The Czech Republic!- Day 1

We had it all planned out.  Get up by 8:00am and get the bathroom business out of the way ........

Somebody is really enjoying that fancy schmancey shower......hahaha

ok, got that all done....finish packing the little odds and ends and go and meet Eva to pick up the laundry.   I was to wait in the lobby while he went to get some Euros and the laundry. We used my pink overnight bag to bring it back having emptied everything out of it the night before.

And the next thing you know he was back with the clothes all clean and sparkly........:-).  Thank you Eva!....:-)

We were ready for check out.  I was sad that we did not get the extra day that we thought we had, but maybe another time..?

We are on our way to the Czech Republic!

I took my last picture of the place that had been our home for 3 days.......

 We had discussed taking a cab to the train station which was only about a city block away.  The problem was that the streets were in such disrepair that rolling two suitcases, a computer bag and a carry on didn't seem feasible.  trying to get over those ruts was exhausting and we had to take a little break at least once half way there....

And I was hanging onto our clean clothes with all I had.....

But, we did it anyway and got it done in record time. Next order of business is to get the tickets to Prague.  We decided to go first class.....:-).

Then we thought that perhaps since we had missed breakfast with the exception of some yogurt, we should get some lunch.  I have no idea, but it is something like a Gyro and it was VERY good.....:-).

Our train was to arrive in 30 minutes at track #1.  We sat there and ate our food and heard the announcer saying "something" in Slovak.  Then he said it in English, but it was so noisy that we looked at each other and said, "what did he say"?  Well, then we found out!  The announcement was that the train had switched to track #2.  Now, one would think that this would not be a problem, right.  WRONG. Track 2 was down the steps, through the corridor and UP the stairs.

We started running as the first announcment had been made a few moments earlier, so this one was apparently the last one!  And run we did. In the WRONG direction.  First class; it turned out was in the very BACK of the train; the last car!  WHAT!!??  Soooo, after getting a "revelation" that we needed to jump on no matter where we were, we did.  And I tell you, just as Chris put through the suitcases up on the train and put his last foot in, the doors closed behind him.  Any later and it would have drug him down the tracks.......

We made our way through at least 5 cars before making it to first class only to discover that second class was much better! haha...We set the bags in place and sat down, out of breath.....

The capital city of Bratislava was quickly disappearing behind us. Now, it was time to see other parts of the country of Slovakia.

The further away we got, the better it began to look. You will have to look through the "smudge" on the windows....the train was not very clean.

And we were moving at break-neck speed, so you'll have to excuse some of the blurr too...:-(.
I really had to zoom in to get some of these shots and I have a cheapo camera.

The countryside was beautiful.  I love to pass by little villages and farms.  I think they speak of a different kind of living.....:-)

And when we passed through this little village, it reminded me of a village I lived in when I lived in Germany.  There were only 13 houses there and I was house number 13!

We got to the half way mark of our journey which was this stop.

The guy with the cart came around to see if we needed anything.  We ordered coffee with cream and sugar.  Big mistake...ha.  I have had tap water that was warmer than that! But it was ok.   I drank half of it and took the rest to the bathroom (which happened to be lacking toilet tissue), and poured it down the drain.  I pulled out my "reserve" beverage that I saved just for an incident like this.

 I put my headphones in and decided to enjoy the ride anyway.  After all, we also just learned from the guy with the cart that the trip that we thought was going to take 2 1/2 hours would in fact take 4 1/2 hours. We would get to Prague right about dinner time.....

Somebody is having fun!  ......:-).

Some of the cities that we passed by where much bigger than others, but all of them seemed small in comparison to where we were headed.....:-)

And of course, some seemed more developed than others and that they took more care of their environment than others....

shooting through this side of the train posed a problem for me as it seemed that every time I saw something picture worthy I had this "bar" thingee in my way.  There was no time to get up because we were moving too quickly.

I wish this picture had come out clearer..it looks very peaceful in this little town.....:-)

Now, this is cute...don't you think so?

Too bad we would not be in this town long enough to see what this actually is.

The closer we got to the Czech Republic the more the houses changed...at least to me they did....

I like the way some of the houses seem to be coming out of the hillside.....:-)

And some seemed to be growing out of the ground like cabbage!

There is a lot of farming between Slovakia and the Czech Republic.....

If people didn't have large fields that they grew produce in, they had little green houses to do it in...

And as is typical of Europe, the religious life is often the center of the town.......

Prague was in view!

We happen to be right by the back door and had already placed our luggage in the hallway to give us a head start and not get caught in the "crush" of people that would be getting off when we did.  Some were traveling on to Berlin, Germany.  After getting off the train, we still needed to purchase some transit tickets and change some money into Euros and Korunas.  The station was very busy everywhere you looked.

Not having yet planned our day for tomorrow, we decided to get that done while we were at the station.  This currency exchange place was right there......

and now, to look at a map and make sure that we are going in the RIGHT direction ......:-).  Also, we read in our research that you must validate your ticket as soon as you get it at a machine that is sitting there at the station.  If you do not and the transit police randomly ask to see your ticket, there is a fine upward of 1000CZK or 800.00 CZK if you pay it on the spot. That is equal to about $50.00 US.   We made sure we punched our tickets before boarding the train.

