Orea Hotel Club Bratislava

... that is waiting. No one speaks English. The conductor on the train only indicates that this is the train to Slovakia. We proceed to wait 2 hours with no additional info, no food … I presume that the switch to a bus and the delay of the train was due to snow delays. I still don't know. The train eventually leaves without any warning. If anyone was stretching outside the train or trying to get some food, they ...

... I wasn&#8217;t sure what to expect from Bratislava, having had people tell me outright not to go there &amp; others questioning why I did in fact want to go there. But all of this from people who hadn&#8217;t been there, so I was interested to see what it was actually like. And for the first time in my life was actually looking forward to doing laundry, cos it had been a while &amp; the hostel had free laundry. <br> <br> The bus dropped me off at what hands down has to be the worlds ...

... the rivers was Austria. There was a monument there with broken iron rods, dedicated to the thousands of people who had died in gulags and forced deportations and other atrocities. It was eerie to realize that not so many years ago there would have been armed guards standing where we were standing, with freedom only a short swim across the Morava River. By now it was after 3 pm, so having decided to take the bus back to Bratislava, we headed back to the parking ...

... was a pretty castle on a hill overlooking town, so I spent my first afternoon exploring it. I also walked around and saw all the statues and other monuments in the Old Town. Once I finished that, there really wasn't much else to see or do in Bratislava. I spent most of my second day sitting in cafes reading and drinking hot chocolate while watching the heavy snowfall outside and waiting for my bus to ...

... the way, neither could John, and we had no map. It ended well eventually though. The next day we had dirt-cheap lunch in a school cafeteria style establishment, some rice and schnitzel thingy, then we took to the streets. First up was a trek up to the castle, which wasn't all that amazing, and neither was the was the museum it contained, but the views were pretty good, especially as you could look out over the contrast between the sides of the river, Old town on one ...

... gelatos and joined them. So nice, every town should have one of these! Stayed there for quite awhile watching some people playing chess on a life size board. Nice and refreshed, we headed off to check out some more of the sights. There are a bunch of very unique statues around town, including one coming out of a manhole, one checking out the view by a bench and one flying out a window. After ...

... beers and a lemonade, we did, however, get to witness a bunch of Slovaks singing Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' which frankly, while sung in broken English is still an improvement on the original. After that we went to the Vodka and Melon bar, had about 4 cocktails each, plus 2 free shots that the bar tender gave us as he seemed to take a liking to us, either that or he thought it would make us sick, and therefore get us to leave.

... on stereotypes for 90 minutes (I do have to say, even though the movie makes fun of how cheap the city is, I entered with the equivalent of 22 euro, exchanged from my remaining Polish zwaty, and that 22 euro got me through 24 hours in the city, and that includes a night's accommodation, two nice restaurant meals and a night on the town). After a few hours of conversation and a few rounds of beer, George and Kika were as keen on showing me the Bratislava ...

... with bad European toilet paper - that stuff that is so rough I'm checking it for knotholes because I swear they shaved it right off the tree. They bathroom frau may as well hand me tanbark while taking my money. So I compensate by going to the drugstore and buying the most expensive toilet paper they have. The European equivalent of Double-Stuffed, Aloe-Coated Charmin, and I truck that around with me in my bag, and a stuff a wad of sheets in my pocket when I go out. Sure ...

... Please no more schnapps, I must go to bed", are words I didn't expect to have to say tonight, but I had no choice. This is how it happened from the very beginning. The early start was a very wet one, not from rain but the sheer volume of dew. I registered 3 degrees C. We packed and continued on the pass to the nearest village for a breakfast spot. We sat in Liptovska Luzuna centre over looking the comings and goings of a typical ...