Lonely Plant describes Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, as follows:
"For travelers tired of ogling the sights of Budapest and Prague, down-to-earth Bratislava, roughly halfway between the two and largely devoid of tourists, offers an ideal, and cheapish reality check."
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| The oh-so-enticing entrance to the resort campground just outside Bratislava. |
We woke up to a hot sun- I went for a swim in the lake at this "resort" we were staying at just outside of the city, where I could see an Ikea sign poking out beyond the treeline on the opposite shores. Trains and planes rumbled in the distance. But the water certainly was refreshing.
We were still driving Paulina with the spare tire and had yet to hear from the cire hire company. We picked up some coffees and spent an hour in the parking lot calling various "Sixt" (the rental company) locations- in Germany, Bratislava, England... we couldn't get in contact despite our best efforts, so set out toward the old centre of Bratislava to see the "unostentatious" Bratislava Castle.
By this point we had made 46 phone calls (at a minimum of 1 euro per call) to this car hire agency to sort out what to do- replace the tire or the car. We didn't want to put the adventures on hold, but we knew that the 80km/hr spare tire speed limit was hampering our plans to travel further. Not to mention our paranoia of glass and bottle caps and screws.
The sun stayed out all day long and we took in the view of a post-communist, indsutrial city from the Bratislava castle... which was rebuilt in the 1950s, so not particularly impressive unto itself.
Conversation ebbs and flows as we bumble about. While walking from the carpark into town, Mike says,
"Ah. Look at these paving stones. They have scalloped edges." Engineers.
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| what a conversation piece. |
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| The old town in Bratislava |
Once in the old town, we enjoyed some pints in a tavern and soaked up the sunshine while catching up with our emailing...and resumed efforts to get in touch with the car hire company.
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| Some creative artwork outside the pub in Bratislava |
We were back in the car by late afternoon and had the Tomtom set for Budapest- to pick up not only Ally, but a new tire or new wheels. While crawling along the road and the late afternoon sun shining in through the moon roof, Paul is sorting out possible camping locations for the evening in the Tomtom.
"Tomtom, what a name," I reflect.
"I like to think maybe it was two guys who set it up, Tom and Tom," says Paul, "but I don't think that's the case."
While the day held a slower pace, we enjoyed the warm sunshine and quiet, tourist-free city of Bratislava.
We crossed the border into Hungary late in the afternoon.
While I was STILL on the phone with the car hire agency, Paul scouted out a campsite about an hour outside of Budapest. The Tomtom didn't have the specific address, so we found ourselves crawling along the narrows streets of a tiny Hungarian town around supper time on a Sunday evening. We checked the town map for an indication of where this campground might be ....no luck. We check the range of info signs along the sides of the road- nothing.
Costas turned down a side street and we come up to a man in his early thirties unloading a car outside of a long, narrow home with a small front yard. Paul rolls down his window,
"Do you speak English?"
(After the lack of English over the past two days we realised this was generally the best starting point).
"Yes, a little bit," he replied, smiling.
"We're looking for Camping Natura."
"Hm..." he says, "Do...you...have..an..address?"
Paul hands over his mobile phone with the address on it.
"Ahhh, yes!" says the Hungarian man.
He stands up and reflects for a minute, "Ok," he says,
Sensing his difficulty in giving the directions, Paul reaches for the Tomtom to show an area map,
"Ah!" says the man, "Let me see that," he reaches for the Tomtom and with the Tomtom, an iPhone, and a helpful Hungarian with very good english, we had directions to that evening's campground.
We pulled away, praising thanks to our helping hand, and off we went back into town. I guess we were so exhausted and the group mentality had kicked in, as once we were back on the main road it turns out that none of us were really listening to the instructions- we all thought someone else was. Fortunately the town was so small this only meant one wrong turn was made before we arrived at Camping Natura.
With the exception of the roaring trains passing hourly and the motorway within 200m, it was indeed a nice, peaceful campground.We pulled in and stop next to what appears to be a main home- the place most likely for checking in. Costas turns off the engine and from around the corner a man in his 70s, with leathery skin, sprouts of grey hair, and sporting nothing but a speedo and a round belly approaches. He does not look happy.
He stands glaring at Costas with his hands on his bare hips.
Costas gets out and Mike joins him. I seem arms flail, eye brows raised...all sorts of peculiar expressions, really. It turns out the man spoke quite good english, was happy to have us stay, and was only charging 4 euro per person! Mike and Costas returned to the car,
"I think he was trying to sell us bread, too," Mike says.
When we woke up the next morning, we found a bag of fresh rolls hanging from our rear windshield wiper along with a Hungary guide book.
Paul and Mike headed into town to find some sort of supermarket that we might be lucky to find open. They returned with sausages and buns- a quick and easy dinner given that we had limited camping fuel left for our mini stove. Once some onions and local sausages were all cooked up, we cut open the "sausage buns" to discover an interesting looking gunk inside.
My first thought was that they had gone bad. Then I smelled it.... it was a sweet jelly! The boys had bought donuts. To their credit, they certainly looked like sausage buns. We had no other option, so dinner was indeed spicy sausages with onion on a sweet jelly bun. It was shockingly tasty.
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