Apologies, Bratislava, and Vienna

It has come to my attention that I have been a bit negligent in keeping up with the blog. I rationalized at first that since we hadn’t been anywhere other than Dresden, Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Narsdorf for some time, why there was no need to do any posts. Sure, eating sundry animal parts that have been processed into a paste, sausage, or patty is fun and informative, but not everyone enjoys the culinary peculiarities. Especially when it involves goose- and pig-fat-based sandwich spreads. Not that I am planning on keeping them out of the blog, mind you, but I’m just saying a few people have been a bit squeamish.

Anyway, I thought to myself that I would wait until we’d been somewhere before I updated the blog. After all, the whole point of the blog was to commemorate our European adventures and we were planning on going to Bratislava and Vienna. “Sure,” I thought, “I’ll do it once we get back from that trip.” Ummm. Unfortunately we’ve been back for a little longer than I had initially intended. As in, we got back from there on November 1st… Heh-heh… Sorry!

Timeliness (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, we’ve recently taken a trip to Bratislava and Vienna! Let me start off by saying that Nadine and I are now avowed Slovakian nationalists. Slovakia, despite its portrayal in films as a sketchy, smoke-filled bastion of disillusioned former-communists that wash themselves outside in old washtubs while small dogs run past with severed hands in their mouths, it was actually quite nice. Smoky, sure, but where in Eastern Europe is it not? And I can happily say that we did not see a single severed hand, in the mouth of a dog or otherwise.

Why Bratislava, you might be thinking. Well, several years ago we met a Slovakian girl named Saskia who was living in Madison. We became fast friends during her short few months in the Midwest, and as soon as it looked like this whole Dresden thing was actually going to happen, we started looking at train tickets to Bratislava. And let me say that we were not disappointed.

We left Dresden on the morning of October 29th bound for Slovakia via Prague and Brno. The train ride was about six hours long and rather uneventful. I was happy that I got to take along a Cadbury’s Wunderbar (I’m a sucker for puns like this… I mean, Wunderbar is the German word for wonderful, while it could also be read as a Wunder Bar. Ah, those English… But, I digress) and even take a slightly unfocused picture of it. We got to watch some DVD’s courtesy of Nadine’s portable player, and before we knew it we were in Bratislava.

Our train route.

The slightly unfocused picture of the Wunderbar.

Saskia picked us up at the train station, and let me be the first to say that I have never met a better hostess. She had tram tickets in hand for the entire weekend, a plan for a tour of the town, and all the food and drink we could, well, eat and drink. Our first evening there was nice and relaxed, and we just hung out in their apartment, had some good homemade food (pasta with tuna, tofu, cottage cheese, and vegetables), and watched a Disney movie. Saskia loves animated films.

The next morning was a gorgeous start to our love affair with Bratislava. The sun rose over the Little Carpathians, a low mountain range that runs near the city, and greeted us with a hearty Dobrý Den! After a leisurely breakfast, we headed out into the town. We walked through one of the major shopping districts, and I was even surprised to see a McDonerkebab (Doner, or Döner as they are called in Germany, are lamb- or chicken-meat slices arranged on a pita with vegetables and a tzatziki sauce, and are VERY popular in Europe). It was nice, but nothing compared to where we were headed. Before too long Saskia said that we would be heading through the gates into the Old City.

The newer part of Bratislava.

To get into the Old City, you literally have to walk through the original gates and across a small moat. While the moat has since been drained and the drawbridge has been replaced by a stone bridge, the pulleys that were used to raise and lower the bridge remain. Once we got through the doors, Saskia took us to her favorite chocolate shop. I’ll admit that, though I like chocolate, I am not a “choc-o-holic” (despite the charges of heresy and blasphemy such an admission will probably incur). This shop, however, took the idea of chocolate and made it into one of the best edible items on the planet. Their whole menu was filled with chocolate drinks, and the counter was full of pralines, truffles, and other chocolate novelties. Also, when I say the drinks were chocolate, I mean they were effectively melted chocolate with goodies. Nadine had a drink that was chocolate with nuts and mango bits, I had something with chocolates, sour red berries (someone said bill berries, perhaps, but I’m still not sure), and some rather potent alcohol. The drink was called “The Slovakian,” so I figured that it would be a good try. Saskia had a drink with cream and chocolate and cherries which looked like it would have gone down just as well as either of the other two.

The gate to the Old City.

Detail of Old City gate, showing the pulleys from the drawbridge.

View of the Old City from the inside.

Some of the novelties at the chocolate shop: Nougat formed in the shape of corn, a fruit-flavored jelly drop, and a marzipan-filled date.

