We wake up without alarms at 9am, shower and get ready to head out. It’s 9.30am by this time and – as it’s DaddyP’s birthday – give him a call. It’s Sunday, after all, and he’s probably already up and about in readiness for a car boot sale. As it turns out he’s not already up, and the phone call at 8.30am in the UK gets the whole house up. We’re sure that DaddyP appreciates the thought, but feel guilty all day that his birthday began with a rather rude awakening from us.
We leave the hotel and head in the direction of the Old Town to find some breakfast before catching the bus to Devin Castle. It’s a glorious day, weather wise, and considering it’s both earlier than we were out the previous day and it’s a Sunday we’re surprised at how busy the streets are. We assume that people are here for a short city break.
Our wanderings lead us to a cafe which looks to have good coffee, but very little in the way of breakfast-type things. We decide to see if we can find something better, so head out again.
Nearby we find a small supermarket hidden at the end of a dark corridor leading off the main street. It’s a mini-market type place, and we’re able to buy some breakfast snacks here. Snacks in hand, we head back to the cafe where we order a drink (there is a sign on the table explicitly stating that we should order at the till) and two frothy lattes come out. Sadly the froth makes up over 50% of the mug, and by time we’ve got through it to the actual liquid we find the coffee to be tasty but in short supply. With at least something inside us now, we walk the 5 minutes round the back of the Cathedral to bus station where we snack on chocolate covered fruity macaroons while waiting for the 29 to Devin Castle.
The bus station is built under the flyover that leads to the UFO bridge, and the concrete wasteland is enhanced by the various societal misfits that hang around the one snack shop here. Quite why you would choose to go to a grotty bus station to buy a pint of beer is beyond us, but there seemed to be no end of people for whom this was a usual Sunday morning exercise.
Before long the bus arrives, and we board along with a good half dozen others who also seem to be heading to the castle. There’s a couple of other holidaying-types, and a family of Bratislavan locals. The drive itself follows the course of the river, and emerges into green woodland only 15 minutes outside the city. It’s a pleasant drive, and as we begin to see signs to Devin itself we notice that we are driving through the outskirts of a very cute village.
A large car park suggests that this really is quite a popular place to visit. Around this a range of small stalls are arranged, each selling small tourist gifts or local produce. Nearby are two cafes, each full of people. Most of the cars in the car park have Slovakian plates, and many have bike racks strapped to the back.
On the high cliffs above are impressive ruins of an enormous stone keep overlooking the We begin to climb the hill to the main gate. It’s a hard climb up a steep incline, especially considering the heat and humidity. The entry price is reasonable, and they follow a policy similar to that in Egypt where Slovakian nationals get cheaper entry. We’re all for free museums, but considering the squeeze on budgets in the UK we don’t see why museums shouldn’t charge a small fee for non-UK citizens and then either allow Brits in for free or for a small charge. It’s hardly a complicated system, and it would generate masses of much-needed revenue for the museums.
Climbing onto the first terrace of the castle grounds a winding path leads past a series of ruins. In most cases only foundation stones remain, but excellent signage makes for a very informative walk. The oldest remains date back to the Bronze Age, but we also see the foundations of a Roman-era basilica and a 4th century chapel.
It’s lovely to be out in the country – we’ve had city break after city break for nearly three weeks, and its great to finally be in the ‘real’ outdoors on such a gorgeous day. The grounds are so big that, despite the number of visitors suggested by the cars in the car park, you’re often alone to wander.
Climbing to the highest point of the cliff we emerge into the central courtyard of the main keep. The majority of this was built while under the control of the Bathory family, of which Elizabeth Bathory is perhaps the most well-known. She is widely assumed to be the most prolific female serial killer of all time, presented by many as a female version of Vlad the Impaler, and reputed to bathe in the blood of virgins to gain immortality.
A well in the centre of the courtyard is covered with an iron grating, but a tap and small bucket is provided for you to pour water down and listen to the splash. It takes nearly 10 seconds for the water to hit the bottom, and indicated just how high we are on the cliff.
Inside one of the old basement rooms a well-produced display on ‘defending a castle’ has a wide range of artefacts and just the right amount of information. Scotty can’t help but spend ages reading every single line, plotting ways that he could liven up the Medieval Realms topic for Year 7 with a project on castle design incorporating elements of the settlement topic the students would have already studied in Geography. What better way to implement your Geographical knowledge than plan where to build your castle for the best defence?
