brat-wien

26 war (wed)

bratislava – the capital of slovakia. before i came to europe, i had never heard of it, so i guess i must really thank eurotrip for its exaggerated portrayal of the place, that made us decide to come and see it for ourselves.

upon arrival at the bratislava airport, we wait for around ½ hour for hong, who was coming over to join us from paris.

we have heard so much about bratislava prior to our trip so it was really funny when we saw many of our stereotypes being played out. of course, there were the untrue bits – like how we didn’t get to see stray dogs going around with a bloody arm, or being able to buy a hotel with USD 0.02, but the place is really one of the most backward ones we have seen on our trips so far. which, is good in a way, coz finally, the prices actually seemed normal .

27 mar (thur)

we decided to just walk around the city centre area, which was in fact, just 10 minutes away from our hostel.


sight which greeted us upon our arrival at our hostel


city centre




a hilarious street sign which only serves to confuse in times of emergency

lunch was at a nice restaurant where we got to try goat cheese and some other traditional slovakian food. the best part about it? it was half the price we would have paid, had it been germany or any other EU country. But by next year, they will be using euros too, so its good that we came now.


lunch!

after lunch, we walked down the city centre to reach carlton hotel, the most atas hotel in the country.


carlton hotel



after lunch, we did more walking. saw the blue church and ended by window shopping in some shopping mall.


along the river

blue church

park in the city

at night, we went up the UFO, a tower which yea, u guessed it, offers a night view of the city (seriously, doesn’t anyone get sick of this? but yea, we are all suckers for this kind of stuff i guess. im one of them guilty as charged. haha)

to give credit where it is due, i must admit that bratislava has a very nice night view (:

view from the restaurant toilet

i love this picture, taken from under the bridge

UFO

28 mar (fri)

the next morning, we visited the bratislava castle, which is probably one of the most simple castle we have seen so far in europe. stripped away of all that grandeur and glitter that are often associated with castles, i somewhat found it even more interesting that the rest. i guess the state of the castle kinda reflects the state of the country, so it was an eye opener nevertheless.

lunch

anyways, an afternoon bus took us to vienna in a matter of 90 minutes. There, we headed over to chris’s place, as he has very kindly opened up his room for us to stay, while he’s away on his long vacation.

the hostel was quite cool – looks very much like a hospital actually. not in a bad way tho, but yea, just very different. somehow i still prefer hattenheim.

the guys engaged in some arm-wrestling competition. guess who won!

29 mar (sat)

we took a train to the city and began our walking tour of the capital of music. we saw phuong and elizabeth’s school – university of vienna, which is really big and beautiful – almost how you would imagine all the european schools to look like.

university of vienna

long hallways ala harry potter

long stairways

as we walked on, we went past am hof and freyung

next up was graben area. graben street is really beautiful, but i must say that the buskers packed along the streets, music playing at almost every corner of the city is proving a bit too much for me. it seems like everyone in the city is an aspiring mozart and the whole place was just made for tourist. you can even find ticket promoters decked out in garbs and robes, trying to sell you tickets to recitals, concerts, plays and every other music related performance you can possibly think of.

the beautiful graben street

pestsaule (plague column)

ta-dah! a busker!

we even managed to catch a protest along the streets, as protestors with big banners and placards asked for less EU influence on austria.

hofburg was huge. like really really big. it’s the castle in the heart of the city and it has garden which seems to stretch endlessly. museums, concert halls and function rooms can also be found.

graben hof

hofburg

as recommended by let’s go, we had tea in café demel, and tried the torte and mélange. somehow this was how i have always imagined vienna to be – street side cafes, afternoon tea and people watching. of course, with classical music playing in the background.

al fresco dining!

the choices of torte was enough to make us salivate. i took the maroni (chestnut) one which was really good

pretty window display made of chocolates

maroni torte

freshly made treats in the cafe shop

i know what you are thinking - didnt she just have tea? well, yea, but who can pass on cheap eis?

as we walked along, we came to the famed st stephansdom - one of vienna's most treasured symbols

how st stephansdom would have looked like in miniatur wunderland!

for dinner, we headed to millennium city, which was 15 mins bus ride from chris’ place. spotted a fruits bazaar outside the train station, and we managed to get some really cheap fruits – like 1eur for 2kg of strawberries and 1eur for 2 big rock melons.

the boys with our prized possesions

fruits galore!

outside millenium city

30 mar (sun)

daylight saving (or the lack of knowledge that it took place) almost screwed up our timetable. but i guess we were quick to notice that every clock in the city seems to have fastforwarded themselves by an hour, so we were just as quick to adjust

after catching glimpses of the vienna boys choir recommended by qihan, we took more pictures of the hofburg area, before hitting the haus der musik.

vienna boys choir on the sunday mass

more hofburg

the weather that day really rock!

i reckon that since we are here in vienna, we should visit some museum related to music, so what better than one which not only houses musical instruments, but also let you try being a conductor or a day, understand the science behind soundwaves and the human sense of hearing, as well as show footages of musical concerts.

being able to catch one of the world’s most famous ballets at a mere 7 eur was quite a steal in my opinion. hence, spending the afternoon in the staatsoper watching schwansee
(swanlake) it shall be. the performance was really quite good, despite our seats which had restricted view. we ended up standing up for almost the entire duration of the performance.

inside the staatsoper

we headed over to see the oldest ferris wheel in austria.

fugly but interesting

dinner was wien schnitzel with kartoffeln knodel, the tradtional austrian dish!

hurhur

31 mar (mon)

i think i am a damn good photographer. honestly. haha

schonbrunn, which means beautiful fountain is the grandest and nicest palace i have seen so far (sharp contrast to the one we were at few days back) the place was humongous (notice the thing about castles in vienna?) but really, every bit how I imagine a castle to look like.

we took the tour and it was really interesting as our guide made me realize how all the members of the royal families in europe were somehow all interlinked and we learnt that the language spoken across all the royalty is french.

coz the weather was so nice, we decided to lie on the grass patch - at least there's no geese shit on this one!

i love these 2 pics! (:

we were not alone!

that evening, we headed back to bratislava, we were took a plane back to frankfurt. but that not before we take some last photos of letisko airport carpark.

all in all, i wld say that both places didnt really manage to excite like other cities did, combined with the fact that i was feeling a little sian even before going, it was one of the more disappointing trips. still, im glad to have gone and experience it for myself and im looking forward to our next adventure, watever it is.