Bratislava

After Poland, Slovakia was a breath of fresh air. Where Poland was overrun and overcrowded, Slovakia was quiet and calm, while providing beautiful scenery, breathtaking street scapes and just enough crazy to keep things interesting.

Bratislava is located on the Danube river, and being less than 40 km from Vienna, a city that can be seen from a number of vantage points, it represents the very frontier between east and west. This proximity to the west proved an irresistible lure for people stuck on the wrong side of the iron curtin. Where app. 150 people were killed trying to escape over the Berlin Wall, over 400 people were killed making the dash from Bratislava over the Danube during the Soviet period.

I had originally headed to Bratislava, which is ion the opposite direction of where I need to end up, in the hope of meeting up with Steffi, a friend I met last year in Romania who lives in Vienna. Unfortunately at the last minute she was called away for work only a couple of days beforehand, so I ended up hanging out in Bratislava for a while longer than I was planning, it also happened to coincided with the first cold snap of the trip as the rain and wind moved in, plunging the temperatures from the mid 30s I’d got used too, to single digits. This somewhat constrained my efforts to get out and about, but luckily the hostel was social, the cafe scene was strong and the old snap only lasted a couple of days, so I still managed to get around to explore the city and get out of town to Devin Castle and experience the ‘thrill’ of standing in three countries at one time at the confluence of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary.

The last couple of weeks have felt like a bit of a diversion from the original purpose of the trip, caused by my visa to Ukraine not allowing me multiple entries. However, I am currently on a plane on the way to Chisinau, Moldova where I will meet up with someone I’m excited to see, and where I will get back on track as I finally get to Transnistria, a place I’m super excited to go and the number one reason why I’m back in Eastern Europe only 12 months after my last trip in 2018.Baca lagi