Bratislava and Žilina

October 10-12

After our short return to Vienna we set off for Slovakia, the first country we have visited that neither of us has been to before. Bratislava, the capital, is a short train ride from Vienna--in fact, you can easily see Austria from the hill in the center of the city. Still, we arrived after dark and had to navigate the bus system in a new language, which was an interesting challenge. Fortunately, we easily made it to our hotel without any issues and found ourselves right in the center of the city.

We set out to find dinner, which took us through the winding streets of the old town. We stopped at a place featuring Slovak cuisine and split a plate that gave us a taste of some of the most popular dishes--sauerkraut soup, haluski with sheep's cheese, haluski with saurkraut, pierogi, and sausage (haluski is a small potato dumpling, similar to gnocchi). This started off our adventure in the world of potato that would follow us for a couple of stops, and neither of us were complaining.

The next morning, we joined a walking tour of the city led by a local named Eliska. A former teacher, Eliska gave us a thorough, fascinating 3 hour tour through some of the most interesting parts of the city. We visited the castle, several churches, and many sites showcasing life under communist rule. While many parts of the city are quite similar to Vienna--both were cities of the Hapsburg empire--the legacy of communism is clear. For example, from the central hill of the city where the castle lies, you can see an oil refinery in the distance; from here, you can also see the hills of Austria, featuring wind turbines.

Eliska also provided us with some great recommendations for the rest of our time in the city. After our tour, we spent the afternoon at a local tap house, sampling Slovak beers and playing cribbage. We also tried Borovička, a strong local spirit distilled with juniper berries which tasted like a cross between gin and moonshine.

From here, we had to get going to our next stop, Žilina. You might be asking, "What are you going to do in Žilina?" Which is exactly what they guy at the front desk in our hotel said when we went to pickup our bags. Truthfully, we wanted to break up the trip between Bratislava and Kraków, which would have taken 6 hours on a bus. In reality, we should have just taken the longer route, as our time in Žilina was not the best.

We arrived around 9 pm in total darkness in a decidedly not touristy town. All I mean by this is that there was not a lot set up around the bus station to help English speakers find their way. Fortunately, our hotel was just down the street, and we were able to find it fairly easily. However, when we arrived we found a desk agent who spoke absolutely no English and was not familiar with Google translate. We also found that while I had made the booking online, I had to pay the bill in cash. We had JUST what we needed on us in the moment, which prevented a frantic late-night trip to the ATM. After getting everything settled, we made our way up to our room, which seemed fine--clean, twin beds, a bathroom. However, when I woke up the next morning, I discovered what I believe to be spider bites all down my arm and back. (Calvin was spared--bastard.) While thankfully not bed bugs, this was obviously not a fun thing to wake up to. We also could not store our bags at the hotel, so we had to schlep them around with us for the rest of the morning until our 2:55 train that afternoon.

Eating Baklava from Vienna in our Žilina hotel

I am painting a pretty bleak picture here, but it wasn't all bad. It definitely was the moment of the trip so far where both Cal and I simultaneously felt, "Maybe we should just go home." But, in the light of day, things got better, as they often do. We found breakfast, walked around the town square (which felt like we had it to ourselves), and then found a place to sit and have a couple beers while we waited for our bus.

Slovakia was new to both of us. It had a different language and culture and definitely new challenges. We would definitely go back to Bratislava and explore further. Hell, maybe even Žilina too! But with a different hotel... So far in our travels, we have fared pretty well, so we were due for a bump in the road. These kinds of experiences show me how much we can actually handle, and that when things are scary or different than expected, we can still get through them and find cool things. We still have a lot of travel ahead of us, and I doubt these will be the only rough spots we encounter. But thanks to our journey, we know we are prepared for the road ahead.