Slovakia (not be to be confused with Slovenia) is our 10th country! We are staying in the capitol city of Bratislava and to celebrate our 10th country we are staying in a Botel on the Danube! A botel is exactly what it sounds like- a hotel on a boat- and it is twice as cool as it sounds. Our botel even has its own Indian Restaurant and free breakfast buffet. Plus, whenever big waves or debris hits the boat it sways and feels like we are on a real boat that actually moves! Its pretty epic! We ate at the Indian restaurant for our date night and enjoyed it. Even though we asked for very spicy, it was still fairly mild, but had more kick than just about any other meal we have had which was nice. I miss spicy food a lot. Slovakia is the first place we have been that is on the euro, which makes it more expensive than some of the other places we have been, but it is still relatively inexpensive. We had gelato the other day for 0.60Euro each and our expensive hotel restaurant dinner cost 19.00 Euro, so still not outrageous. It was interesting to eat Indian food on a boat in Slovakia- especially since they were playing reggae. We have found that there are a few things that are loved the world over and we find in every country we have visited- one of those is reggae music (especially Bob Marley- we even heard him while walking through the streets in Sighisoara) and the other is Irish Pubs. Every country we have been in has had an Irish Pub.
Poor Bratislava has had to live in the shadows of Vienna and Prague for much of its existence. It did enjoy a brief stint as capital of the Austria-Hungarian empire after Budapest was taken over by the Ottoman Empire, but mostly it is overshadowed. Which is a shame, its very beautiful and has a lot of history of its own. It has also shared a love/hate relationship with Hollywood. After the movie Hostel came out (while it is about backpackers getting chopped up in Slovakia, none of it was filmed in Slovakia), backpacker rates in the country declined by 75%. It was also unfavorably portrayed in the movie Eurotrip. During our free walking tour our guide told us that while both of those movies portrayed Slovakia in an unfavorable light, it was how most people found out about Slovakia and ended up coming to visit. She said many people confuse Slovakia with Slovenia, including George W. Bush who often confused the two in very public situations and speeches (including s speech given in Slovakia). Ha!
Czechoslovakia split in 1993 to become Slovakia and The Czech Republic. Our guide described it as very amicable but said there is a bit of a rivalry between the two countries- over beer and hockey… she then conceded that the Czechs win at just about everything. Except- she said- Slovakia started protesting the communist rule one day before the Czechs did. One of the most famous pictures of the Prague Spring was actually taken in Bratislava, though credit is often given to Prague. The Prague Spring occurred during the 1960’s- one man decided that communism didn’t need to be so oppressive and tried to make changes- reducing censorship, increasing free speech. Needless to say, the soviets did not agree and Czechoslovakia was invaded without warning, one morning everyone woke up to tanks in the streets.
Our walking tour took us past several famous statues (one that was there only to make the city more beautiful, one of a famous homeless man and one of Napoleon- though that one was a mockery). We saw the castle which was actually burned to the ground not too long ago and completely re built. Our guide told us that it had survived the Ottoman Empire, the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and Napoleon, but could not survive an Italian dinner party. The castle caught fire during a dinner party in which Italians lit a fire and poured some wine… the wine kept coming, but the fire kept burning, eventually the fire got out of control and burned the entire castle down. Our guide also told us about some interesting Slovakian traditions. At Easter boys run around with sticks to hit girls or dump cold water on them- she said it sounds brutal and sexist and it is but said they do it in order to ensure that the girls are strong and pretty over the next year. At Christmas, the tradition is to buy a carp and keep it alive in the bathtub for three days. Of course, that means no showers for three days as dinner is living in the tub. It also means that everyone gets attached to dinner and comes to look at it as a pet, which makes killing and eating the carp that much harder.
Statue of the famous homeless man and our tour guide
Bratislava Castle
Most of our tour took us through the old town, which was much smaller than it used to be. During communist rule, a bridge was built, in order to build it quickly and cheaply it was built through the old town, destroying the Jewish district and much more. The bridge is nice though, so there’s that, I guess.
Comments on this entry are closed.