Getting to the platform was not a big deal as there was an elevator or a "lift" as they call it in some places in Europe.  But the first train was packed like sardines.  We waited for the next one and only had to go one stop before getting off.

THEN, we had to transfer to another one that would take us to our hotel......

so far so good.  Checking to make sure we are on the RIGHT side of the tracks......:-)
ok...cool.....:-)

What we didn't expect was to have to bring the luggage up these!  Holy Moley!!  what happened to the lifts!?  Well, we did it.  This shot was after the fact, after we had a laugh about it and caught our breath!

We rounded the corner and saw this........YES!  (I think.  Looking pretty steep....:-(.

We got up the escalator (and yes, it was working) and came out onto the street that we were looking for.  Although we didn't know it...haha.  We asked two or three people where this particular street was and nobody knew...We were standing right on it!  Perhaps it was a language barrier.

Our hotel was maybe twenty steps away from us.......YaY! The receptionist was just about to take a smoke break, but there was another worker inside to assist us..

We gave a thumbs up to the fact that we had FINALLY made it to Prague and a very nice desk receptionist who was intent on helping us settle in comfortably.

This hotel reminded me of the one we stayed in when we visited Munich a couple of years ago.  On a main street with a tiny lobby and the hotel rooms are upstairs.

Here are the stairs, but at least after this there is a lift.....:-)

 this is the lift without us in it......TINY! haha.....this is going to be interesting...

This is the elevator with just Chris in it!

but by golly we made it to our room! haha.  In ONE trip. Room 61.

 It is "no frills" compared to the one in Slovakia, but it is clean and we are glad to be in it after a long, adventurous travel day.

this is the bathroom. The toilet is in a separate room behind the door that you see there.  Like a little closet of sorts with nothing but the toilet.

And this is the view from our window.......:-).

It looks like a painting. The local weather is predicting rain for the next 4 days.  It is in the mid 60's here and people are wearing jackets and coats.

Well, it was dinner time....haha.  You know by now that we are "foodies"......:-).  No sense in coming all this way to eat typical food, right?  We headed out to see what we could find.  Right outside the door was this fruit stand.  I thought it might be good to grab some fruit in the morning for a snack during the day.

This is a shot of the street down from the hotel......

This was on the opposite corner.  The first floor is a convenience store.

Somebody is ready to eat.....haha

I have no idea what this is, but Chris thinks it's a smoke stack of some sort......

By now, I was TIRED of staircases, but this was getting weirder by the minute.  We found our place for dinner and it was taking us into what seemed to be the bowels of a cave.....

We passed a little enclave that was being used as a wine cellar.....

We finally reached our destination......down under....

and as I proceeded to the table I almost stumbled into what I thought was a massive hole in the floor.  In fact, this hole in the floor is stumble proof because it is covered in glass and is right next to our table.....

With my mind on tilt....I started to look around and realized that there was an aquarium right next to me in another little enclave.. with a snake in it.  At first I thought it was a stick.  Nope.  It was a snake alright...ha
sheesh.....I didn't take a picture of it.......

my camera really doesn't take good pictures in low light, but you hopefully get the idea of what this place looked like.

This is the entry way to the room we were sitting in.......

We looked over the menu and made our selections.....

Chris ordered grilled mozzarella and parma ham in a tomato sauce topped with fresh basil........

along with a potato and mushroom soup the like of which I had never tasted before......EXCELLENT!

I ordered lamb on a bed of creamed spinach with mashed potatoes in a brown sauce of some sort.

I absolutely could not do a desert.  So, I had a little piece of Chris's fried apples which were prepared in a light batter, deep fried and served with ice cream and whipped cream.

We pushed away from the table, exhausted and ready to head back to the hotel. If you ever visit Prague, check out this restaurant. It is quite the experience....:-)

and so my dear friends and fellow bloggers, this ends today's adventure.  Time to contemplate tomorrow's!

signing off from the Czech Republic.....

See ya soon!


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Euro-Adventure Bratislava, Slovakia- Day 3

Well, we tried to get up earlier.  I actually did because I was uncomfortable that I just decided to get up.  It was about 6:00am when I did and Chris was snoozing away.  We finally got moving around 8:30 and started our day.  This was our first breakfast at this hotel and it was a strange one. But it was enough protein to hold me for a while......:-)

Chris started with cereal.  I am NOT a cereal girl.  He mixed something with something else.....I think it might have been questionable after the first taste.....haha.  It wasn't long before he was getting a plate of the strange breakfast too...

It case I had not done so before, I posted some pictures of the breakfast room........

This is a picture of the cereal bar......

We got finished our breakfast and decided to make our way to the city center by a different route....this was a new scene that we had not seen before....

We got off the subway surface car at this stop supposing that our destination was just a short walk away.  It wasn't.  But the view was lovely.....:-).  This is an ancient castle wall in the background.....

We walked over an overpass for pedestrians, caught our breath after having made the hike up the hill and I stole this shot of the old wall that fortified the city many moons ago.

this is the view from a different angle.  I thought it was quite nice.  Makes a difference being up high like this..

