Day 14 part one: Bratislava, Slovakia

Day 14 was one of travel...and a lot of it. We stepped foot in 3 countries in 3 days! We woke up- well, struggled and crawled out of bed- at 530am in Vienna to catch a train to Bratislava in Slovakia. After arriving, we had about 4 hours to explore before catching another train to Budapest. So this post is about Bratislava!

To be honest, Bratislava (or at least the tourist area) is pretty small. There's a castle in the town, which, once you climb to the top, gives you a view of the countryside. Apparently you'd be peering at the meeting of 3 country borders- Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia. A few of the group went up right away, but came down and said the view wasn't particularly amazing. It was mostly just forest. Which, of course, made me immediately think of scenes from Merlin- of battles in the forest and such. But that's just me being a nerd. 

So my friends and I decided to skip the otherwise unimpressive castle, and explore a bit and grab breakfast. 

There was a festival going on that weekend, which was cool. There was a stage set up in the square, and little booths set up everywhere selling crafts and such. 

The stage during set up

Inside the square

Some pretty things 

Poor little trike. With a little lonely balloon :(

This seemed like one of the main marketplaces in town

St Michael's Gate: When the town was first built, the only way in/out of the town was through one of 4 gates. The town was otherwise completely fortified by walls and moats. According to Wikipedia, "Micheals Gate was the centerpiece of a larger fortification system which included two rings of city walls, two bastions, a barbican and a falling bridge over the water moat."  It also dates back to the 13th century!

Now this church...I don't know what it is, but I just noticed that it has the Illuminati symbol above the door. That's the second thing I've seen with the symbol on the trip, so I found it interesting! 

Then, of course, theres the non- building stuff. Which is my favorite. 

We've seen these bears all over Europe, and have really wondered what they stood for...so I finally googled it:

The United Buddy Bears are an international art exhibition with more than 140 two metre tall fibreglass bears. Under the motto: We have to get to know each other better, it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully more than 140 countries acknowledged by the United Nations are represented, promoting tolerance, international understanding and the great concept of different nations and cultures living in peace and harmony. 

Then there was this awesome bike rack...with one of the old big-wheeled bikes welded to each side. The wheels even spun! So Lucy and I each had our fun on it :)

Because of the fair going on, there were stalls that were promoting the artistic side of life for kids...they had painting, sculpture, yarning, stuff like that. We so wanted to paint! But when we asked, they said it was for kids only. There were one or two around the corner for adults...so we jumped on it!

We got to make these metal heart things... Don't know what we would use it for (maybe an earring holder?), but it was cool to make! We wove the metal and bent it on our own...although I struggled quite a bit.

After that, we just went back to the square and watched some of the performers in the festival. Then we hopped on a train to Budapest!