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In the morning we sailed to Bratislava, Slovakia, our 4th country of the trip. It’s just a short stop though. A quick walking tour and on to Budapest. Our guide was Linda. Another non-stop talker and another one who liked to repeat the same information over and over again. Did I mention the average monthly wage here is 1100 Euros? Just in case I didn’t, let me tell you 4 more times.
The old town is pretty, a bit more shopworn than the others, which gives it some charm. Slovakia use to be part of Czechoslovakia, and used to be communist. And you can certainly see some communist remnants like old apartment blocks and very functional but ugly civic buildings. But it’s also clearly coming out of that and there are some nice renovations going on.
The bus tour drove up into the hills. Bratislava sits on the Little Carpathian Mountains (at least part of it does). There are some nice places up on the hillsides, including a number of embassies, like the American and British ones. During the communist days, the “more equal” people got to live up there. Now, you have to be making well above the average salary (1100 Euro, did I mention that) to live there.
We got a bit of history during this part of the tour. Mostly about how Slovakia came into being. First the fall of the Iron Curtain, then the split with the Czech Republic. Since they were both components of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they had a handy existing border they could use from those days. So there wasn’t much argument or any bloodshed when it happened.
Bratislava’s other claim to fame was their cathedral was where the Austrian kings (including Theresa) were crowned for many years. Marcus had told us yesterday at the Palace tour that Theresa was actually crowned king (i.e. she had the real power) and not queen. But that often tour guides would say 10 kings and 1 queen were crowned in Bratislava (which Linda did). But it wasn’t correct. Ol’ Marcus was a stickler for correctness.
Today they are democratic with one house of government. There is a president (newly elected, 3 weeks ago) and a prime minister. Presumably the prime minister has the power and the president is for diplomatic functions (like the Queen in England) but that wasn’t clear. She had been talking about the President like he was the main man, then mentioned casually that there was a prime minister too and didn’t elaborate.
Anyway, the parliament is right next to Bratislava Castle. This castle dominates the old town area and we got quite a view of it from up in the hills. It’s very pretty from a distance. Fairly boring up close. It’s now owned and used by the government/parliament. But it has a nice view of town. I bought my only souvenir there, a Bratislava baseball cap. 9 euros. Turns out they were 5 Euros in town. But Marion said it made me look like a navy pilot so how could I not buy it?
We walked down from the castle into the old town. As before, the tour was going very slowly with lots of droning on about this and that while we missed shops Marion wanted to see. So when we got to the main square and it was clear there was going to be 10-15 minutes of dialog without moving, Marion took the opportunity to head back to a little craft shop she saw and went to town. Really great stuff.
I waited in the square for her. The tour wandered off but through the beauty of the wireless headsets, I could tell they hadn’t gotten too far since I could still hear them. Marion made it back before they got out of earshot (just barely).
One of the cute little touches in town was that sometime in the late 90’s, someone got the idea to put some whimsical statues around town for people to run across. In the central square there is a statue of Napoleon, bent with his elbows resting on a park bench from the back. So you can sit on the bench and he’s looking over your shoulder. Lots of people taking pictures there. But as an added little touch, it’s in front of the French Embassy. And he’s facing away from them. So he’s basically mooning them (with his pants on) every time they look out the window. Linda suggested this was not an accident. I’m not sure what the French did to warrant this, other than, you know, being French. But I found it humorous. In fact, we ran across any number of examples of sculptors pointing the rear end of their statues at various people for various reasons during the trip– not being paid what they asked, for peering in their windows too much or whatever. It appears to be a fairly common old style taunt.
The most famous of these statues is of a man coming out of a manhole in the street. It’s a fun idea and definitely got people’s attention.
We walked back to the boat. It was a warm day and it was nice to get back to the air conditioning. We were docked near a famous bridge. The clearly named during the communist regime “Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising” It’s like the sundial bridge in Sacramento – a large leaning pylon on one side, with cables coming out from it holding the bridge in front of it up. But with an added twist. At the top of the pylon there’s a round, glass encased restaurant that looks like a spaceship. It’s called the Alien Café of course. It wasn’t clear why the alien theme. But it was pretty cool looking.
Then it was time to head to Budapest. They wanted to time it so we hit town after dark and could come in with the city lit up. Marion napped and I spent the afternoon reading. (One of the nice parts of the trip was just sitting and relaxing while the landscape slowly scrolled by). At one point we entered a truly huge lock that held us, another cruise ship our size and a double freighter with plenty of room to spare. It was quite deep as well after emptying. After some of the tight squeezes we’d been through, this was luxury. It was quite hot by this point, so I ended up watching mostly from inside (where the A/C kept things very pleasant). It just took some effort to find a quiet spot.
That night there was the captain’s dinner and farewell toast. We were pretty tired and skipped the cocktail hour (like we usually did) but it turned out this was the moment where they brought out all the crew, dressed in their best uniforms and introduced everyone and the passengers got an opportunity to thank them. Oops. Probably should have showed up for that. But we did show up for dinner at least.
Due to the fact the river was running fairly low, we had to keep our speed down and as a result, we didn’t hit Budapest until about 11:15pm. But the program director, waiters, and crew had been telling us about how amazing coming into Budapest was and how we shouldn’t miss it. So we dragged our sorry butts up to the top deck and waited. Greg and Joan had a bottle of champagne and along with Tom and Debby and John and Sue, we toasted our trip. It was a really nice gesture.
We come around a bend in the river and can see the city. And as we get closer it gets more and more impressive. The view is spectacular. The bridges (3 or 4 of them) are lit end to end and all the major buildings on both sides of the river are spot lit from below. The House of Parliament is the largest building in the country. It looks like something from a storybook. Just unreal. There was a large flock of birds (or possibly bats, it was hard to tell) circling the cupola feeding on the insects drawn by the lights. The birds are lit from the bottom and they look like flecks of gold. It was like a snow globe when they put gold flecks in it. The Parliament building is on the left and sits right on the water and dominates that side. On the right up on a hill there is St Mathias’ church seeming to hang in the air (since the area around it is dark), Buda Castle, plus way up on a hill a statue of ‘Victory’ or something of that ilk. In between the Cable Bridge (a small suspension bridge) is lit with individual bulbs. Other buildings are lit as well. And to top it off, there was a half moon low in the sky. And we just cruised through it like a ride at Disneyland. It was truly magical.
As we passed under bridges, people on the bridge shouted hellos to us. Given the height of the ships we weren’t that far from them. One of the crew was having a birthday and they had all gathered in the stern and were having a party – complete with Sachertorte and buckets of beer. Richly deserved. Those guys worked their butts off.
We passed all the sights, then turned around and came back through again, docking right under the Chain Bridge with a view of the castle on the Buda side. Right out our room window. Tomorrow is our last day of the trip, but this felt like the grand finale. So I guess tomorrow is the encore.
7/6/14
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