Sunday May 24….The Slovak Castle tour day.

We started out with the ambition to leave at 8:00 am, but didn’t get out of the hotel until 8:36! At least the breakfast was peaceful since the busloads of Norwegian and English school children had left the day before. This will be a new experience for David as this is one of the few parts of Europe that he has never seen. We left town for a 2 hour mountainous, wiggly-piggly road drive through the Southern Polish (Lower Poland and Silesia) countryside. It reminded us of Norris Dam in Tennessee in the “olden days” of going to Florida. We drove through many towns, each with its own Catholic church, and all of them full on a Sunday morning. Joy enjoyed taking pictures of many of the churches and the different styles along the way.

We went through the town of Żywiec, where they make the famous Polish beer we had been drinking. The factory (now owned by Heineken) still looks pretty old. Then we crossed the border to Slovakia, bought a highway sticker for 25 Polish złotys ($7), and drove through some very impoverished villages on our way to our first castle stop at Trenčin.

Our GPS lady (Betty) drove us right up to the front entrance gate of the Trenčin castle, but where we couldn’t go any further, even through we tried to bump a few tourists off of the small pathway leading up to the hill. To get there, we were really supposed to park at the bottom of the hill and hike up. We decided that this was simply too much effort, and instead chose to take pictures from the bottom of the mountain. Interesting was the football stadium next door, with its “magnifying glass” looking overhead lights.

The next stop was the castle ruins at Beckov. We knew this was just a picture taking opportunity, so we drove in circles around the castle base, trying to get to the “money shot” picture. Next up was Cachice castle ruins. We drove up another narrow, 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) lane to an impromptu parking lot about 500 yards from the castle base. From here we had to get out climbing the mountain to see the ruins. Why all of the effort? Mary wanted to see where the “Blood Countess Elizabeth” lived here in the 1500s. She was said to have killed over 600 young girls to drink their blood, which was supposed to maintain her young and comely looks. Of course, her portrait on the sign outside the ruins depicted a young looking woman indeed. The hike up the hill was well worth it, as we had been sitting in the car for more or less 2.5 hours, and needed to get out and move around.

After driving back down the harrowing path, we drove across the country side to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia and our destination for the night. Our hotel has a wonderful view out over the Danube River, with the modern bridge, and its revolving restaurant. Mary was sure happy to see the bath tub after 3 days without in Kraków.

Throughout the day, we were reminded of both Poland’s and Slovakia’s communist past, given the contrasts in building styles – pastel colored, old Austrian architecture vs. drab 1960s – 1970s style communist block houses where many people still live.

We quickly unpacked the few things we needed for this one night stand, and headed out to the old town. And guess what the first thing was that we saw? The American Embassy, of course! It is located right behind our hotel in the main park area, where we bought some souvenirs before viewing the Opera House, the Philharmonic and several other important buildings. Bratislava has even bought in some “fun statues” – our favorite being the “man at work”, which is a bronze statue of a construction worker climbing out of a manhole. It reminded us of our cross country trip last year to Rapid City, South Dakota, and Sheridan, Wyoming (both of which have statues located throughout their towns too).

We decided that we were going to eat Slovakian cuisine for the one night we were here, and ate at the Pressburg Restaurantja. Pressburg is the German name for Bratislava, when it was part of Austria. Mary had the Slovak potato soup, and a salad, while Joy partook of the local shish kebob with fried potatoes. Jeff had several goulash and sauerkraut dishes, while David had the old fashioned Wiener schnitzel. We were back in the Eurozone, so we could recognize the prices. Slovakia is cheap!

Back to the rooms to review our pictures, send out our mails, and go through the accounting. We are leaving on a city tour in the morning before we are off in the afternoon to Vienna. Only a short visit in both places, but we want to make the most of it!!