1 June 2013 Even though Slovakia has had a rough history, it’s a beautiful country with mountains in the north. We are not going to the Capital, Bratislava but concentrating on the mountains. On the 30 May, we arrived later than usual at about 7.00pm, crossing the Czech/Slovac border and travelling 25 kms to Trencin, Slovakia. We stopped at the Na Ostrove Camping which was fair. The important criteria are that the showers are warm, clean toilets and there is power. We got going by 9.00am and to our positive surprise, the road that we thought we were going to travel on was actually a new highway. Our street directory showed that there was a new highway under construction but except for 200 m it was complete. Fantastic! We travelled through ... read more

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

We reached the boarder of Austria and Slovakia, it was very strange. The man who issued coach visas to drive into Slovakia had gone fishing – literally!! Chris and Emma came back saying he had left a note on the door and we had to carry on through and stop at first service station where there was a "hut" we could get one from. That turned out to be shut too though! Very relaxed system! Chris decided to chance it and carry on – not much else we could do! Not much in way of scenery – very flat landscape with tumble down buildings and random blocks of flats in middle of nowhere. They seemed to have a lot of wind turbines too. We came up to a really fancy bridge which crossed over the river ... read more