Slovakia

Our train trip to Kosice, in the East of Slovakia, was boring but relaxing - we had a compartment to ourselves the whole way, but it was raining and we couldn't really see anything out of the window. We arrived at the main station of Kosice with nothing more than the address of the hostel (well done me), but managed to find it with the help of locals (who say they don't speak english, but what they mean is that they couldn't write in it at a univeristy level. Modest, that's them). It was actually more of a hotel, and most of the places we've stayed, strangely empty. Kosice is a very nice town - a few beautiful streets of old town, dominated by an enormous cathedral, surrounded by vast swathes of soviet apartment blocks. Very much like every other town in this part of the world. We spent some time walking around though, and in the evening had a beer at tables on the street, while a weird, incomprehensible street theatre performance went on next to the church. It seems a very lively place.

On Wednesday the weather was still awful, and we pottered about, using the internet and finding lunch, until it was time to go and pick up our rental car. Totally unable to decipher the ticket machine, we bought a ticket of some kind, and got on the bus to the airport. This turned out to be our undoing. Partway through the journey, we were accosted by an alleged ticket inspector. He was a fat, greasy man wearing a grey tracksuit and a smirk, and, through the interpretation of a (very charming lady) bystander, explained that we'd bought a 4 stop ticket, but we were going six stops, and therefore had to pay him 55 euros each. We fought this, naturally, but he took petty delight in insisting we pay the fine, all the time smirking and with a smug gleam in his piggy little eyes. At the airport, he only let Margot off the bus, and I had to wait while she went to get cash. I'm sure he was just pocketing it, and I was furious, especially as he wouldn't even meet my eye. Anyway, the whole experience soured Kosice for us a little.

Nevertheless, we got the car - a little black Fiat Punto - including the GPS system, thank god, and headed gingerly off into oncoming traffic. Not really, but it felt like it. It is very nervewracking driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. But there were no accidents, and we made our way through the countryside to Levoca. We passed through a particular town where there were many gypsies standing by the side of the road, making no effort to sell berries. At first I thought they were about to throw a bucket of stones onto the car, but we passed more and more of them, all just holding buckets of berries. Marketing skills were conspicuous in their absence. As they clustered thicker and thicker, we passed a shanty town, covering a hillside like something out of a nightmare - dirty shacks and tracks, with fires belching smoke and dirty children running in the dirt with mangy dogs. It looked totally out of place. The GPS then took us across country for some reason, on a tiny little road over rolling hills of farmland. Very lovely. Levoca was reached at some point, and we checked into our hotel, which was very very nice, and only 37 euros for the night! That's not each, either. We spent the evening wandering around Levoca, which is so pretty I almost died. Dinner was cheese, salami and bread on a bench in the square, watching gypsy children play.

On Thursday morning we breakfasted well, it being included in the room price, then hauled off again to trust ourselves to the GPS. We drove in a curve to the north, skirting the High Tatras, which are magnificent. We drove through beautiful country, up windy mountain roads and through picturesque valleys. Although there is a fair bit of logging going on, this is some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen, like something out of a fairytale. This is why I wanted to drive through Slovakia - to get off the public transport track a bit and see the rural areas. I wasn't disappointed. It was magiacal all the way to our destination, Banska Stiavnica, in the south. This was an old german mining town from the middle ages, built on a very steep hill, with a huge castle at the top. We had a great room again, huge and super cheap, but on a street which was closed, so the GPS then took us down the most terrifying, tiny winding steep cobbled "street", which was barely wider than the car. I managed to get through with only a bit of a scrape on one hubcap. The town is all like that, though - tiny steep mediaeval streets. It was beautiful - houses over several hillsides looking over the central town as well, and quite heavily forested. We took many photos, and shared a pizza at a local cafe. Zlaty Bazant is 83 euro cents for half a litre here.

This morning (I'm catching up!) we had another free breakfast, then took a torturous route out of town trying to avoid the closed street. Our GPS kept up its usual delightful habit of taking us a scenic back road through the mountains. This one was narrow and incredibly windy (the bendy kind, not the blowy kind), but luckily I was starting to get the hang of the car. Once we were out of the mountains and onto the freeway towards Bratislava, things got more boring. The landscape was mostly flat, and there were roadworks every three metres with insane speed limit changes. Incidentally, there are hardly any speed limit signs in this country, so it's a miracle I didn't get a ticket. I generally erred on the side of slow, especially as we were sightseeing anyway. I found out when we dropped the car off that the limit on freeways is 140, but is there a sign telling you that? No there isn't, is the answer to that question. Anyway, we made it, handed over the keys, then got a bus (with the correct ticket, thankyou another kind lady on the bus) to the main train station. Thence a tram into the city, then following wrong directions, getting lost, and finally making our way to the faded soviet glory of our hotel. We are in a tiny brown room on the 14th floor of a hideous block of a building. Actually it looks a bit like Fisher library.

We threw ourselves into Bratislava with the energy of invading Turks, charging around the old city seeing everything. We went into the Primate's Palace where Napolean signed the Treaty of something-or-other, we walked around the old town, we went up to the castle and saw the panorama in the rain. Which has been profuse. The Danube has flooded a little bit, and is flowing fast and strong. There are images of terrible flooding on the news, though we can't understand what the descriptions are. Speaking of news, Michael Jackson died! There is a CNN channel in the hotel and we sat and ate bread and cheese and watched endless coverage of MJ-related stuff. Just this afternoon in the car, listening to MJ on the radio, I was talking about how he's managed to become a superstar without having to die at the peak of his career. Little did I know he was already dead. Anyway, despite our terrible sadness, we left the terrifying 14th floor open window of our cell and ventured out into the clearing night. In the main square of the old town was a jazz concert, Scott Hamilton and the All Swing Trio, or something like that, and we sat and listened to them as the sun went down and the lights on the palaces and in the fountain came up.

And that's me up to date! I'm sure I've missed things, and I always miss thoughts and musings as there isn't really room (or rather I don't have time to write it all). Unfortunately this is my journal as well as my communiqué, so hopefully it's enough.

Tomorrow, Munich!