Balnea Grand Piestany

From Bratislava me and my Aussie mate took a train to Trenchin. We had a while to wait before we could get on the train and stocked up on some supplies. I brought myself some an intersting lunch of a a bun a piece of lettece and a Snitzcle that required about 3 buns it was so long. Once on the train it was only a short ride to Trenchin. It was nice to get out the city again and ...

... the last one for the night from that stop. Talk about timing. A German couple asked me how to buy tickets and I somehow must have convinced them that I was an authentic German speaking Slovakian with my explanation because he told his wife how helpful the natives here are and that we speak pretty decent German. Three stops later on an ancient and decrepit Soviet era tram, we were at this pretty nice hostel and so here I am now writing this. Sometimes the ...

There was almost no-one around today as some people left today and most of the others went on an excursion to Vienna. So I took the opportunity to finally make it to Trnava. The bus was pretty pleasant of course but the towns before Trnava didn't turn out to be as interesting as I'd thought they'd be. The first impression of Trnava at the bus station is not a particularly nice one. Very ...

... Ak by ste vsak chceli viacej vzruchu pridite sem v case konania sa filmoveho festivalu a uvidite davy ako sa patri. Takze horsa do prace! Zajtra budeme spoznavat krasy polnohospodarstva. Po 2600 km okolo Slovenska to bude ina forma relaxu. Bol to super vylet!

Finally the day that all Australian Esperantists wait for... the sport day. Table-tennis, tennis and badminton. Unfortunately the table tennis bats were far from ideal and the lighting was a bit dodgy too. They really only had one playable tennis raquet but the French Canadian Esperantist brought her own raquet with her so that made it two. The badminton conditions were actually laughable and a badminton tournament should never have been ...

... in the country... no idea where, but the two blokes seemed to be having a good time. And eventually we got dropped back at the congress centre. I suspect that both of our heads were spinning a fair bit by then so probably don't remember that much of where we'd been. Back at my pension, the front-door bloke told me that he'd had a look for me at 2 in the morning, at 4 in the morning... I rather sheepishly made my apologies and... went to bed.

... to the voice of the best singer... classic! I eventually found a bar that had a tv... but despite what the commentators say about how many millions of people all over the world are watching... well, in this bar I had to get them to change the channel. And even then I was the only one watching. These blokes all have their attention on a different screen. Well ...

Got up at 8am and after breakfast walked down to Obchodna and caught a tram up to the main train station. Caught the 9.30am train to Trencin. Arrived in Trencin from Bratislava at 11.30am after a slow train trip. Walked into the town centre past the Piarist Church and the Town Gate and had lunch from a small sandwich shop in the main square. Walked up to Trencin Castle and took in the ...

... of the city and Hungary is just 16km away. Many beautiful monuments survive in the old town to tell of its past under Hungarian rule. The old city and the castle are the best parts of Bratislava. Climb up for the great views from Bratislava castle. The castle, built above the Danube, was a frontier post of the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 5th century. Since the 9th century it has been rebuilt several times, most recently between 1953 and 1962.

... european tourism (a lot of foreigners from the West and from Middle East), well developed touristic infrastructure. I had another chance to visit Piestany for few hours in June 2004 (short visit to Slovakia for work). And I felt disappointed ta that time - the city looked kind of empty, there seemed to be no new infrastructure and it did not look appealing any more. Maybe that's the contrast of how much the whole region changed in that 10 years...