Bratislava

Took a trip to Bratislava this past Wednesday. It's not at all like what you'd seen in "Euro trip" if you remember that stupid movie. Well, it kinda is, near the rail station anyway. But most areas around the rail station are kinda dingy in any european city so this isn't anything new. Anyway, there are two ways to get to Bratislava from Vienna - by rail or boat. We chose rail because at 14 euro it was the cheapest. Plus it seemed to have the most frequent departure/return times. More on that later.

For being only 40 miles away it took an excessively long time to get there. To the tune of an hour and a half to cover the short distance. Once there the rail station was a bit of a shock - it looked like something out of the former Soviet Union! Oh yeah, thats because Slovakia used to be known as "Hungary" and a part of the Eastern Bloc until 1989. It was as dirty as you could imagine. Seems like half the arrival/departure board seemed to work. More on that later. Anyway, we scratched outta there and just walked in the general direction of the Danube. We didn't have a map, we didn't have an iPad so we couldn't access a map, and we couldn't find any maps at the rail station. Keep that in mind if you ever go. In any case it's a relatively simple city to navigate and public transportation is severely lacking - they have busses, and the rail pass gives you access to the busses, but it's so close it's better to walk than be crammed on a 20' bus with 100 other tourists. And potential pick-pockets. Yeah, it seemed like that kinda area.

Walking gives you the chance to check out other sights anyway. We stumbled on the on presidential palace and watched the changing of the guard. Walked halfway up to the castle before noticing the UFO bar on the bridge and decided to check that out instead since we were hungry. Decided against that because it was 6 euro to simply ride the elevator to the top and the cheapest meal was around 30 euro. Because we were too lazy we just cruised into the downtown area and hung out there all afternoon. Note to self: there are plenty of bars in the area. Including a Mexican restaurant I didn't check out. And a ton of shopping to do. Be careful because it's all really cheap to eat and shop but it's really easy to get out of hand. We wrapped up the evening at a outdoor restaurant, ordered a "pigs knee"an Abbey Leffe to drink, and shortly after consumption I was feeling no pain.


Getting back to Vienna was a bit of a chore. We tried to take the boat back but missed the last one by ten minutes (it was 6:10) so we resorted to our plan B: the train. Took a overpriced taxi back to the rail station, looked at the time board, and the next train was to depart in 20 minutes. All sounds good up to this point. Anyhow, the train never came. Ran back to the board and the next train arrived in a hour. However it didn't depart until an hour after that. So, after trying for about 3 hours we finally ditched out  of the Eastern Bloc by 9, arriving in Vienna around 10:30, and arriving back to the hotel around 11.

It was a long, but fun day. Lessons learned: Pay attention to arrival/departure times, and carry a map.