Bratislava

 

A good sleep last night, and I wake up at 7am. The forecast for today is very hot and sunny. I decided to go to the exercise class on the top deck at 7:30, and it's already quite hot! A 1/2 hour class followed by some stretching. Then time to meet Ian for breakfast. We won't arrive in Bratislava Slovakia until afternoon, so this morning is more relaxing as we cruise along the river. It's mostly rural with trees right up to the riverbank, although we do pass a couple of factories. Ian and I spend some time in the lounge after breakfast with a cappuccino to catch up with emails and news. Then we head up to the top deck and find a seat in the shade to do some reading and enjoy watching the passing scene. We went through a large lock at the border between Hungary and Slovakia.

As we have a tasting tour this afternoon, we decided to have a lighter lunch. There was a lovely Slovakian fish soup on the menu that we both had. After lunch I went back up on deck for a quick dip. The pool is only waist deep, so you don't really swim. It's so lovely to cool off though, as it must be about 34C, no clouds today.

We arrived in Bratislava about 2pm. It's too hot to do a hike today. Even a slow walk in the sun is challenging! Luckily it's a great day for a beer tour. We had a very hot walk into town hugging any shade we could find. Bratislava has some lovely buildings, and a beautiful large square shaded by trees in front of the Opera. It's Friday afternoon, and it looks like many young people are starting the weekend early.

Our tour took us to an outdoor beer garden in a courtyard. We had 3 glasses of Slovakian beer. A pilsner, a dark "coffee" beer, and a hoppy beer along with bread, cheese and meat to accompany. Very good, and a lot of fun. We were very relaxed for the walk back to the boat.

I  had time to jump back in the pool to cool off before getting ready for Cocktail hour. Then on to dinner with interesting conversation ranging from Minnesota to France and technology. Afterwards there was a jazz band in the lounge, with a little dancing at the end. And so to bed!















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