A Journal, with Pictures

Mon­day we wake up cruis­ing in a new coun­try and view ancient cas­tle ruims over cof­fee. We arrive in the capi­tol city of Bratisla­va around lunch time. Czecho­slo­va­kia split into the Czech Repulic and Slo­va­kia in 1993 in what was called the “Vel­vet Divorce”, fol­low­ing the 1989 over­throw of com­mu­nism in the “Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion”. I do a com­mu­nist tour by bus and Joyce does the walk­ing tour of Bratisla­va in the after­noon. It is very inter­est­ing city with the foot prints of the Rus­sians still vis­i­ble but also its his­to­ry of being the capi­tol of the King­dom of Hun­gar­i­an Monar­chy ter­ri­to­ries. The city has made an effort to replace the grey­ness of com­mu­nism with repaint­ed bright col­ors and inter­est­ing char­ac­ters such as Cumil the wim­si­cal bronz sol­dier peek­ing out of a man hole on the side­walk. There are oth­er bronz char­ac­ters that add to the charm of the city cen­ter that has been made into a pedes­tri­an zone. The com­mu­nist tour takes us to the hill above the city to vis­it the Russ­ian memo­r­i­al and cemetary where the 6,845 Sovi­et sol­dier who died in the lib­er­a­tion of the city are interned. A good view of the Hab­s­burg era palace is avail­able from the hill as well as the dull com­mu­nist apart­ment com­plex­es build on the oth­er side of the Danube.