Our day starts relatively early as we get up for an early breakfast before catching a (nearly) all-day train to Bratislava in Slovakia. With everything packed, we head to the station in Krakow and find the platform. Although we’re getting used to the platform / track listing system in Poland, it still makes us a little unsure of things and with this being the only train today that will get us to Bratislava we don’t want to get it wrong. We board this first train with no problems, and arrive in Katowice to change trains.
Poland doesn’t seem to use electronic central departure boards. Instead the stations rely on posters that list all the trains departing, a few key stations that they will visit, and then the platform they will leave from (platform changes don’t seem possible here it seems!) We find a poster that corroborates some of the details we have been given; the time on our ticket, train type and one or two of the stations, but it describes the final station as being Prague at 18.35 and then also Budapest at 20:40 but with no mention of Bratislava at 18.50 (which is what our ticket is due to get us). This starts to concern us – we don’t want to go to Prague, and we can’t see how our train can go there at 18.35 and then arrive in Bratislava at 18.45 as shown on our tickets. Hmmmm.
We decide that we must be getting a dividing train with part going to Prague and part to Budapest (via Bratislava), but we’re still a little unsure of this assumption. It seems a little ironic that we are going to Sziget in such a slow way that we are getting off a train that would otherwise take us directly to Budapest! We chat to two other pairs of backpackers (not that we are backpackers, but travelling around Europe by train we feel some affinity with them and offer them pearls of wisdom as we are now 30 and can make comments to them about how things were so different/the same (delete as appropriate) when we were at Uni). They restore our faith in backpacking that was slightly destroyed in Amsterdam by the large groups we saw travelling together. They, too, are waiting for this train (one set going to Prague and the other to Budapest) and, although we all agree with the reasoning that the train must divide, everyone is a little wary.
As we’re looking again at the ‘poster of knowledge’ two Polish girls come and check that we are OK working out our train. They speak good English and are very helpful confirming first that they train does indeed divide (so for Bratislava we will end up on the final two coaches which will continue after Bratislava to Budapest) and they also tell us that this train is notoriously late or delayed. They then hand us a magazine and begin talking about being a Jehovah's Witness.
We didn’t mind chatting to the two girls, and it was really lucky that they told us that this train is usually late, because we would have been panicking. Indeed, it’s nearly and hour after it was due that the train rolls in. We find our seat in the second-to-last coach despite the odd seat numbering. Somehow seats 16, 17, 18 and 24 make a set of four seats around a table, and there aren’t any seats lower than 12 in the carriage. We’re sat in a pair and the carriage is over half full. We’re travelling second class as there isn’t a first class coach that goes on our part of the route and, although the seats aren’t bad (they’re the size and space we get on the train between London and Stockport), we notice that compartments are smaller than we’d experienced in first class.
We set off and absorb ourselves in the electronic pursuits of blogging, reading and i-pod-ing and it’s only two hours into the journey when “beep beep, beep beep” and our phones tell us that we’re in Czech Republic.When we were at the station the other travellers had asked us why we weren’t going to Prague, as it’s a far more likely stop in this area than Bratislava. On this trip we’ve managed to make stops in cities that neither of us have been to before and, although Prague has probably changed a lot since we were there over five years ago, we wanted to try and see new things.
About an hour later and we are making our long stop in Bohumin for the train to divide. We stay put in our seats at first, but when we notice another passenger from our carriage is on the platform calmly having a cigarette, we deduce that it’s OK to get out for some air and the train won’t pull away without us. Scott gets off just as they’ve finished unhooking us and sees the main train pull away into the distance, leaving our two carriages on their own at this deserted station.
While Scotty is outside hoping that another engine will come along soon to pick us up he overhears a funny conversation. “So, are you sure this is the train to Budapest?” “Yeah, coz that guy is wearing the t-shirt of that festival” “Shall we check with him?” “Nah – he probably doesn’t speak English.”
So, there are advantages to wearing the Sziget t-shirt on every leg of the trip!
After 20 minutes we’re picked up by another engine and continue on our journey, making up some of the time lost from the delay leaving Krakow. It’s our longest journey, and by the time we eventually arrive at Bratislava we feel in need of a shower, some air and some food.
We stand on the platform waiting for the crowds to disperse before making our way through the station. We’ve been through a dozen stations so far on this trip and suddenly we find ourselves in the worst. It’s a grotty, crumbling grey concrete building that is about as welcoming as the vagrants lying around drinking just outside. This isn’t quite what we wanted to greet us, so we look around for ways to make a quick getaway.
We have a list of the trams and buses that will take us to our hotel, but looking at the bus stop it seems none of them go via the station. It takes us a few minutes to find a tram stop because there aren’t really any signs and we’re rushing about trying to get out of the station area. We find a ticket machine – which is a start to getting out of here – but it’s broken. Finally we find some escalators that take us down to the tram area; they are broken too, so we use the stairs. Finally we have some luck as there is a working ticket machine, but we still cannot find the trams we need. We’ve nearly given up the idea of public transport and think we might have to drag the case two kilometres to the hotel, but we find a map of the trams and buses. It seems that there aren’t any trams of buses that leave the station and go anywhere near our hotel. We’re really quite surprised at this as our hotel seems to be in a pretty major area of town on the road to the New Bridge between the old town and the castle but, no, there are no transport links from the station.
