Slovaksinated

November 2024

Bratislava is like a freezer right now. With a strong fan inside it, blowing icy air straight at you.

It's beautiful though. The old city, anyway.

But this is not Bratislava. It's some old school apartments with super dodgy-looking balconies in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, at 4.30pm, on the bus to Slovakia. It's already nearly dark by then at this time of the year.

I slept just like this guy. I'm so used to sleeping anywhere now that if I've got something to lean on, I can have a pretty solid sleep on an overnight bus. Which is exactly what I did.

It was snowing outside, see.

It was early morning but still dark when we crossed the border into Hungary. Although we could stay on the bus, it took over half an hour for the border guards to check our passports. They weren't happy with some of us. Two young Ethiopian women sitting in front of me were summoned, one by one, to answer questions. Luckily they weren't pulled off the bus permanently.

Then a Turkish guy had to do the same.

I'm glad I have an EU passport, that's all I can say.

A cold sunrise over southeastern Hungary.

Yeah, not so many remnants of autumn are visible out here in the countryside anymore. It feels like winter now, even though officially it doesn't start for another month. Eeeeek!

I had a transfer in Budapest for a couple of hours, but at an outlying bus station, with nothing much interesting to see.

Another stopover

Autumn's still hanging on in Budapest.

Crossing the beautiful Danube River, one of the major rivers of Europe. Some great cities are parked up alongside it, like Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade, and, in fact, my destination city of Bratislava, the capital of the Republic of Slovakia.

What a weird idea, having a spa in beer and wine.

We spent pretty much all day zipping through the flat plains of Hungary.

But luckily I had enough to eat.

Mistletoe hanging on to its host trees

Another Capital

And then suddenly I was smack bang in privileged, wealthy Central Europe.

Merry Christmas! The bus station was parked under this ritzy shopping mall, the likes of which I haven't seen for a long time.

Yes, Bratislava is just up the river from Vienna, and there's money floating around in this part of the world alright.

I rugged up, and then hit the cold streets.

This part of town is new, with sparkly office buildings and apartments.

And, unfortunately, this is what they're knocking down to make space for them. These buildings were quite beautiful, and ornate. But no, preserving them is not good economics, so the show must go on.

I eventually found my hostel, dropped off my gear, and went out wandering. Seems to be quite a routine these days. I'm so used to dorms and hostels and other travellers and moving around that I hardly think about it anymore, and really don't spend much time booking things. I'm lazy that way.

I needed food.

I saw a food court sign and headed straight for it.

Ok, I didn't expect that, that's the first of these I've seen. It's a bitcoin ATM. You can buy (and sometimes sell) bitcoin at these machines.

Food court art.

Food court gold. A vegetarian phô, from a Vietnamese place, it was huge, delicious, and stuffed full of fresh broccoli, tofu, and other yummy stuff. What a treat, I haven't had a meal like this for awhile. It was relatively cheap too, by European standards. 8€, that's pretty good value.

Then I went strolling through the beautiful old town.

History Matters

For many years the Czech Republic and Slovakia were one country, Czechoslovakia, but in the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union broke up, they also left the Union, eventually becoming independent nations in 1993, with Prague designated as the Czech capital, and this city, Bratislava, as the capital of Slovakia.

Czechoslovakia as a country was created after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but always consisted of two very distinct cultural groups and languages, the Czechs and the Slovaks. During the Communist era, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia came to enjoy much greater prosperity, and tended to dominate the economic and political power structures within the whole country.

It was no surprise then, that when the opportunity to create an independent state became available to them, the Slovaks jumped at the chance, and negotiated an amiable split with the Czechs.

The city of Bratislava, of course, has its own long history, and has been part of many different kingdoms throughout its existence. It's location in Central Europe, and right on the Danube, made it an important trading and economic hub over the centuries.

From the 1st to the 4th Centuries, the border of the Roman Empire ran along the Danube River, with the northern side controlled by the Free Barbaricum Germanic tribes, and the south controlled by Rome. Eventually Slavic groups took control of the area, and from about 1000 it was then part of a Hungarian Kingdom.

The huge Pozsony (Bratislava) Castle and fortress was built to protect the city, and over the centuries many battles were fought by German, Austrian and Hungarian armies to conquer it. Even the Mongols couldn't take the castle, but they tried, and were so grumpy at their failure that they devastated the surrounding settlements instead, because they liked raping and pillaging, and they did it in pillage after pillage. They were pery bad.

