Bratislava and Vienna
Our journey through some of the old eastern bloc continued with sloppy regard to timekeeping by Hungarian railways. Our packed train made the journey to Slovakia at a rather sedate pace arriving well behind schedule.
When we arrived in Bratislava we found a very sleepy looking station compared to some we had encountered. After some time spent locating the tram network we headed into the centre of town to locate our hotel. This proved very simple as its 180 rooms soon towered over our tram, sprawling up from an equally ugly supermarket. This is however, the only bad words which can be said about this unique hotel!
Our €33 for the night gave us panoramic views of the city (with the advantage of not being able to see the hotel tower block), a retro 70's style décor experience (bringing back happy childhood memories for one of us), live premiership football (handy as Tottenham were on the telly), full buffet breakfast (which included Swiss roll, how retro is that?), chicken and chips for €3.50 and bottles of 10% Slovak beer at €1 per half litre. David started to calculate how long we could afford to live there but soon the calculations meant David's view turned into 'how could we afford not to live there'!
Fortunately common sense prevailed and we are not spending the rest of our trip or even lives in hotel Kyjev!
Upon exploring the old town we found a fantastically pretty place which had a marvellously leisurely pace of life. We completed a couple of walking tours which took us past the castle, town hall, churches, arches, spaceship bridge etc. The walk though was often blocked by numerous wedding parties which seemed to operate on a conveyor belt system in almost every notable building. Needless to say the weddings were a more interesting sight for one of us than the other.
The best sight of Bratislava though in our opinion is the random bronze statues dotted around the centre of the town. These are of a French man leaning on a bench, a paparazzi stalking his prey round a corner, a woman having a coffee and worker peering from a man hole cover. These quirky statues have become very popular.
Having thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Slovak capital we headed the short trip back to Western Europe and Vienna.
We arrived in Vienna on Sunday lunchtime not sure how long we were going to stay in the city, one or two nights. However, after a pleasant afternoon stroll away from the centre among the parks and riverside bars of the north-east of the city in hot sunshine, (there was even brave talk of a swim in the Danube canal, it transpired though that this was just talk and not particularly brave as it turned out), we agreed that we needed two nights in the Austrian capital.
We dined locally on Sunday evening to the hostel at a fabulous Turkish restaurant that provided our first taste of Austrian red wine which was something that we were set to enjoy over the next 48 hours.
A dreary Monday brought out David's long trousers and trainers for the first time since Biel. We ventured across the city on the excellent U bahn to the Kunsthaus museum and gallery. The building was designed by, and partially contains work by, Austrian born and later New Zealand resident Hundertwasser. The building is similar in design to some of Gaudi's with few straight edges including a disorientating uneven floor.
His works on exhibition were vivid in colour but the most interesting were his architectural models of towns, his attempts top redesign the Australian, New Zealand and Isreali flags and his (unsuccessful) campaign to keep the unique Austrian car number plates.
The top two floors of the gallery contained work by mainly a selection of mentally and physically disabled Japanese artists which sounds rubbish (at least to David anyway) but was actually really good.
In the afternoon we visited Schloss Schonbrunn gardens (part of the Habsburg palace buildings) which were massive and laid out in a very formal way, reminiscent of a grand French chateau. To give an idea of scale Vienna zoo which is pretty large takes up only a small corner of the garden.
The evening we took the gamble of taking a Lonely Planet recommendation by visiting some Heurigen in the northern part of town, these bars are known for their new wine which from our understanding is wine that is produced on the premises. We also took an opportunity to have some Schnitzel.
As we moved from bar to bar we felt that we got a pretty good Viennese experience even though it was mostly with people that were 30 years older than David. We were welcomed to eat amongst a private party that turned into a combination of X-Factor, tea dance and violin/accordion playing busking.
Further down the street we happened to walk into another bar during a birthday celebration which meant that the free drinks on offer were even extended to their new English friends. This hospitality didn't continue however, when the champagne came out fifteen minutes later, which was probably fair enough.
Next stop Prague, when the red wine will be replaced by beer…

Jenny's abridged version
Its nice to have a break from typing…especially to enjoy some good red wine
(as David wrote this entry!)