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Published: April 15th 2007
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from where im not sure, but i like the pic anyways So from Vienna, Sarita took off back to Budapest, Rebecca was heading off somewhere else in Europe, so Amanda, Rich and I took off back to Bratislava for a looksie around before we were to fly out 2 days later.
We train over from Vienna, which took about 2 and half hours, fairly comfortable seats, especially how we were in a cabin to ourselves. Passport control was a little weird with 'soldier' looking officials walking around, and being not overly friendly and blunt but it was all ok.
Got to Bratislava, it looked a little like a third world country, and no one really spoke english. Found a number for a hostel, rang and booked ourselves in, then off to find the bus to get there. Driver pointed to a booth where you have to buy the tickets, he couldnt speak english but then neither did the ticket lady, a very helpful lady who was standing in line and spoke very little english translated for us.
Eventually found our hostel which was behind some construction and in a little run down street. Walked past some locals sitting outside a little diner drinking beer and watching something on the tv through
the window, it didnt look like sport either which was a little weird.
The hostel turned out to be this really old looking three or four storey house, quaint in many respects but very run down, the door wouldnt unlock, so while this really stressed out english dude (who was to share our dorm) ran up and down the stairs to get someone to unlock the door we just sat down and chilled out.
After all checked in, went for a walk and found this castle/palace on top of a hill. The grounds provided us with some amazing views. The river Dunaj ran through the middle and acted like a wall in many ways. One side of the river looked very square, grey blocks (the pictures below will show what i mean) this was all built when the country was under communist rule. The side we were on and staying on was the old part of town, built before the communist days and is also now the side that has been all done up for tourism. It looked beautiful.
We walked back down the hill past an amazing cathedral (which appears to be a part of the Gothic era)
and into the town. Wow what an amazing contrast from where we were staying (and its only 2 mins away) it was all redone and made to attract the tourists. Walked through the city until we found this little restraurant with wrought iron garden furniture outside, this was where we decided to get some dinner. As the sun went down the lights came on and the street just looked amazing. Went for a wander after dinner and found this really nice place with a massive outdoor seating and relatively cheap cocktails. Pine Coladas, Cosmopolitans and whatever else you fancy drinking were all going for roughly 3 pounds.
The next day we had breakfast on the side of the street in a little cafe across the street from a really good looking ice cream palour, a group of primary school kids were on a wee outing supervised by their teacher for ice cream......why didnt we do this when we were at school....outings for ice cream....im guessing we would all have been on sugar highs for the rest of the day...
Found the information place to find out what there was to do in Bratislava....turned out you only need a
couple of hours to do all the main sights and we had done most of it by accident the night before. So wandering around the streets and looking in shops was about all there was to do really. Mid afternoon found us in a little outside bar with a coke before hitting the cocktails again. Later that night we found this little local place away from the tourist bits which was really neat. The barman gave us these shots that he lit on fire and made us drink through a straw.....very cool and different and a wee bit potent.
The next day it was back to London and the drag we call work. But it renewed the spark for long weekends away out of town.
Bratislava is a really neat friendly city which really only needs a couple of days, but i do recommend checking it out, its amazing and is improving itself all the time. And the cocktails were really good!! 8)
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