Slovakia is one of the few countries in Europe that I have not yet visited so it is meaningful! Slovakia is the 92 UN member country I have visited, and the 110th country if I include territories.For the record I am still missing Andorra on the Spain/France border.

You do not hear much about Bratislava but our 2 night visit gave us a chance to check out this neat little city with a charming old town area. The city, which lies on the Danube River, has a population of 430,000 and is the only capital that borders on two countries, Hungary and Austria. It is only a one hour train ride to Vienna. The younger crowd calls Bratislava – “Partyslava” because of its vibrant night life.

We had a walking tour this morning with a local resident who told us about the history of the city and life here. One of the funniest stories was how they have named the bridges in the city. What they call the “New” bridge is really the oldest one and the bridge they call the “Old” bridge is in reality really the newest one. Go figure!

Early in its history, Bratislava was part of Hungary and its cathedral, St. Martin’s was the site for the coronation of 11 kings and queens between the 16th and 18th centuries. Maria Teresa was fond of the city and during her reign Bratislava was the largest and most important city in Hungary. Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn gave concerts here.

Bratislava became part of Czechoslovakia after WWI and in 1993 it separated from the Czech Republic and is now the Slovak Republic, I.e. Slovakia.

Our walking tour took us on the cobblestone streets of old town, finally ending up in the main square where we had the opportunity to ride the 75 minute small “train” tour through the town and up at the castle above the city. We chose to do it but the views from the castle area were not all that exciting and we did not have time to explore the castle itself.

The three couples then went their separate ways; we chose to have lunch in  local brew pub where I tried their traditional goulash plate that included potato dumplings and bread for dunking into the copious amount of gravy that accompanied the meal. Yvonne favored a bowl of hot chicken soup.

We walked back to the hotel for some R&R before joining our colleagues for drinks and dinner. Because of our big lunches we all were eager for “food court” food in the mall next door, and as much as I hate to admit it we went to McDonalds for some American junk food.