Day 31 - Vienna to Bratislava (43 miles)

Some days I feel like I could happily cycle forever. On others my mind is just not in that space. Today was one of those days. I wasn’t sure why as many things were in my favour: the wind was light and there was no rain; the incline, such as it was, was downhill; and I had only just over forty miles to do to reach Bratislava. Maybe it was the frustrating exit from Vienna - the madness of navigating around the mass of busy roads, roundabouts and junctions of the rush hour Vienna outskirts - and of trying to access elusive cycle paths onto bridges in order to cross the various waterways between me and the route. Maybe it was cycling along a levee on a straight and featureless tree-lined path that disappeared into the distance, no real sense of progress. Either way, my mindset was more about looking for excuses to stop than about looking around and enjoying the ride.

Not that it was all bad. Mostly there was nobody else around so I could embrace the peace of the route and the sounds of birds and frogs and I could catch the smell of wild garlic and of elderflower on the breeze. And then there was the fact that it is a month to the day since I set out and today I passed the halfway point of my journey during which time I have cycled through four countries and was on the verge of entering a fifth. 

Halfway!

I entered Bratislava at just after midday after a final hour of cycling around fields, trailing behind a small group of cycle tourists, and with a short detour to look at a reconstructed pre WW2 Czechoslovakian border bunker. In the city I wheeled my bike through the old-town streets to drop it off before exploring. It is a place busy - but not crowded- with people but not cars. And I can hear a lot of English, American and Australian voices amongst the babble of other languages; for some reason this comes as a surprise although I obviously would not expect to be the only native English speaker here. I leave the bike at my accommodation on the other side of the city centre, a modern hostel with small rooms of private bed cubicles. I lunch and I wander the old-town, a charming maze of pedestrian streets and large squares of graceful 16th and 18th century buildings, until I reach the river. Here there is a viewpoint above the bridge that I crossed to enter the city, an iconic UFO looking structure suspended high above the road. It provided excellent views across the river to the old town and the nearby imposing white structure of Bratislava castle.

Old Town

Late in the day I do a small tour of the city, a jumble of history to me that goes with the jumble of modern and old architecture that sits outside the old town. There are a lot of churches. There is a memorial to the Russian soldiers that died liberating the city in the war. There are old palaces and the castle. And there is a lot of mention of Slovakian wine. So after I leave the little tour bus I find a wine bar on the main square to try some. The white was not really to my liking. The red only a little better. But it would have been silly to ignore the opportunity.

Tomorrow, I now know, is a holiday here and I am told all shops are shut by law. What that means for the tourist sites that I am more interested in is unclear.