When the Ottomans took the Hungarian capital city of Buda in the early 1500s (they didn't bother with the other part because it was such a pest), Bratislava officially became the capital of Royal Hungary, in 1536. The Kingdom of Hungary was part of the Hapsburg Monarchy from 1526 to 1918, an empire also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Once this happened it didn't mean the city or castle was free of battles or uprisings, of course. History never seems to stop when it comes to that sort of thing. There were major uprisings against the Hapsburgs in the 17th Century, but they were all eventually put down by force, or negotiated away with cash.

It was from the 1700s that Bratislava really boomed economically and culturally, and it became the largest and most important city in the Hungarian Empire. Much of the grandness of the old city was constructed during this period, and during the late 19th Century. However, under the reign of King Joseph II, in 1783 many of the central government offices were moved back to Buda in Hungary, and he even moved his Crown Jewels back to Vienna.

Bratislava declined in importance as a result.

The gorgeous Pawera House, the Old Town Hall, built in the 1300s. It's a masterpiece.

Hlavné Námestié, the main square in the old town. The square is surrounded by the most beautiful historic buildings, and it's Christmas market time, so there were stalls selling loads of different foods, and other bits and pieces. The place was pretty much busy whenever I went there.

The magnificent Michael's Gate, in the distance. Now that's what I call a gate.

Back in the underworld

The stunning Dom sv. Martina, St Martin's Cathedral. This was the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1563 and 1830.

After a beautiful stroll, the old city was after-glowing

Ho ho ho. Deep fried and delicious.

No, I didn't add the juvenile bit (surprisingly).

Glad For Hrad

The next day I decided to climb the hill above the old city, and visit the castle that I was raving on about earlier, Bratislavský Hrad, or Bratislava Castle.

The buildings and fortress sit on a hilltop overlooking the city, in the foothills of the Little Carpathians, a small cute little hilly range that forms part of the Not-So-Little Carpathians.

The Carpathians are actually the 3rd largest mountain range in Europe, after the Urals (which are in Russia, and also in a bit of Kazakhstan), and the Scandinavian Mountains, nicknamed the Scandes (no joke), which run through Norway, Sweden and Finland, of all places.

The Carpathians run in a big arc from Austria, through Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and then swing down through Ukraine and Romania, right down to eastern Serbia.

The Bratislava Castle was first constructed in the 13th Century, but has seen many iterations since then, many additions, and many renovations. As I mentioned, it held the Hungarian King's Crown Jewels for centuries, from the early 1500s.

I roamed the streets of the old city to get to the castle.

OMG! This guy was climbing out of the sewer! He looks like he's been stuck down there since the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Views of the Danube as I climb the hill.

That weird flying saucer on the tower is known here as the UFO, and is a restaurant and viewing gallery.

Approaching the inner walls

The castle is a magnificent building, but seemed incredibly barren somehow. Everything of any real value, including all the interior decorations, art works and treasures, were moved to Vienna centuries ago, so the castle feels like a bit like a shell of its former self.

The building itself and the gardens are grand though.

I didn't go inside, as people told me there's basically nothing inside now, and it's a waste of money.

Interesting headless guards

Eventually, after looking around for awhile, I was ready to get out of the biting icy wind, and head down the hill again to get some shelter.

Rave(n) party

Holocaustic

This is the Bratislava Holocaust Memorial, erected on the site of an old synagogue, as a memorial to the over 100,000 Jewish Slovakians who lost their lives during the Holocaust. The Slovak word pamätaj means "remember."

The 100,000 murdered Slovak Jews were only a tiny proportion of the total number of Jews killed by the Nazis and their proxies during World War II, in what has to be regarded as one of the most demented and carefully orchestrated genocides in the whole of inhuman history.

6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. 2.7m of them were murdered at specially constructed killing centres such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, another 2 million were murdered during various mass shooting operations and massacres, another 1 million died or were killed in ghettoes, labour camps and concentration camps, and another 250,000 died or were murdered during other acts of violence or riots, or whilst en route between places.

But just to add more horror to this incredibly hard-to-stomach mass killing event, you may be surprised to hear that an incredibly high number of non-Jewish people were also killed by the Nazis and their proxies during the period of 1933-45.

The non-Jews murdered during this period included 3.3m Soviet prisoners of war, 1.8m non-Jewish Poles, up to 500,000 Roma people, more than 300,000 Serbian civilians, and around 300,000 people with disabilities, over 10,000 of whom were children. The number of gay (or accused gay) victims is unknown, as is the number of black people deliberatley murdered because of the colour of their skin.

So, when you add all that up, it comes to another 6 million. So there were at least as many non-Jewish people murdered by the Nazis during the same period as there were Jews killed.

