Friday Sept 13
Bratislava may have been when this portion of the trip started getting off track. We took the train from Budapest to Bratislava on the Friday. The train didn’t leave until 7:30 PM, and we had already checked out of our hotel around midday. So we bopped around a bit, and started to get ourselves together around 6:30 PM. The train station was only 1.5 kms away in Budapest, so we thought it would be easy. We called for an Uber to come collect us and our bags, and it ended up taking 15 minutes for the car to arrive. Then, due to the one-way streets, it took us over 15 minutes to go the 2 kms. My partner and I split up, I was to get sandwiches, and she was to get wine for the train. We ended up cutting it *really* close, I must have walked all the way to the other end of the train to find our carriage, then had to walk all the way back to the other end. Meanwhile, it was nearing 5 minutes remaining before our departure, and my partner was nowhere in sight. I called her, prompted her to hurry. We ended up boarding the train with about 3 minutes left. Finally found our carriage and settled in. The seats were in a 3×3 configuration, with each facing the other. I think both my partner and I quickly ate, at least, half the sandwich, poured some wine, and settled in with shows on our iPads. The train trip is about 2.5 hours, and we just relaxed a bit. However, with the train leaving at 7:30 PM, we wouldn’t arrive until around 10 PM, but we were late by nearly an hour.
We got a taxi at the train station to take to our AirBnB apartment. Lesson #1 : always validate there is either a meter running, or that you have negotiated a price. We were both tired, and not sure where we were, so I wasn’t paying very close attention. The taxi got us to our building, and I paid with a tap, which ended up being ~30€. We got inside, the reception helped us to get the keys to the apartment, we got upstairs, then we headed across the street to the gas station to get some snacks, just so we had something in the house. We sat up for an hour, had a little food, then finally went to sleep. As I was falling asleep, I kept thinking that 30€ was *a lot* for what was basically a 5 minute ride.
Saturday Sept 14
We woke up relatively late, as we didn’t get to bed until after 1 AM. My partner said she was feeling really sick, as if she had a cold, so I ventured to the relatively modern mall, Nivy Centrum, that was only a 10 minute walk. I got breakfast, I braved a Slovakian pharmacy, and I got a few grocery items (which was relatively difficult in a Lidl shop). I brought them all back, provided medication and a snack, and we leaned into some shows to try to recover.
At some point after lunch, I offered to head back to the grocery to get some soup, noodles or something else comforting. I ended up going out to the other mall that was 10 minutes away in the opposite direction and had dinner by myself at a surprisingly empty Italian restaurant and had the chicken and truffle linguini, which was excellent. I brought the leftovers back for my partner.
In the evening, I finally checked the Maps app, and validated that we sould have paid aruond 4€, instead of the ~30€ that we ended up paying for the taxi from the train station.
Sunday Sept 15
Sunday morning I went back to the Nivy Centrum Mall and went to a cafe on the top floor for breakfast. I had a breakfast sandwich and a coffee, and brought home similar to my partner. She still wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t want to miss out on seeing Bratislava. So just after lunch, I figured out how to navigate the local bus system and headed to the Old Town. I found an AllTrails walk (subscription required) through the Old Town and ventured off.
The walk was around 1 hour long, and I wandered a little further after that. That evening, Manchester United were playing Manchester City, and I tried to find a pub that I could watch it. I was unsuccessful, the closest ‘pub’ was really gritty, had 4 tables outside and when I walked in, there were two older guys just smoking cigarettes and drinking their beer. It certainly seemed like the place hadn’t been properly cleaned since the 1970’s. In the end, I asked the bartender whether she would show the match. She checked, but didn’t have a license for that game, so I headed back to the apartment and watched it on my iPad, which was probably better anyway.
Fransiscan Church | Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 mm f/2.8 | 30 mm | f/3.5 | 1/125th | ISO125
Primates Palace | Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 mm f/2.8 | 30 mm | f/3.5 | 1/125th | ISO200
Solvak National Theatre | Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 mm f/2.8 | 32 mm | f/2.8 | 1/1605th | ISO200
My partner still wasn’t feeling well, and since I liked the pasta so much the night before, I went back to the same Italian restaurant, and literally had the same order.
Monday Sept 16
Monday was check-out day, so we packed up, and got a taxi to a luggage storage facility, a few blocks away from the Train Station. My partner was feeling a bit better, so we stopped at cafe called Liv a Little, and had their signature ham & cheese sandwich. We walked through Freedom Square and the Presidential Palace gardens.
Presidential Palace Gardens | Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 mm f/2.8 | 47 mm | f/6.3 | 1/005th | ISO100
Our final destination was Bratislava Castle, which had some lovely manicured gardens in the back.
Bratislava Castle Gardens | Sony A7R IV | Sony 24-70 mm f/2.8 | 27 mm | f/7.15 | 1/200th | ISO100
Obligatory Selfie | iPhone 16 Pro | 2.7 mm Back Camera | 2.7 mm | f/1.9 | 1/500th | ISO25
We headed back to the Luggage Storage, grabbed a bottle of wine, and took the 279 Train back to Budapest.
