It Should have been a Night to Remember, But we Don’t Remember!

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Neither Susan or I slept well. My legs didn’t like yesterday and cramped bad all night. Susan had back and shoulder issues. We did not want to get up but we knew we had to take the train this morning and we had to catch it. We got ready then headed down to eat breakfast in the hotel and checked out and they called us a taxi. It was only slightly more than the subway and got us there directly with no more damage to the knees. Also, on the way we got the added benefit of going thru the park and seeing the Victory Column. We arrived early, but not knowing what the traffic would be like, that was ok. We found our coke light and settled in for the wait. About 30 minutes before the train was to depart we headed to the track to find where we needed to line up for our car.

The train arrived a short time later – we boarded. We found our seats and loaded our suitcases above and sat down. More and more people arrived, more and more. There are many young people. Oh my, I thought yesterday’s train was crowded. This is much worse, more like a 3^rd world country. People are everywhere, there are giant suitcases all over. This is really ridiculous. Again, I am so glad we have assigned seats. How bad was this, there were people everywhere in the aisle, you had to step over at least 2 people for each step and there were people sleeping in the aisle. We needed to be limber like Kim to navigate this train. Furthermore, at each stop it seemed more people got on.

It turns out this isn’t an ICE train, I’m sad, not internet. I can work on the blogs, I just can’t post them. We got a train schedule and at first it looked like there were going to be 100s of stops. Nope Susan figured it out and said the “stops” around the Bold towns are connecting trains. Yea. At our first stop, a few more people got on and a couple had bikes. Oh my. The train was smooth and I was able to get Sunday and Monday’s blog entries completed. I also watched the scenery go by. It was a pretty ride. Actually, I’m pretty sure it is the same route we took back in 1993 when Susan and I came to visit the area with the kids.

We were on the train and Susan got a text from Patrick with the picture to the door of the room we had been staying in. It had tape over the door and a bucket with construction stuff beside it. They wanted to know what we had done to the room. WHAT??? Really, what we don’t remember??? I promise when we left the room, it was fine. I will have to email the hotel.

We saw many chateaus as we were coming into Dresden. They were beautiful up on the hills. After Dresden we saw some of the VERY small houses by the track but there weren’t as many as in ’93. They might have been behind some of the walls that were around but we couldn’t be sure. The scenery then changed to the river and the train went along the river for a long while. After a while there were rock mountains on the opposite side of the river that looked similar to buttes and then we saw this one butte like thing with a bridge going between the rocks. I’m not sure if it was part of a castle or not. Around here we had a stop in Bad Schandau – our last stop in Germany.

A little later Susan’s phone announced our arrival into the Czech Republic. The scenery remained the same as we were still going along the river. Our first stop was Decin. I didn’t see anyone get on or off. Our next stop was Usti nad Labem. Again, there was not much change in the number of people. We finally arrived in Praha(Prague). There was a stop north of Prague and a few people departed but in Prague, oh my at least 90% of the people got off. We decided to take our suitcases down and put them behind the seats so that we could access them easier. There was now so much room to maneuver. A few people got on but the train had a lot of empty seats now. I went in search of food and finally found the dining car. This train did not have a place to get food to go, this was the dining car. I sat down and ordered some broccoli crème soup. It was good. As I was eating, the train started moving. Some Scottish guy in a kilt came in and wanted takeout – take out drink, check, takeout food. Nope. Then he didn’t have enough euro’s and they didn’t take credit cards – even though the sign said they did. He then borrowed 2 euro for a beer and left. Man, that accent was thick. I ate then headed back. Susan wanted to know why I didn’t bring anything back for her. I explained but she looked skeptical. Off she headed to the dining car. When she returned, she said she understood. We passed thru a couple other Czech towns, Kolin and Pardubice while we napped on and off. Then we had a stop in Brno. This is when stinky got on. He must have washed his clothes, thrown them in a corner and let them ripen (sour) for a few days, then dressed. The smell was awful. We moved as far away as we could be it didn’t dampen the smell much. We then passed thru Breclav and then Susan’s phone announced we were in Slovakia. We stopped in Kutz (I think this was in Slovakia) and then we arrived in Bratislava. We had all of 3 minutes to get off the train before it left so we got to the door before we arrived and then departed and found a taxi. The taxi took us to our hotel because there was no other reasonable transportation to get there.

Oh how nice. Ok, you choose

a) $280 euro a night

b) $85 euro a night + 3500 points

c) Free and 7000 points.

I choose B when I got the room before we left. Oh my, the room is great and the view! We freshened up and then headed downstairs to talk with the concierge and asked Desana about a private guide since we only had one day. She recommended the city tours and told us all about them. We booked the prepayment thru her. She also gave us information for tomorrow so that would we know what time we needed to leave for the bus station…

Last year on our river cruise, we saw Bratislava during the night and wanted to come back and are glad we did. The hotel was right on the river and we could see the UFO bridge from the walkway. We walked down the river walk, checking out restaurants but ended up at the hotel restaurant which was on the water. We ate outside. Susan ordered Monk Fish and I got a beef dish. We split them and both were great. While we were eating, a couple started dancing on the river walk. It seems she was teaching him some turns. A bit later, another couple joined. By the time we finished dinner there were 5 couples dancing on the river walk.

We headed up to the room, posted some blogs, showered and then went to bed. Now the shower - you better think outside the box, what you thought you would use to turn to turn on the water - nope. It was all controlled by buttons on the wall, turn the water on/off, increase or decrease the water temperature, massage shower…. The bath tub controls were the same. Susan found the master switch (by accident) while I was still in the bathroom and it got dark. We figured it all out and got the lights back on. This sure was an interesting room,

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Photos

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Little houses by the track. They were small even though the picture really doesn't show it.

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people on the train

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The picture of what the Gang saw of our room. We really don't remember

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Along the river

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bridge between the rocks

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castle?

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more people

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church

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UFO bridge in Bratislava

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couples dancing on the river walk

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our room.