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8 October 2014

snapshots of bratislava

we woke up to grey skies and a drizzling morning; a completely 180 on the weather from the day before. a shame too, as we had planned to get a fair bit of walking in that morning. we tried to make ourselves wet-weather appropriate before heading out for the morning - out first stop was belvedere palace and gardens. rather than walk the 40 minutes there, we jumped on a tram; it picked us up from right outside the hotel, and took us dead outside the gardens. boom.

the gardens were super pretty, but it was wet. dreary. not warm, at all. we hung out until the cafe opened then headed in for coffee and cake, and to dry the feet as best we could before we headed off again on our next adventure... we were off to bratislava! we headed over to the train station after some late night advice from a text from donna encouraging us to whim it and go to slovakia, bought tickets from a machine with crazy broken english, and we were off!

initial thoughts of bratislava were that it reminded me a lot of prague and budapest, and those olde worlde european cities. good. those are some of my fave cities to date. vienna was lovely, but very... clean. i like a city with a bit of attitude; some obvious history - brats definitely had that from the moment we got off the train.

we grabbed a map and headed into the old city. the rain hadn't followed us, but it was still grey and a bit damp. we were warm and dry from the hour on the train, so we couldn't really complain. the walk down to the city was quick, and thankfully, there was lots of pretty things to look at along the way. as soon as we hit the town, the delicious smell of hot food filled our nostrils, and it was definitely lunch time.

traditional stew and beer? stop it.

well, the rain caught up with us within an hour or so. which sucked. the map soaked through. our clothes soaked through. our shoes... well, you get the idea. we begrungingly gave up on bratislava and headed back to the train. we were losing light, it was about half three and we were cold, wet, and done with walking. we got to the station, and...the boards were all in slovenski.

we... didn't know what the words were saying, but we knew that the train we needed was not showing on the board. we waited, and waited, and waited... nothing. eventually, we asked at the information desk and discovered it had been cancelled. the next one was an hour away. it was pouring down, we were soaked, and tired. but there was free wifi, so there was that.

i wish i could remember all these landmarks, but... the map got ruined. soz.
bratislava was pretty though, if you get a chance, definitely go.

Add your comment

  1. It looks super lovely (though wet). And that soup looks delish! x

  2. Sightseeing in the pouring rain can be a bummer! You got some good pics before heading out of town- such cool old buildings. Makes me want a Europe trip- it's been too long!

  3. Ah I felt the same way about Vienna it was superrrr clean for a city. That sucks that it was raining, its always a bummer when weather doesn't cooperate and you want to be a tourist but how fun that you did the impromptu train ride to bratislava

  4. My housemate just got back from Bratislava (a huge coincidence!) and she looooved it. It's been nice to see some photos so I kind of know where she went! It's not somewhere on my list, really, but it's definitely on my radar now!

    jo xx

    She Wears Burgundy

  5. Oh wow, so many beautiful buildings.


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