A leisurely 9 AM start for our journey to Bratislava, Slovakia. It is likely to be raining some so it is a good travel day. There are 42 of us in this “extension” which is commonly offered before and after the main trip. We have a new Tour Director, a young man named “Csaba (pronounced “Chabba”) which is a common Hungarian name. Ironically our bus driver is also named Csaba.

We drove about 1.5 hours before we made what Chabba called a “Shakespeare Stop”. What pray tell is that?  His response:  “to pee or not to pee” which drew a hearty laugh from our group on the bus.  Chabba spent most of the time talking to us, telling us about Hungary and its people which interrupted some people’s napping time. He did remain quiet after the Shakespeare stop.

The lunch stop was in a small village restaurant where we again were offered Palinka before several ladies and two young girls demonstrated how to make a poppyseed/sour cherry strudel from scratch. It was exactly how my grandmother made it-stretching out the dough to a paper thin consistency on a table cloth, adding the ingredients, then rolling the dough into a long, sausage-like tube. It brought back many fond memories. She used to make apple and cheese versions when I was young. After the demonstration three tables were set up for volunteers to make strudel, guided by the hosts, one of which was a 13 year old daughter. We watched and took pictures. These were then baked and ended up as our dessert after lunch. Lunch by the way, was goulash, which is served as a soup here, with a baked bread top (looked like a chicken pot pie). It was loaded with meat, potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables and was fabulous, especially when you dunked the bread into the soup! A marvelous lunch in all regards. Their 8 year old daughter made a killing selling us paprika as we left the restaurant; how could you say no?

After the delightful cooking demonstration and lunch we continued our drive to Bratislava, arriving around 4 PM as planned. Our group met for cocktails at 6 PM and then went to a local Italian restaurant near the hotel for our “pasta/pizza” fix.