Day 5.2 - Sunday 28th October 2012 - Bratislava, Slovakia

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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 into Bratislava – this was the first real sign of civilisation we had seen since leaving Austria. Bratislava is very secluded for a capital city. It was very quiet, hardly anyone around, we figured it was because it was a Sunday. Chris dropped us off by river and we walked into the centre of town with Emma giving a walking tour. She told us about 6 men statues dotted around which we could try to find. She led us to the first one – it was a man's head looking out of manhole in ground – she ended up laying on the floor next to it for photos. We then found the 2^nd once which was a man just standing in the street lifting his top hat. We then went to the centre square where we saw a nice little fountain which lead onto the 3^rd man. We found him learning over the back of a bench – Emma tried to get on it's back to pose again, with a little help from Julia and Gina she sat on its back and told us a little more about the city. Julia also jumped on his back.

Next we had some more free time to wonder around, not much here and still hardly anyone around. We went into a few tourist souvenir shop, I bought some random mini bottle of alcohol for my dad and a magnet for my mum. Fiona and I seemed to lose everyone from the tour again. After the shop we went to have a look around, we found another man, this time he was peering around the corner of a building with a camera. He looked like he was trying to sneakily take photos. We walked around the centre a little more, the streets were really narrow and cobbled but very pretty, the buildings all looked very different and odd, it almost felt like we were on a film set or something. We ventured down some more back allies to look for the remaining men, although it was so quiet and eerie we felt oddly safe. We found quite a lot of random statues, there were some extremely crazy painted bears and we found a really old bike as well.

We went to a few more souvenir shops and bumped into Zach and Maya. Zach took a picture of us with a random statue of armour in front of magnets for photos, after that we proceeded to get separated from them again.

Around 11am saw lots of people coming out of churches – obviously where everyone had been! Decided to be unadventurous again and had McDonalds for lunch (only place we recognised) - was cheap and got free bottle of water as well as normal coke drink with chicken nugget meal. The chicken nuggets here were so much better than in Vienna, actual the nicest I've had I think. The portion of chips was huge in comparison too. We saw a couple of the Brazilians from our tour in there too – glad not only ones being boring with food!

After we had lunch we went on the hunt for a stamp, we found a sign which looked like a post office so went into this arcade looking place, it turned out to be an office. We found 2 more statures in the arcade, a woman leaning on a lamp post eating an apple and a man looking at his watch while running. We’re not sure if these two statues are part of the set of 6 as one was a woman.

We decided to try and walk to the castle to see if any pressed penny machines – seemed only touristy place likely to have them! Stopped at a tourist information shop on way for maps and asked girl in there about pressed pennies, she didn't seem to know what we were on about but didn't think there was anything like what we described around the city – disappointed not to get one for here. Started walking towards the Castle but decided it was a bit too far to walk up to and get back in time, so went towards the river instead and walked along a bit. We took a few photos and spotted the coach still parked where we left it.

Walked back into city and got a stamp for the postcard. We spotted a Scottish themed pub – strange place for one don’t you think?! Then next door was Australian theme pub and then Spanish/Mexican theme one with sombrero wearing mannequin above doorway. A street of theme pubs…?

We headed back to the first souvenir shop as we noticed it had a little café attached, it was so cold outside so wanted warming up a bit. We went for hot chocolate; they had such a wide variety, so much to choose from. We got a milk chocolate with chocolate chip drops. We just got one to share – it came with straws… never seen that before!! Both took a sip of the drink at the same time burning our tongue and throat – very unwise using straw we felt! Darren from our tour came in and sat with us for a little bit before meeting up with others outside in the square.

Met Emma in the main square but lots of others were still missing at the meeting time. It was so cold so Emma told us to go back to the coach, while she waited for others. They all finally turned up running back to coach. I kind of wish we had a little more time in Bratislava to explore more and have time to go see the Castle etc.

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