Bratislava Walk
The laundry is done so we sleep until 8:00 and take our time
getting our acts together. The Gophers
lost to Northwestern and the Twins were eliminated from the playoffs on the
second-to-last day of the season. Our
hopes are with the Vikings today. There
is an NFL game in London today which is getting some local coverage but we
won’t get a chance to watch games this afternoon. We have our fruit, yogurt and coffee and fire
up for our last full day in Bratislava.
It’s close to 11 when we hit the streets. Our first stop is the church of St.
Elizabeth, known as the little blue church.
This is a Hungarian designed church and is very unique. Mass is going on during our visit and the
place is packed. Tourists or
parishioners? It is church to church as
we go west to St. Martin’s Cathedral. St.
Martin’s was built in 13th century and has gone through several
renovations since then. 19 Hungarian
Emperors were crowned here from the 16th through 19th
century including Maria Theresia. It is
a vast collection of works of art and kingly amenities fit for the powers of
this part of this world for over 500 years. It adds a little weight to Bratislava’s place
in history.
We circle into the center of the old town near St. Michael’s
Gate for lunch. There is hemming and
hawing as we debate our overdosing on pork and kraut. We locate a place on the street with outdoor
seating, a chicken Caesar for Mary and a burger with fries for John. It must be said that the burger had bacon,
kraut and horseradish so it wasn’t cold turkey.
This afternoon is our escape from the old town and on to the
newer parts of the city. The Presidential
Palace (White House) is located just north of the old town and is part of a
larger city park. This area is
especially ornate with lovely grounds, fountains and vistas. As we move farther north into the public park
the scenery deteriorates pretty fast.
There are old commie buildings covered with graffiti and the park has
seen better days. This is certainly
evidence of a city in transition.
From here it is straight up hill to the Slavin. Here is a cemetery and memorial for almost 7000
Russian soldiers who were killed here while “liberating” Bratislava from the
Germans in WWII. Today it is more well
known as a tip-top site for panoramic views of the city. The Russian memorials are still in place but
there are no flags or other national presence of the Soviets. What we know is that it is 1000 steps
straight up hill to get here and we’re whipped.
We find a nice bench in the shade for a bit of a break.
The walk downhill is much easier. On the way we appropriately pass the Russian
embassy on a side street on the hillside.
In all of the big cities we have visited so far, virtually all of the
housing has been apartments. The only
free standing homes we have seen were in our first few days with Patrick and
Nina. In our walk up the “mountain” we
finally get a look at some free standing homes and they are beauties with great
city views. This is obviously where the
city big shots spend their evenings.
After a couple direction questions we opt to go back through old town to
get back to our apartment. Time for Mary
to catch up on CNN and for John to visit his personal hypnotist.
We awaken (one of us) for our traditional cocktail
hour. Tonight we are going to the #1
Slovak Pub, the sister restaurant of the place from last night. It is a little longer walk but not
painful. There are only a few people on
the streets tonight—welcome to Sunday night without the tourists. The Pub is pretty uninviting from the street. You go down a dark hallway and upstairs to a
landing with closed doors. We open the
most likely one and, sure enough, there is a bustling little restaurant. The tables are all full or reserved but one
of the servers has us wait while she checks out another guest and clears the
table for us. The menu is pretty much
the same as last night but even less expensive.
They have a student section in the menu where nothing is more than E2.50
and you can get a free soup and pop if you ace a test (test day only). We try to move along from our usual cuisine
but it isn’t easy. Mary has a sausage
with peppers, mustard and horseradish along with a hubcap size potato
pancake. John has a Slovak chicken
schnitzel with green beans, ham and cheese with fries. We skip the wine tonight and opt for
beers. Nothing is really good but we
have plenty of calories so we will live for another day. Beers and plenty of food total E17. Not student pricing but pretty darn close.
We’re done with today and probably done with
Bratislava. We do the arm-in-arm stroll
home like the old Europeans that we now are, and look forward to our next
adventure tomorrow. Thank you Bratislava
for a nice visit.
What did we learn today?
Depressed areas recover differently.
Bratislava is not Krakow and Krakow is not Prague but all are in motion
and have bright futures.
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