Having taken a photo of the public transport map for later reference, we walk five minutes along the road away from the station towards a stop that should take us to the hotel. At the bottom of the station approach we use a massive road bridge to avoid broken concrete streets and a massive road junction in the hope of finding a bus stop that will take us to the hotel and away from the poor first impression we have been given of Bratislava.
It’s a concrete grey mass of a city. Large roads, ineffective transport and unfriendly streets. This is what we feared Warsaw might be like and we’re both quite glum at the prospect of spending three nights here. We had initially planned two, but when we decided to leave Vienna out of the trip we upped our stay. We’re staying at the Ibis on the edge of the Old Town and find it easily from the bus stop; the building and our room are generic and functional. We don’t want to hang around in the hotel for too long, so we dump our stuff and have a much-needed shower (all-day train journeys are sweaty work!) before we head out.
We’d booked this hotel because it is near to the Old Town, but as it isn’t actually in the Old Town it is a bit more affordable. We need to cross a grey bridge over the dual carriageway that runs around the Old Town to get there. The road was built to connect the second bridge of Bratislava over the Danube. The road and bridge were more gifts from the Soviet cousins, and the bridge features an amazing UFO-like structure on its central span. It’s known, in a typically functional socialist sort of way, the UFO.
The road itself cuts the only line possible between the Old Town and the emerging cliffs of the castle. We are quickly over the bridge and head down a set of steps on the far side and things are starting to look up! We find ourselves walking through an Old Town of old streets, narrow, winding, passageways, arches and then lots of bars and restaurants. Phew – it’s not all grey! This is more like it!
We find ourselves in the main square and a klezmar band are playing on a small stage set up at one end. This is much more like it! We’re not in a rush and so stop to listen. The band finish after we’ve caught only a few songs but this gives us an excuse to continue our exploring. We try to eat on main square but its restaurants are full – this isn’t surprising considering it is the main square and there are only four restaurants here, instead of each side being covered in restaurants like Krakow. We keep going and soon find ourselves on a broad boulevard where another stage is set up for a concert. It seems that this has already finished and a bar, Verne, that we have been recommended nearby is also full. It seems we’re not having much luck, but we’re enjoying exploring on a nice evening after a day cooped up in the train.
We end up in a restaurant near St Michael's gate where we sit outside and opt to try some Slovakian beer. The beer is good and we’re getting less and less head on the beers as we go further from Amsterdam, but it’s still not quite what we’d pour for our own beer! We go a little more mainstream for our food rather than going full-Slovak on our first meal – we’ve still not quite recovered from not all the pork and cabbage in Germany!
Having paid for our meal we take a meandering route back to the hotel, and find ourselves on the edge of the Old Town where it meets ‘real’ Bratislava. Always keen to check out the local dive bars, we venture into one which is lit with fluorescent strip lights and has what appears to be a band setup in one corner. Scotty heads to the bar and orders two beers. The barman asks what type, to which Scotty replies whatever Slovakian beer the barman suggests. He nods and heads to the fridge from which he takes two bottles of Schwepps ginger beer, does a flourish with his bottle opener, and slams off the lids. Confused, Scotty takes the bottles to where Alice is sat and begins ponderously sipping. Either the barman didn’t understand, he’s tee-total, or he is having a laugh. Two minutes later a waitress appears, shrieks, “this is not beer, it is tonic!” and clarifies our order. She heads to the barman, who is given a severe dressing down, and begins laughing uproariously. He then goes to the fridge, takes out another two ginger beers, and passes them to the barmaid who takes them to a table of older guys sitting with empty glasses and a bottle of gin between them. It appears Scotty stole their mixer.
Shortly afterwards two lukewarm beers arrive at our table, the smudge marks on the glasses perfectly highlighted by the aggressive light of the fluorescent tubes. A man who looks like a 1980s Greek waiter then walks to a stack of keyboards and other assorted musical electronics he picked up from a junk sale, and begins singing La Bamba. As he moves on to Mambo Italiano, we notice that he’s not really playing the keyboards. They’re not plugged in to anything, and his hand movement is the same for every song. At one point a guitar solo kicks in and he taps the keys in a haphazard fashion, like a cat walking on a piano. At one point during a song he completely removes his hands from the keys, combs his hair, and adjusts the microphone volume. When he spots us watching him he panics and begins stabbing the keys again. It’s like we have unearthed his secret and he’s afraid we’ll tell the owner and get him sacked.
For 20 minutes while this is going on a steady stream of inline skaters are flying past the door. Apparently Friday night is skating night.
No comments:
Post a Comment