Got up, the usual breakfast, picked up a bottle of water for the train and wine for tonight in the room, and caught the 9:30 train to Bratislava, Slovakia. We left out of a different station than we came in to; Budapest has three main stations.
It is sure relaxing to be on trains again instead of all those busses we were taking. This trip was the usual Eastern European kind we are used to; slow, fast, stop, stop, six to a compartment, village, farm, woods, city, with one stretch following the Danube River. The quaintness factor of the red-roofed villages is way up, and the interest factor of boats on the river is high. Somewhere between "cute town" and "woods" we crossed out of Hungary into Slovakia.
I am thinking, Amber and her husband Andrew flew home from Japan today after two weeks there. I will have to find out what they liked and didn't like. They got to take those 200mph bullet trains. I bet that is way different.
We got to Bratislava at noon, walked off the train past the "Welcome to Slovakia" banner, ditched our luggage in a locker, bought tickets to continue on to Vienna and checked the schedule, then set out to explore for five or six hours.
On the way in we passed the Grassalkovich Palace and just happened to witness the changing of the guard, with a beautiful song played on trumpet. Coming in through the main gate to the old city we walked over "point zero" which is the place from which all distances in Slovakia are measured. The "NSEW" directions are "MOOS" for Occidental (west) Oriental (east) Mediterranean (south) and “S” is North, but I don't remember the other word. The old town square is pretty enough, on the streets radiating out from it there are really quirky sculptures, ornate buildings, cute colored homes lined up. Up high, by the window on the wall of the clock tower, a cannonball from an attack by Napoleon is still lodged.
We stopped in Hviezdoslavovo Square, in front of the national theater. For lunch we had a large bottle of San Pellegrino, Gail got a tomato and mozzarella baguette sandwich, I got a smoked cheese, mushroom and ham crepe, both of us had a fantastical colored salad, a glass of French pinot blanc for Gail, French syrah for me. This little meal, presented so beautifully in such a scenic location, the people watching and weather... A+
All the squares in Bratislava have free WiFi so everyone is gathered working, emailing, drinking, and just hanging out. Down the tree-lined promenade in front of us are four more sculptures just made for photographing, and that seems to be a major attraction here; gather round the statue and watch peoples' funny and imaginative poses. Plus, everyone speaks German so it is super easy to get around.
Great food, interesting buildings, quirky touches, pedestrian zones... Redding could learn a lot from here about how to turn an ordinary, even ugly (ex-communist concrete era) city into a nice tourist draw. Of course there are differences, and we just touched on the area, still Bratislava was a very pleasant place to stop. Just a dozen years ago this whole core was abandoned, even the locals wouldn't go there because of the crime and filth. In ten years they made it a showcase.
We walked back to the train station, stood for about ten minutes, entertained by the crowd, and hopped on the next train to Vienna.