Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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..........:-)

5 comments:

Pastor Chris said...

Whar a lovely companion and what a lovely day, what a lovely time we have had. Great post Scooterchick.

Unknown said...

Pat & Chris:

Whew ! that was close. Lucky you had the laundry lady's home phone number.

I keep staring at that dessert, I could have some of that right now

bob
Riding the Wet Coast

livin'itup! said...

Glad you realized about the laundry sooner rather than later! Eeks!

But wow -- the desserts you've had there have made me want to eat my computer screen!

Tripping Sister! said...

The Chefs in this restaurant are spectacular....I mean, seriously. It is not like Iron Chef or some cooking show you see on TV that has been all doctored up. You see these guys putting some of the stuff together and tasting as they go, smelling the food, etc. But when they go to put it on the plate and actually put everything together, it is pretty much out of view. You can see "them", but not what they are doing....ha.

Trobairitz said...

Sure was nice of the front desk to help you with the laundry lady. Hope you get your clothes back and they are clean too.

Just think of all that exercise you two are getting. Burning off all that yummy food. So neat you get to see them prepare the items. Beans for breakfast sound interesting. I've heard of beans on toast before for breakfast but I'm not eager to try it, lol.