Bratislava

Hiking in Bratislava

 A quick update about my weekend. A small group of us took a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia on Saturday. We woke up very early, about six in the morning to catch our seven o'clock train. It only cost about twenty-five dollars for a round trip ticket to the capital city. We had to switch trains in Breclav and luckily we made it there in one try. Once we got there we had to take another train to go hiking. We were the only people who got off the train and it was the sketchiest "train stop" I've ever seen. Bratislava is home to the small Carpathian mountains, similar to the size of the Black Hills in South Dakota. There was a nice park and little food place at the bottom of the mountains. You can take half a day's hike to see ruins of a castle or a full day hike to go to the very top of the mountains. We did not do this. Us out of shape Americans were only able to explore a couple trails before we grew weary and wanted to find something to eat. It was a fun hike though. The forest was very pretty and it was a nice day for hiking.

Lake near the park where we hiked

 We caught the train back to the main station and walked to the main square. We found a nice place for lunch. I spent about fifteen dollars in food because I was so hungry. Slovakia uses euros as well. After we ate, we hit some souvenir shops and walked around their square. The square has several iron-looking statues that are one of their main tourist attractions. We found three out of the four. We also saw their castle, it was huge. I took some pictures, but we heard you couldn't go inside so we just saw it from a distance. It was chilly and windy at this point, so we found a little cafe to hang out in. The cafe had a downstairs area that was really cool. It was almost like a bunker with low ceilings and tunnel-like rooms. All the walls were brick as well. They had a boy playing piano, he was exceptional. We asked him how old he was and he was only fifteen years old! It makes me wish I would have stuck with piano longer.  We caught the train home and for some reason we stopped literally every two minutes, so we didn't get back to Olomouc until eleven that night. It was a very nice day trip. Now I can say I've been to three countries: Czech Republic, Germany, and now Slovakia!