Day 65: Bratislava!

I don't think I've mentioned this, but I've declared that a family goal (or should I say, Family Goal) for this year is to visit all of the countries bordering Austria. There are, shockingly, eight of them. Click here if you don't believe me. (Liechtenstein is the eighth. It's very small, you have to zoom in to see it, but its right there between Austria and Switzerland.) Now, I'm not sure that we're going to make it to Switzerland or Liechtenstein, because they're pretty far away. But, like I said, it's a goal.

Anyway, today we visited Slovakia, which crosses country number two off our list (Hungary being the first). Yay! We drove there with Anne and Fritz this morning, and seeing how it's close, were there by 11:00. Some pictures!

The old center of the city is surrounded by the city wall, which is still intact in a few places. Here's one of the gates through it.

Doesn't really look like a gate, but it is

Right next to the gate is Europe's narrowest house. Wow! Narrow! I think the internet said it's 130 cm wide, which is just a little wider than Nina is tall. It would be neat to see the inside, but I guess now they sell tacos there or something. Oh well.

After getting through the gate, it was time to eat! Fortunately, drinking a beer (and maybe having a snack to go with it) seems to be the Slovakian national passtime, and there were restaurants everywhere. So, trying to really get the authentic local experience, we plopped right down and had ourselves some lunch. It was so, so good.

I think you can see our tables there in the middle of the street, but this could be any restaurant really. They all looked the same.

I even took pictures of our food, which is totally the in thing to do these days, but when you've eaten most of the food before you get around to taking the picture, well, the effect is pretty much ruined.

Or is it? You tell me.

After that we walked around a bit more and took in the architecture and hustle-bustle of the city.

Architecture. Nina took this, it's good!

Hustle bustle.

Maggie got tired an got a ride on Opa's lap. How cute is that?!!

Then we climbed like 45 flights of stairs to Bratislava Castle, but we didn't go inside because Anne and Fritz were waiting at a cafe, and anyway, we were just too tired. And it was hot!

It was nowhere near as cloudy all day as it was in this picture. I wish.

Then we went home! What fun. Nina, Nick, and I loved Bratislava, and Maggie says she "hated" it. But really, I think she even kind of liked it.