Good morning Slovakia

Fell asleep in Hungary and woke up in Slovakia. Pretty cool. A pretty amazing exit from our home base in Hungary as we cruised past the parliament buildings in the evening. Budapest was amazing. So much to see and do, but not enough days. Next time I guess.

A variety of currencies on this trip. It used to be more of a hassle to track down currencies but the process is now pretty simple. Jump on your bank’s website, choose the currency and amount and a few days later you get a note saying it’s ready to be picked up. We never buy too much in advance as credit cards work everywhere as do bank cards. It’s pretty easy to grab local cash. In Hungary, we’ll use the Forint. One CAD=260 Forint so 1000 Forint is about $4.00CDN. In the remainder of Europe we’ll use the Euro until we arrive in London where we’ll use the GBP.

Our first experience with a lock. People in canoes can simply pick up them up in order to bypass difficult areas. Unfortunately, large river cruise ships and other vessels can’t simply be plucked from the water and carried overland. To help us continue on up the river, dams and a series of locks were built. It’s a bit shocking to look out your patio door and see a concrete wall about a foot from the patio. These captains are talented.

Our first ever visit to Slovakia. We spent the day in the capital city of Bratislava before heading out to Austria at night. Host to the crowning ceremonies of 11 Hungarian kings and queens between 1536 and 1830, Bratislava is known as the “Coronation City of Kings”. After a morning of watching the sights from the top level of the boat, we headed out to tour the city. Bratislava seems like a pretty laid back type of spot but fairly touristy. Lots of stores selling ‘authentic’ Slovakian souvenirs that were mostly made in China? The first thing I think of when I hear the word Slovakia is their success in international hockey whether in the World Juniors, World Championships or the many NHL players born here…. like the Šťastný brothers.

We found that we constantly had to be watching for bikes, trams, buses, scooters, etc.Trams have priority on the streets and we were reminded that do not stop under any circumstance. There’s just so many people roaming around

The city of Bratislava was founded 1291.Our guide often reminded that they are no longer a communist country and she loved telling a few communism jokes. They seem fairly content that they no longer live under communist rule but she did mention that the 20 or so years she lived in a communist state were not really that bad. Communism ended here in 1989.

They say life is all about choices. This mornings choices were, a game of chess or a dip in the pool. At 32 degrees, the pool looks like the best choice.Read more