A spur of the moment decision after receiving a RyanAir email (in October?) led to us booking a cheap fare and taking off to Bratislava for a January weekend. It was below freezing most of the time (potentially the reason for the cheap fares) but we largely had the place to ourselves.
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| Castle Wall Fam-Selfie |
Bratislava is known as the place where the monarchs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were crowned. It has an old castle on a bluff overlooking the city and the curve of the Danube River. The old town section is well-manicured: after the fall of Communism they've invested lots in bringing the Altstadt (or we should say in Slovak: "Stari Most") back up to par. It now is an attractive enclave of cobblestones, cafes, cosy restaurants and 400 year old Churches hidden around corners.
A winding lane climbs out of the old town to the castle on the hill for a nice hike, which is part of the old coronation route the Emperors would take. In the summers they do re-inactments of the coronation with a big fest and costumes and the whole bit, which we one day may return to witness.
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| Toy shop booty |
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| Pensive moment contemplating the former Monarchy |
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| We're not cold |
However being January, it is quite cold. We have the town largely to ourselves, but the cold is not something to be trifled with, especially when you have children in tow.
Hiking around in cold weather with children is generally not a great idea: it starts out as a screamfest, which is stressful to parents and onlookers. Eventually they do quiet down as they become incapacitated and lethargic with frostbite.
We've all grown up with stories of kids whose earlobes froze off to fall on the ground and shatter. To avoid that, it becomes important to find indoor activities. We planned our strolling with warm up stops in toy shops, cafes and anyplace out of the wind. One such gem was the Bratislava children's museum.
Most interesting exhibit/plaything was this one: a "Y" letter punching bag. There is something about the usage of the letter Y in the Slovak language that has long been debated. Apparently it makes many words difficult to pronounce and is seen as betraying your "provincial" nature if you say it incorrectly.
To fight back against this entymological outrage, they've strung up a stuffed "Y" so that children can don boxing gloves and beat the shit out it. The Y is still in the language so I guess this is just to make children feel better struggling with it in school? Curious.
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| A Slovak National Statement against the accursed letter Y. |
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| The type of Olde Europe street we fantasized about before moving here |
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| Warm-Up in a sunny cafe after the freezing Zoo visit. A Top Ten breakfast location. |
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