Bratislava

First things first! Last nights blog was cut short as the internet went on strike. It seems the internet is dependant on the location of the boat, so if blogs seem incomplete it means I gave up!

Last night we left Budapest, Hungary and woke up in Bratislava, Slovakia. Another earlyish morning, we had the choice of a slow paced tour of the old city, a normal paced tour or the active tour which involved a 300 step climb up to the castle overlooking the old city. Guess which one Lyn chose! Wrong!!!! she chose the active tour up to the castle. She may have regretted it half way up, but she made the trip.

Much of the central area of the old city of Bratislava was the Jewish area with its Synagogue. All this area (including the Synagogue) was levelled by the Russians during their occupation to make way for new roads. St Michaels Roman Catholic Cathedral was spared.

I didn’t put this picture in yesterday although their were identical buildings in Budapest. These are Soviet era prefabricated apartment buildings. Each floor took 1 week to complete. No sound or heat insulation!! In the background you can just see a wind farm in Austria.

Once the Soviets left a local sculptor decided some levity was required around the city. Below is one of the offerings. This one is known locally as Peeping Tom!

This is very haphazard I’m afraid, I am trying to do some of the blog while the connection is good. This afternoon we are off into the country for tea and cake with a Slovakian family. I’ll publish this now, mistakes and all, and will try to update later.

Well, the weather took a turn for the worse, and it started raining shortly after we got back from our hike this morning. We decided to continue with the tea and cake visit to a Slovakian family, so after lunch we braved the elements and headed out in a motor coach for a 45 minute trip east of the city.

Well last nights writings got lost in cyberspace somewhere! Here is a quick recap. We were met at the house by a couple in their mid 70’s. They had built their home from scratch in the Soviet era as it was the only way to get a house that was not a soviet prfab.

The husband was the set designer for the Slovak National Theatre for 45 years and this can be seen in their entertainment room.

Below is their entertainment room

The picture below was painted on a glass door, but it was painted from behind the glass, or in reverse.

Their son is a ceramics designer and the plates below depict some of his work.

One of their daughters is an artist and she was flying off to London for an art show depicting her work. Their other daughter married a Scottish police man and is now living in Inverness, Scotland. Lyn became the family hero when she mentioned that she was born in Inverness!

Below is the “man cave” where we sampled the families home made wine. Most of the villagers had their own vineyards in their back gardens and would make wine. In fact this is partly how the family financed their home construction, their garden is about 100 metre long, so plenty of grapes can be grown. They sold their grapes and wine in return for building supplies. The garden looked fantastic, but due to the rain we weren’t able to visit it.

Enough for today, let’s hope the internet improves tomorrow!