We leave the small exhibition and climb the exposed side of part of the keep. Walking into what was once a sitting room, we find ourselves standing on a balcony overlooking the confluence where the Morava flows into the Danube. The colour difference between the two – the brown Morava and the ‘blue’ Danube – is striking. Below us, perched impossibly on a narrow rocky needle, is an observation turret known as the Maiden Tower where legend says women would take refuge during times of attack.
On the other side of the river is Austria, and within seconds a ‘beep beep’ indicates a new text message from Orange. We’re so close that we’re picking up the Austrian mobile phone signal, and so feel that we’ve sort of visited this other country today.
In total we spend over 2 hours walking around the site before descending back down to the cafes at the bottom for some lunch. We’re a little paranoid as they have us over a barrel since it’s not as if there is anywhere else we can eat! However, the price is very reasonable and the food is good. Alice has a local Devin speciality with her meal – a wine mixed from blackcurrant wine and ‘normal’ red wine. We’d already bought a bottle of this from a guy at one of the stalls nearby. With us not being able to speak Slovakian, and him not being able to speak English, the entire conversation was held in Scott’s badly-remembered GCSE French. But the guy was friendly and nice and gave us a few tasters so we know that what Alice has in front of her is a cross between a cassis and a wine.
At the other end of the beer garden is a band. It seemed completely unnecessary at first, but their Slovak covers of classic country and western songs is actually great fun to listen to, and adds to fun of “a good day out”. On The Road Again worked particularly well in Slovakian.
After lunch we decide not to rush for the bus and so take a walk around the base of the castle, from where we get an amazing view of the curious Maiden Tower. There’s a network of walking and cycling routes along the river and through the woods, and lots of people fishing and canoeing on the river.As a cruise boat steams past, a speedboat crosses the confluence and a bi-plane makes a run up the valley. It’s like something out of an action film. It seems that Devin area is a big draw for outdoorsy people to make it a full day out. Considering it’s only 30 minutes from Bratislava, and bearing in mind our initial disappointment with the concrete of the city, we’re really sold on the area now.
Rather than doubling back along the riverside walk, we opt to make a complete circuit of the base of the castle which leads us through the village of Devin, where we see signs for Devin International School! It all seems a little too good to be true, especially when a search on Google later that night reveals that the school teaches IGCSE and IB.
After a brilliant time in Devin we eventually take the bus back to Bratislava. Alice has a strong t-shirt tan and is a little pink from the great weather, but within a couple of hours it resolves itself into suntan – clearly our ‘Egypt base layer’ just needed a bit of topping up.
On the way back to the hotel we call in again at the mini-market we visited earlier in the morning. We pick up a sandwich each for lunch tomorrow, some snacks for the boat journey to Budapest, and a bottle of Kofola – a Slovakian cola-type drink that we saw many people drinking at Devin Castle.
Back at the hotel we prepare for to broadcast the radio show. During the show it starts to rain and get pretty windy, which is a real shame on our last night, but we reflect that at least we had a glorious day for our trip out. If the weather had been like this earlier in the day we probably wouldn’t have discovered what a fantastic place Devin is.
You can download or listen to the radio show by clicking here.
As the weather is still pretty grotty after the show, we decide not to venture too far for dinner. Looking through the guidebook, Alice finds a place that we passed yesterday on our way down from Bratislava Castle and double checks the reviews online since the guidebook itself is 10 years old!
Heading out, dressed in our wet weather gear, we find ourselves walking into a homely and warm little place that actually appears to be traditional, rather than just decorated to look traditional. They seem to have a range of beers on tap, but the reviews all state that this restaurant has one of the best cellars in Bratislava and so decide to to go for a bottle of wine instead. Although the bottle ends up costing the same price as our main course and dessert combined, it was well worth it and it becomes evident why Slovakian wines are so rare in the UK – the Slovakians choose to keep them for themselves!
The service in the restaurant is perfect – attentive without being over-bearing, helpful without being cringingly deferential. However, we’re the only people in the entire restaurant. It makes for a really special ‘last’ meal on our tour before switching into festival mode in Budapest, but it strikes us a real shame that nobody else has chosen to venture 3 minutes out of the Old Town to experience such a wonderful restaurant. Wonderful, that is, apart from the incredibly curious nature of Alice’s dessert of ‘peaches in green spice’ which turns out to be caramelised peaches with a load of raw green peppercorns!
No comments:
Post a Comment