Yes, horrifically, there were two Holocaust events happening at the same time.

It's really hard to imagine the scale of such killing.

And, by the way, these figures don't include the many other war deaths. For example, 5.5m German military personnel lost their lives during the war, and another 2m civilians were killed.

Ok, that's three Holocausts.

I could go on.

Actually, across the globe, a total of about 80 million people lost their lives during World War II. That's actually about 3% of the total global population at the time.

WTF is wrong with people?!!?

It's difficult for me to accept the brutal reality of what humans are actually capable of.

But I know just what to do in these difficult moments.

I'll go shopping.

Yeah shopping isn't my favourite thing particularly, but I needed to get a few things, and a local woman told me the best place to get them.

Here.

Sad, but true.

It was a beautiful sunset though

The Slovenské Narodné Divadlo, the Slovak National Theatre building

More Christmas cheer

It's All Deutsch To Me

So, I can't delay it any longer.

It's time to get my lazy butt off to Germany to do some work.

I booked a bus from Bratislava to Stuttgart, leaving before sparrow's fart, and it was dark and freezing as I strolled to the bus station.

Yeah, I feel a bit like that too right now. I should be asleep.

If I was on my bike I wouldn't have to put up with such ridiculous scheduling.

My Life As A Bus Station Fixture

As the day began, rural Austria came to light. There were no border checks between Slovakia and Austria.

But actually just over the border into Germany there was a mobile border patrol on the highway, and the police entered the bus and started asking questions. Not of me though. The police officers were quite friendly, once you said hello.

It'd be such a thankless job. Everyone hates you. You hassle people about what their travel plans are. If you don't catch any sneaky illegals you're under pressure from your bosses. I bet those policewomen just wished they were home in bed with their wives, or husbands, or partners, or happily all on their own.

As we headed towards München there was snow around. We stopped there, and drove through the city centre. It's grand and beautiful. I'd like to explore this city one day, I've passed through a few times now, but never stopped long enough to check it out. And I have some friends here too now.

It was then pretty quick to get to Stuttgart, my destination.

We passed through a gorge and some low hills, it was beautiful.

I got out at Stuttgart airport, made my way to the train station, but missed the ticket machine as I went down. So I went up to a woman for help and said "Entschuldigung, sprechen Sie Englisch?," (excuse me, do you speak English), and she said, "yeah of course I bloody do, I'm from England."

Funny that.

So I had a nice long conversation on the train with Amy, who's from Leicester, and has just arrived in Stuttgart to visit her mum, who's German and lives here. But Amy was brought up in England and has a thick English accent. So nice to speak English sometimes.

Carmen was so nice to collect me from Winterbach railway station, and take me to Baiereck, where she lives with Gudrun and Michael. It was so nice to see those guys again, Carmen cooked us all a delicious meal, and we chatted and jammed and enjoyed the warmth of their living room, and of good friendships.

I met Anna there, an art therapist, who's busy with her Masters thesis and super interesting to talk with.

Anna and Michael watching Lily, the cat. Poor Lily. She probably really wanted to eat the fish.

After a solid quiet sleep, a long breakfast, and some clothes repairing, I made my way by train to Esslingen Am Neckar, my new home for the next month or so.

The morning view in Baiereck

Heading to Ebersbach with Carmen, to catch another train

Back To The Unreal World

It feels super weird to know that I won't be travelling around for a whole month. It's been nearly three years since I last had a home, when I moved out of my house on the east coast of Australia and began this long journey. It's also been nearly two years since I left Oz, and this will be the longest I've stayed in one place since then.

Yeah, it's definitely time to do some work, and earn some cash.

Actually it feels nice to know I can put my luggage down for awhile, and not think about moving anywhere for a bit.

My good friend Phil has some friends, Holgi and Anja, who own a few market food stalls, and they set them up around Germany and in a few other countries for various markets and festivals throughout the year. On Phil's recommendation they've kindly offered me work.

The biggest and longest of the markets is the Esslinger Mittelaltermarkt and Weihnachtsmarkt (Esslingen Medieval Market and Christmas Market).

And that's where I'll be working every single day for the next month or so.

And for long hours too.

We'll be starting at either 9 or 9.30 every morning, and working right through till 9.30 or 10pm at night. With two mornings off per week.

But for some reason the idea of all those working hours doesn't really phase me too much, because I've had the luxury of not having a strict routine for so long, and I know I'll get to meet some amazing people.

Plus I'll be earning euros.

So I guess I won't have much time for writing for a while, as there'll be too many other things to do.

So, beautiful people, hope to seeya on the flip side❤️

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