Chris spotted a space ship in the distance....haha.  It reminded me of the Space Needle in Seattle....:-). Well, maybe a martian observation post too.....:-)

We made our way down to the next bus stop and I noticed this placard/Crest thingee.  He was busy reading the bus schedule....notice the legs under the crest....:-).

We were on a side of the city where we had not been.  Therefore, we saw things that we had not seen.  This old church was one of them.  This time, we didn't get caught in a Mass.....:-).

I was personally feeling like I had just had the workout of my life going up and down stairs.  So, I let him go without me to read the inscriptions that were behind the gate.

this is a closer look at the altar area.....

We left there feeling like we could use some coffee....You have to be careful to look down the side streets when in Europe.  You don't know what you might miss if you don't.

We got further down the street and around the corner and was able to have a better shot of that building.  We were tired and decided not to venture down the street.  I think that steeple is attached to a different building than what is appears to be.....
 

We were too tired to go any further without taking a break and McDonald's  was about as far as we got....

We had to get the biggest cups they had if we were going to make it!....ha.  Well, I actually got next to the biggest one...:-).  It was pretty good, but then they use espresso for just about everything....

this was one of the nicest buildings in the city  It was erected in 1907.  I think it's just an apartment building since we couldn't find any other information about it.

This white building is connected to the pink one.  This was a nice park that we decided to take a break at before continuing with our "walk".  We sat for about  30 minutes watching sparrows fight over a left over piece of bread until one little guy finally took off with the whole thing in his beak!  I couldn't believe it...haha

This fountain was right in from of us and it was pretty cool too.  There are some beautiful buildings and fountains in the city, but by it being the capital city you would expect them to take better care of things than they do here.....

 Our destination was the natural history museum for which I only have about 6 shots.  This was the first exhibit that greeted us.

I had never been eye level with a giraffe before!  Msde me feel "tall".......:-)

Now, who is that guy!  I think I have seen him somewhere before, but he didn't have curly, white hair....:-)

I thought is was one of the most interesting part of the museum.....

Since I had never seen these bikes before, I tried to get the description tag for those of you who might be experts on vintage motor bikes and mopeds.

This was really nice.  I could see me on something like this if it had a bit of a backrest.....:-).

Here is the description......

And lastly, there was this one......

here is the description.....

I took a shot of the museum as we walked away from it........

We walked down the promenade and stopped for a bit since we had just spent a couple of hours on our feet in the museum and discussed dinner and our plans for tomorrow.

We had a view of the "space ship" that we had seen earlier. The sky began to change and I was positive I did not want to get caught in that rain that was coming.  My new umbrella didn't look like it would hold up under a heavy rain fall.

After making plans to get some dinner, we continued across the street through the park and came across this memorial to Slovak soldiers who had given their lives in times past.

Funny to look across the way and in front of the Philharmonic building was a touch of San Francisco...ha.

We made it to the bus stop and decided to ride until we found someplace interesting to stop and eat.  We passed Bratislava Castle on the hilltop on the way.  We didn't have a chance to visit it as it was late in the day.

After riding almost 30 minutes in the wrong direction...haha....We got off the bus, asked directions and got straightened out.  We had ridden clear out of town! On the way back after we got on the RIGHT bus, we finally saw some single family homes nestled in the hillside.

by now, we were famished and the rest room was screaming my name!  We decided that we would just go back to the hotel and eat there.  We made our orders and watched the chefs do their thing in the kitchen on the fabulous closed circuit television.

Funny, but we could not see everything they were doing and I think that was deliberate.....:-).  Chefs have to guard some of their secrets....:-).

Now, I don't remember what exactly this soup was, but I think it was squash with smoked trout and basil pesto.

LOLOL........and there you have it!

I kept trying to get him to put the smoked fish "in" the soup with the pesto, but he wanted it to last and decided to eat it with that fabulous bread that had sunflower and caraway in it.

then we ordered desert and stared at the television screen to see what was going to happen........

Desert # 1 Rubarb in whipped cream with a tartlett, liquid chocolate and a chunky shaved lemon ice.

Desert # 2 Was a ball of chocolate cake that was filled with liquid chocolate with cherries and vanilla ice cream,,dressed with a cherry sauce and topped with mint.  We groaned as we pushed away from the table and headed toward the elevator.  And that is when it hit us.........

Our reservations for the Czech Republic start tomorrow.  So, this was in fact our LAST night in Bratislava and not Thursday.  But wait, there's more!  Remember the laundry????  We were to pick it up THURSDAY AFTERNOON.....YIKES!!  Fortunately, Eva (our laundry lady) had given us her home telephone number.  The only problem now was that we didn't speak the language well enough to communicate the mishap of scheduling.

We rushed over to the front desk and asked the service agent if they would assist us with this.  They were kind enough to help us with the translation and explain to Eva that we needed the clothes tomorrow whether they were done or not.  If not, that was fine, we understood it was short notice.  she said no problem, we could pick them up by 11:00 am.  Thank God!

So, this is the end of our time in Slovakia and we have seen and tasted some interesting things while here. We hope to see you tomorrow in the Czech Republic!

Until then..........:-)