I woke up this morning with every intention of heading to Zagreb, Croatia...but with last night's consumption at the Slovak Pub in Bratislava, I just couldn't be bothered with a 9:50am train. So then I thought I'd take the night train out to Krakow to see what Poland is all about...but the hefty fare they quoted me at the train station just didn't seem to fit. I now am residing in Prague instead...only a 4.5 hour journey from Slovakia and a third of the price Poland would have been. Good deal!
The past week has been a little slower on the travel than previously, which is nice. I've enjoyed the pace of finding somewhere and staying for a couple of days. Slovakia was beautiful and I'm glad that I got to hang out there. My friend and I did end up renting a car from the Bratislava airport to do some countryside touring. Oh and this car was a good one. A VW Polo with a doughnut on the front driver's side (this was not noticed until we got gas 200 kilometers in) and windshield wipers that did anything but wipe the windows (which was awesome when it started pouring on the highway back to the airport). Either way, we made the journey safely (somehow).
After about an hour of driving around the city trying to get out (the signs here mean nothing to me) we made it up this little two lane highway through what could easily be described as Michigan. The countryside was quaint and colorful and a few castles were on our route up. We stopped at the first one we saw which also housed a bird "sanctuary," which was the saddest thing I've ever seen. We paid 4 euro each to see these poor birds perched on these stakes with leather straps tied to their legs to keep them from flying away. After seeing one of the hawks with a helmet shading it's eyes, I'd had enough. But the castle was cool. We saw one other castle, but couldn't go in and we ended up driving up a hiking trail (oops) to get to this cave that wasn't open either. The cave area was pretty beautiful though, with the rolling hills and the fall colors, we hiked up to the top and looked out at all of Slovakia in front of us. It was afternoon and the sun was going down and there was nothing but forest as far as we could see. Spectacular!
We ended up in the sleepy town of Piestany for the night, eating pizza and drinking wine. We got a killer deal on a huge apartment for 20 euros each, which was pretty sweet. I could've lived there, had there been more to do in the town. The next day we headed back to Bratislava only to find out that the dog convention there this weekend had filled up all of the hostels and hotels (there were dogs everywhere!!!). We were able to find a place, but it was the most expensive I've seen so far at 28 euro/night, but we needed beds, so we took them.
Oh and then there was the Slovak pub...yes, that's the name. It was rockin'...viking pictures on the wall, old, uneven wood floors and long tables to mingle with the locals. It was discovered during lunch yesterday and it looked like such a fun place to hang out at night, we decided to do dinner and drinks there too (much to the non-English speaking waiter's dismay). They had the best food...lots of cheese and beans and heavy comfort food (Slovakian food is my favorite so far). Also great beers and decent red wine for just 0.50 euro per glass...so of course I helped myself to a few. It was after meeting some locals who bought us some shots of who knows what that the night needed to end. Luckily the hostel was just a block away...I made it home safely and had a great night's sleep.
Which brings me to Prague. I said yet another sad goodbye to my travel companion today and made my way to the train which brought me here. It's dark, cold and rainy at this point, but I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow and take on this city rain or shine. From here, I have no idea where to go or what I want to do...let's just see what happens.
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