Bratislava

Bratislava, Slovakia is the smallest capital city in Europe with only 1/2 a million people.  Apparently it is only a 1 hr. commute to Vienna from Bratislava but people can get paid 3x the same amount for the same position in Vienna so many people from Bratislava commute to Vienna daily.  It used to be the site of coronations for Hungarian kings and queens and was, at one time, the capital of Hungary.  It is a quaint town with a lengthy history but was one of the few European cities to escape devastation in the war.  Instead, many of the city's historical buildings were destroyed by the Communist regime in it's efforts to modernize the city.

Our morning began with a tour of Bratislava's Old Town.

The Trinity Monument

Like many other European cities, Bratislava was impacted dearly by the plague.  The survivors erected this monument as a thank you to the Holy Trinity for their survival.

UFO Bridge

This was a Communist-era bridge built to celebrate the elimination of the Nazi forces.  Many old buildings were destroyed in order to build roads to connect to this bridge.  The UFO is actually a restaurant and observation deck.

St. Martin's Cathedral

For centuries, this was the coronation church for the Kings and Queens of Hungary.  As such, a crown sits atop the church steeple and the roads out of the church sport the crown coin to mark the post-coronation parade route.

Statues

In an effort to add some whimsy to Bratislava following the collapse of communism, statues were erected around the city.  Some of them were just for fun but some were representative of real people.  Of course there were other fun things to pose with too.

This guy doesn't have a name.

Cumil or "the Watcher", so called according to local lore because he looks up the skirts of women passing by.

Schone Naci - a real person who apparently loved a woman who didn't love him back.

The Holocaust Memorial

This was built on the original site of a synagogue to represent the 105,000 Slovakian Jews who perished during WWII.

We also saw this gorgeous painted egg in one of the town squares.  Apparently Slovakia is known for it's painted eggs.

Views Along the Danube

Much of what we have seen so far has been loads of nature, even more mistletoe and the occasional cute little cabin on stilts on the banks of the Danube.

This afternoon once we reboarded the ship, we attended tea time and had a delectable Hungarian chocolate cake, macarons, tea sandwiches, a Hungarian peach-yogurt cheesecake thing, and Robert also had an apricot pie.  Note that we shared the other options, we didn't both have them all!

A Slovakian orchestra called Afrodite was the entertainment this afternoon.  They were actually really good.  Robert and I won one of their cd's as we were able to name the 3 Queen songs played in a medley, much to the astonishment of some of the other passengers who thought we were too young to know Queen (bless their elderly hearts).

Now to head to bed as it's an early day tomorrow in Melk, Austria...