Slovakia is a country that Ton has been excited about visiting since we began planning this trip. For me it is a bit of a mystery. Our first stop is Bratislava which is the capitol, but is only located about 60 kilometers (as the crow flies) from Vienna. This makes Bratislava and Vienna the two national capitols that are closest to each other.
Bratislava also like Vienna is located on the Danube river, and historically has always been a crossroads of civilizations, at different time in the last 200 years it has been dominated by Hungarian, Austrian Germans, and Slovaks. The population today is more heterogenous than it has been historically with Slovaks making up 86% of the population.
We really needed food so our first stop in Bratislava was a Lidl. After about an hour we were well stocked for the next few days and headed over to our campground.
We were debating whether to take the afternoon off, but a quick check of the weather showed a 65% chance of rain tomorrow. It was beautiful today so we hustled into the city to take advantage of the sunny and warm day.
The tram ride in was thru the commercial and industrial part of town, and it was kind of dead. I was worried that we would not find much to do in the center of town. I was very wrong. The center was bustling with lots of people out enjoying the beautiful weather on a Saturday.
I was enjoying looking at all of the people sitting in cafes with beers and glasses of wine. I was jealous and informed Ton that I wanted a beer. She agreed but I had to first earn it by climbing up to the castle above town.
This was our first hill climb of the trip, it has been nice hanging out in the Netherlands, and even Vienna was surprisingly flat. The climb was pretty steep but in the end it was worth it for the views of the Danube, the city, and the countryside.
Ton rewarded me for our hill climb by allowing me to pick a place to have a beer. I immediately settled on a Black Lager, and Ton had a sampler of local beers. We originally ordered onion rings to snack on, and were disappointed when they arrived in both the quality and quantity, but we noticed an older couple with a bread bowl full of soup. When we asked our waitress about it she explained it was a garlic soup. We ordered it and it was delicious, and when we got the bill we laughed because it cost less than the 8 small onion rings.
As we were eating the fellow at the next table asked why Ton had four different small beers, he had never seen a sampler before. We ended up striking up a conversation and he and his wife were a delight. He was originally from Istanbul and his wife is from Croatia, and they now live in Vienna.
Our late start had us on the streets much later than usual, some of the lights were even coming on so we decided we better head back to François for the evening.
