Actually its called Strbske Pleso but i can't pronounce that. It's in northern slovakia and towards the east i believe. It's a very small snow town which is of course why i love it, too say i've been thoroughly enjoying snowboarding is a bit of an understatement. I could go on for a long time but the jist is it excites me greatly and I am going to miss it the moment we leave.
Anyhow back to where i left off from last time, somewhere shortly after the new year. We
decided to go visit Vienna in case we didn't get the opportunity later on, unfortunately this means we might not fit in a stint in Budapest. I guess we were being a bit optimistic with the number of cities we planned to visit. I was leaning more
towards Budapest as Martin told me he thought it was probably the most beautiful city he visited last year, but even he was saying we should go Vienna as it's also very beautiful and holds
more history. It was not a bad choice at all.
In fact I found Vienna to be the most beautiful city i've ever been too, endless amazing buildings; couldn't possibly figure out what each of them was meant to represent. We caught the train from Bratislava which was convinient and went without a hitch. Only an hour train ride and we had gone from one capital city to another, Europe's proportions are far more convinient than Australia; I guess you can get from Brisbane to Ipswich in one hour...
Soon after we first arrived in Vienna we stumbled across the Belvedere palace. We didn't go
inside for the museum as the grounds and the buildings were staggering enough. Then we continued on through the city in the general direction of our hostel; we didn't actually know where this was and had no maps of the city. Eventually with some help from Jacko's iphone we arrived late in the afternoon having passed many amazing buildings and going into the incredible St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Our accommodation was pretty good, very reasonable price and we even had a computer with free internet in our room. That night Brett, Martin and I went out too search for a pub. Amazingly we couldn't find one place where we thought we might be able too afford more than one drink. Also it was incredibly cold with the help of a strong wind. So after wandering the streets for a while and getting hotdogs and kebabs off the street (not literally, not too far off though) we headed back to Jacko who was feeling a bit ginger and had stayed in.
Next day we visited the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) which housed thousands of incredible pieces. The building itself is immaculate, it was completed in 1891 and unlike De Louvre and some of the other impressive museums it was purpose built for its task of Museum rather than turned into one after peasants grew sick of Monarchs living in such incredible places. This means the rooms were designed around the contents. Very commendable, still I think the old Musee de Louvre was more spectacular and will be able to compare again soon.
As the day wore on we were tossing up whether to head back to Bratislava or to make a visit to the Schonbrunn Palace; this might sound like a no brainer but we were tired and thought we
surely must have seen every beautiful building in Vienna as there had been so many. Very fortunately we decided to go and it was possibly the most spectacular that we saw. Again we didn't go for any tours throughout the Palace, the grounds were definately spectacular enough and we were short on time. This is one of Jacko's photos and its of the Gloriette, I don't think it has any purpose other than being very aesthetically pleasing; offering a nicer view to wake up to in the morning?
By the time we left it was getting quite dark and getting off the underground a stop early made us really pushed for time too catch the train back to Bratislava. Alas the heroes got there in the nick of time, it would only have been one miserable hours wait at the station if we'd missed that one though.
It feels good to go back to Babitchka's house in Bratislava, definately has a homely feel too it and we know we are going to get a good meal; always excites me.
The next day we met up with Martins uncle Lubo at his work. He took us for a fantastic lunch at the Architects Resteraunt i believe it was called; funnily enough Lubo is an architect. After this delightful but at times (such as the entree of Liver soup) interesting meal we went to see Martin's Auntie and Lubo's wife Jana at her art shop she runs, only five minutes walk away. All of Martin's relatives have been incredibly hospitable too us. At the shop we were offered snacks and mineral water even though we were there for under twenty minutes. Then later that night we went to these spoken auntie and uncles house which we thought would be a quick stop over before hitting the pubs. Ended up staying there for a few hours as Lubo and Jana were good conversation and offered us snacks and beverages we simply could not refuse. This peaked at the 60 year old moonshine which was passed onto Lubo from Martin's Grandma (the aforementioned Babitchka we've been staying with) from his dad's side of the family. It was a real treat to have such blissful alcohol when we usually opt for the most affordable. Later in the night Lubo showed us a game on his iphone which Brett and I took particular interest in and really wanted to beat Lubo's highscore of 90 something thousand.He is definatley practiced at it as the best score we managed was 19 thousand, I now even more badly want an phone though. Jacko won't let us download this particular app on his phone; basterd.
From then we split up for a whlie as Martin went to visit various other relatives and we went straight to Strbske Pleso. Our train ride there (which we're currently on the return route) took around 5 hours. From soon after leaving Bratislava most of the scenery was simlar; snow covered everything with quaint houses and lovely hills and lakes. Once we arrived in Stbske Pleso it didn't take too long to find our accomodation which turned out to be very delightful once again. There was a bit of difficulty with the language barrier as the woman who ran the Villa Emma accomodation spoke no english and without Martin we were very limited ourselves. We managed alright though and organised our snowboard hire and lift passes as well on our own. It was good to reunite the whole group once more when Martin arrived a few days later and we'd had a small chance to learn how to ride on the snowboards. Again I shan't go into too much detail for worry that i won't be able to stop, I did love the snowboarding greatly and was very happy with the progress I was making. Must make another trip to the snow soon; hopefully with Phill again so we can push eachother with a limitless excitment.
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