No. 1, Top of the List of Things to do in Bratislava

The town centre is about 10 minutes walking distance from the station. There are a few nice little things to see on the way. One of which are these little musical chimes that you see the whanau investigating. Regardless of age, it never fails to delight.

The other advantage to walking is that, if these things matter to you, its a good way to fool yourself into thinking that it will offset the delights of the chocolate shop. Chrissy, Josie and Kev were in agreement that travelling to Bratislava from Vienna just for a hot chocolate when the chocolate is this good, makes sense.

Also, since you've come all the way from Vienna, you might as well have another hot chocolate, just to make doubly sure that the journey was not wasted.

A Good First Impression

When you are travelling with a group of meatavores, and the first thing you see when you step off the train in a foreign country, is this lovely display of cooked meat for sale(there were several vendors there), then they are already pretty most sold on that country.

I am constantly bemused by the slabs of meat sold as fast food in Europe. I guess fast food here means, you only get the cooked meat, no condiments, no bun, no nothing.

DO RE MI - VOLKSOPER VERSION

In the Volksoper version, the ‘Do Re Me’ song is renamed ‘C-D-E’ and the lyrics go...

C, wie Cellophanpapier,
D, bei D-Zug denkt man dran,
E, ein Elefantentier,
F, wie flatterhafte Fahn',
G, Gesangsverein vom Land,
A, vom Alphabet bekannt,
H, wie Hagebuttentee,
das führt uns zurück zu C.

C, like cellophane
D - an express train (I don't know the rest)
E, an elephant
F, like a fluttering flag
G, like a choir of the country
A, from the well known alphabet
H, like rosehip tea
which begins us back to C.

Petanque in the Augarten

For a little down time, we introduced the whanau to a nice little french game called Petanque. We broke up into teams of 3, and then the fun began.

Although I love Petanque, in Vienna, half the fun of playing in the Augarten was trying to throw the balls without knocking anyone out. Maybe we should have gotten extra points depending on the challenge of hitting our mark in proximity to the closest sun basker.

Schloss Schönbrunn and the Gloriette

Schönbrunn is on my list of must do's in Vienna, not for the palace(just looks like big house), not for the grounds, but for the view. Most of Vienna is flat so this is the best place to come, and if you don't want to pay the 2 euros to climb up to the Gloriette, you'll still get a nice enough view.

Plus, if you are lucky, you might have a cute little fellow like this one, stop and pose for you.