Leonard Christmas Vacation 2011 part 2: Beautiful Bratislava

Bratislava Old Town Christmas Market

When we last heard from our intrepid travelers, they were stressed out from the misadventures in Bulgaria.  They have now safely arrived in Vienna and are on their way to the Bratislava Christmas Market. The story continues...

The notes I had found about the Vienna airport made it seem like it would be pretty straightforward to find the bus company to get tickets for the bus to Bratislava, Slovakia. After getting through the passport check, changing some money, and a few false starts down wrong hallways, we figured out how to read the signs and headed out to the front of the airport.  We found the sign for the bus company and were prepared to mime our need for tickets.  If you only speak one language with a smattering of menu French, Spanish, German, Italian (Mark and I are pretty fluent in restaurants. We couldn't negotiate peace throughout the world, but we could host a great party!), it helps to be willing to make a fool of yourself with a Marcel Marceau impression. Luckily for the beautiful Austrian desk clerk she spoke perfect English and our alternative communication skills were not needed. A few Euro later, we were on the bus and heading to Bratislava.

The bus is very warm and comfortable and I tried to stay awake as we went through sleepy Austrian villages on our way to Bratislava. For those of a trivia mind, Vienna and Bratislava are the closest national capitals in the world; only 40 miles/64 km between them.  Though it was night, we were able to see this huge bus navigate the tiny European streets. There was an arch commemorating something, our menu German failed us in translating what, that did not seem to be big enough for the bus. In an effort to make the bus smaller, I scooted closer to Mark. That must have helped, because we made it through.

After an uneventful bus ride, we arrived in Bratislava. Again my notes said it would be a short walk to the hotel, couldn't miss it, easy as pie given the location of the bus stop. After the day I had, I was skeptical. We looked around and thought we could see the pedestrian area mentioned in my notes just across the on ramp to the highway.  We headed across the on ramp and sure enough our hotel was in sight! I was SO happy that something went right that day. It is possible that there were some places open for dinner, but we were just too worn out at 10:00pm to bother.  We checked into the hotel, found our room with a view of the Danube, nibbled on the snacks our landlady gave us in Sofia, and then fell asleep hopeful that tomorrow would be a better day.

Cafe front from Christmas Market

The next day dawned with a heavy fog which made our view of the Danube a bit compressed, but it was still the Danube and I was rested and excited for more adventures. We eschewed the hotel breakfast because my internet research indicated there were plenty of places to find a reasonable breakfast just a few steps from the hotel. Continuing the roll we were on with the airport and bus information, we found a great cafe for breakfast and planned our day.



The square outside wasn't this busy when we were there in the morning, but as you can see it soon was hopping with locals and some tourists. There wasn't much snow, but it was freezing. We survived by drinking hot chocolate inside the most wonderfully warm cafe. 

Very cold Leonards

Best hot chocolate ever!

Inside Warm Cafe

We didn't come to Bratislava to just sit in a a cafe though and so we ventured out into the city. It is a beautiful city with plenty of old world charm. The old town area has great pedestrian space and there is a more modern pedestrian area with good shopping next to it. We were able to find gloves for Mark at a ski shop. Once we had the proper equipment, we spent a good deal of time in the Christmas Market enjoying the potent punch and snacks. Some of the Bulgarian we had learned was useful here. They don't use the same alphabet, but some words were the same and we could easily order and pay for the delicious food and drink. Locals frequent this market more than tourists and we thoroughly enjoyed the people watching and the homey feel.

Mark with provisions!

Tasty!

We enjoyed Bratislava and it was a good thing we decided to start there as the Old Town area pretty much shuts down on Dec 24th. We were lucky to find a place for breakfast and then we were off to Vienna. The talk before we left is that Vienna also shuts down for the Christmas holiday. We were trusting my internet research that showed some activities still available, but we also had a comfy hotel with a good breakfast so that if nothing was open we could at least survive. The worst case scenario would have us walking around Vienna enjoying the architecture and nature. To find out, come back for Leonard Christmas Vacation 2011 part 3: Vienna.