Tom's adventures through eastern Europe with two friends for 3 weeks in the summer of 2007. This site is a collection of photos, diaries, notes and thoughts.
August 29, 2007 – Downtown Backpackers, Bratislava
Pulling into Becka's driveway at 2.10 am, she poked her head around the corner of the door and smiled. We were going. She triple checked her passport and tickets, said bye to her father and we were off, onto the dead roads.
Rachel was, shockingly, ready on time. We almost made it all the way out of Lingfield, her village, before she realised she'd forgotten her phone. Her phone was lying on the floor lighting up her hallway. She woke her mum and she rescued the phone.
The M25 looked no different to when it would at 10 in the evening. All kinds of cars, all going somewhere. We questioned why there were so many and what they were all doing. But they were probably thinking the same of us.
Half-way through our hot chocolates, muffins and croissant in the departure lounge at Stansted just before our flight, Rachel announced she'd left her phone in the car under the seat. No time to go back.
The plane was boarding. As per some kind of family tradition, it was at the gate furthest away from the terminal.
Having been awake since 1 and not having more than three hours sleep, we happily dropped off on the flight. I drifted in and out of sleep, with partly incomprehensible announcements. "Buy a Ryanair scratch card, only €2 and yes, you could be a millionaire" "Anybody want anything from the trolley? Drinks, snacks? Anybody?" Nobody. We were all sleeping. Or trying to.
We arrived in Bratislava 10 minutes early. Bratislava airport isn't big. There were only two planes in the terminal. Our bags came through promptly and we went out. Rachel managed to get a map and find out that the bus tickets were purchased from the newspaper shop across the road. They use a similar system to most of eastern Europe, you pay per minute. You buy a 10, 15, 30 or 45 minute ticket and validate it as you enter the bus. You can then use that ticket on any public transport until it runs out.
Dry grass was on each side of the highways running around the airport. Large industrial units, Velux, Panasonic were around the airport. A drive through McDonald's at one junction with adverts for T-Mobile and O2. Where's the fun in traveling gone?
The city centre was more like you'd imagine. Beautiful old buildings, with wide open roads and many trees. A second bus dropped us near our hostel and we navigated around the Bratislavian version of Hyde Park Corner to our hostel.
We've got to get ready now to head to Croatia, so I'll post more when I've arrived and get some photos to show you.