One of the most famous Bratislava baked goods, Bratislavský rožtek. It’s essentially a little sweet dough filled with a nut paste (or poppy-seed paste) and baked. Delicious!

After delicious chocolate drinks, we decided to go on a major walking tour of Bratislava’s Old City. For those of you not familiar with Bratislava’s illustrious past, it was the seat of the Hungarian Habsburg’s power from the 1500s through into the 1800s. Numerous kings and queens were crowned there, and one of our first stops included St. Michael’s Cathedral, THE coronation spot. There were even little golden crowns embedded in the cobblestone streets to denote the path that the royalty used to take on Coronation Day. We followed them (backwards) for a little ways along the Danube and found ourselves at a beautiful castle/royal palace that overlooked the Slovakian border with Austria and Hungary.

Nadine and Saskia in the Old City.

Random Latin painted on the side of an old house.

St. Michael’s Cathedral…

…and a detail from the tower. Note the crown on the pillow.

Bratislava Castle.

Looking towards Austria and Hungary from Bratislava Castle.

After wandering for several hours, we were famished, so we stopped at this small, dimly lit restaurant for lunch. Nadine stuck with the stand-by of crepes with fruit filling, and while I have to admit that they were great, they paled in comparison to my dish: little gnocchi-like things in a cottage-cheese sauce with Canadian bacon. It was creamy, it was cheesy, it was salty, smoky, and bacon-y, but the most amazing thing was that it was made with real cottage cheese! Every time that we have looked for cottage cheese (which isn’t really that often… I mean, it’s just cottage cheese…), I’ve come up with local variants that have very little to do with the ubiquitous Minnesota side aside from a (probable) common dairy background. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that all it took was a trip to Slovakia to find the little curds.

Following our late lunch, we headed back out into wonderful Bratislava, which included the old Town Hall and crossing the Danube and exploring the other side of the city. While crossing offered us an excellent opportunity to view the city from without (we’d only seen Bratislava from the ground-level, deep in the heart of it all), I must say that the charm of the Slovakian capital doesn’t quite extend across the Danube into its suburbs. Though the other side of the river is complete with a huge mall and is historically semi-significant, given that Napoleon bombarded Bratislava from that side, it was just somewhat, well, blah. Despite an overcrowded tram ride back later that evening, we were very happy to make our way to the city center.

The building where the Peace of Pressburg was signed. Bratislava was known as Pressburg for many years, and this is where Napoleon signed a peace deal with Austria during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Old Town Hall.

Detail of the Old Town Hall. Note the cannonball!

Danube River. It really is blue!

The “new” parts of Bratislava.

The “UFO” of Bratislava. It’s actually a restaurant on the New Bridge over the Danube.

The UFO at sunset.

Since we’d had a full day of walking and sight-seeing, it was high time for us to head off to dinner. Saskia and Matej felt sorry for their dog Minka, who had been alone all day, and so they decided that we should bring her with us to dinner. So, after gathering the dog we headed to Animal’s Pub, where the menu included a bit of kibble for their four-legged patrons. Unfortunately, however, so much time has passed since we were there that I can’t give a blow-by-blow of the evening’s repast, and I only remember that I had something with lots of meat. While this may seem mean and cruel, given that we were eating with a vegetarian (Matej) and an animal (Minka), I do remember that it was delicious as well! I vaguely remember eating fries with my meal, but that’s about it.

Everyone was full afterwards, but Minka wasn’t quite ready to call it a night, so we headed over to a small hole-in-the-wall place that specializes in these small Slovak pancakes called paláčinki. Again, time, language, and distance has made the specifics a bit fuzzy, but I do remember that for a mere pittance, we all had these cute little filled pancakes. Mine was something called a Geodeka or something, which meant that it had a chocolatey-caramel sauce inside. I’m not sure what it was aside from wonderfully sweet and highly satisfying after all of the meat (I think?) that I had at Animal’s Pub.

Anyway, after that we headed back to Saskia and Matej’s place for the night, and the next morning it was off to Vienna. We’d had a wonderful day and a half in Slovakia, and it completely made fans out of us. Since then, Saskia was kind enough to send us a basic Slovak textbook, though I’ve been too busy to crack it open yet. In any case, I can highly recommend Slovakia and Bratislava!

The Little Carpathians from Saskia’s apartment.

For Vienna, however, you’ll all have to wait for part two, since it is Christmastime and we are enjoying the holidays at Nadine’s parents' house. Again, my apologies to all for such intermittent updates, but if it’s any consolation there are just two more trips to talk about!

Merry Christmas!