Day 3 – Bratislava, Slovakia – Central Market, Devin Castle and Schloss Hof
So we were told that we’d be going through the first and largest of 7 locks at 5am this morning. I’d heard from Jennae that it was really cool, and I really wanted to check it out. But I was pretty tired the night before, and decided I’d set my alarm, and see how I felt when 5am rolled around. The alarm went off, and I looked up and saw we were already inside the lock (basically my entire window was filled by the wall). I got up and took a peek out my window, figured I had a good enough view from there, took some photos, and went back to sleep. There would be more locks later!
By the way, my poor camera got a bit wet, and I realized later that the lens cover was occasionally not opening all the way. So you can see black corners on some of these photos. I worked on it to get it dried & cleaned up and this eventually went away, but you'll see it in some of the photos.
This morning, we were to start with a walking tour of Bratislava. We again walked out to the pier (no bus required!) and met up with our group and our Adventure Guides according to our color groups. We’d been instructed to bring our QuietVox players (like Whisperers) with us. (They were sitting in their charger on the desk of my cabin when I checked in, along with earpieces and color coding cards). The color coding cards were used to sync your QuietVox with the microphone for your color group’s local guide. You pointed the end of the QuietVox at the color of your group while holding a button, and it synced. They worked really well. Only a few people had issues with them that I know of. I have to say, I feel the range & sound quality was much better than the Whisperers I’ve used on other ABDs.
The Guides for our group this day were Daniel and Birte (Birdy). This morning was the first time I really noticed one of the downsides of this manner of doing excursions. Since the makeup of the group was constantly shifting from day to day (and sometimes from excursion to excursion) the Guides (as well as we Adventurers) didn’t really know at this point who was in our color group & who wasn’t. There were a few times that the groups crossed paths, and I could see the Guides struggling to keep everyone in their color group together, and not accidentally walking off in the other direction with another color group. I really think the Adventurers needed some sort of identification, also (the Guides had colored paddles), be it colored lanyards or something that could be a quick visual indication of what group everybody was in. (Everyone put the color cards away with their Safety cards so they wouldn’t lose them.) It also got too hot after today to actually wear our
ABD lanyards. Perhaps just a colored shoestring lanyard? I’ve recommended this to ABD in my Survey. I felt bad for the Guides, but of course they managed somehow!
Our local Guide gave us a brief current history of Bratislava and showed us the “UFO” bridge, which was built by the communists while they were in charge of the area. Yes, that's a restaurant and observation deck on top. She didn’t seem to think much of it, or of any of the architecture of the buildings built by the Communists. It definitely was in stark contrast to the more historical architecture. She hinted that they were basically hoping for the buildings to fall down so they could replace them with something nicer. But given the very solid, concrete look of them, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.
Here are some much nicer buildings there.
To help beautify Old Town Bratislava, several quirky bronze sculptures were commissioned and are placed around the Old Town and the Central Square. There were also some fun sculptures in front of some of the shops and restaurants.
Adventure Guide Danny with a friend. (Yes, we had Adventure Guide Danny and Adventure Guide Daniel. It surprisingly wasn't a problem!)
This guy, The Watcher, is apparently one of the more famous of the sculptures. Some think he’s looking up women’s skirts…
Our local guide with another sculpture
A Napoleonic Soldier
Our local guide had given us little booklets and pens to use. They were sort of a scavenger hunt. The booklet showed little bits of several landmarks around the Old Town, and when you found them, you matched the letter for it to a number, which eventually spelled out the old name of Bratislava (Wilson City). We all received a pretty yummy gingerbread cookie as a reward for solving the puzzle (or not!)
The walk around Old Bratislava was very pleasant, and it was an interesting place.
A fountain in the Central Square
Our guide took us through a courtyard to the Primate’s Palace (OK, yes, I looked that up!) and told us about how it had been taken from the people, who had managed to hide a fortune worth of ancient tapestries in the wall between two of the windows in the building. Eventually, the city was able to buy the palace back, at which point the tapestries were re-discovered, and therefore belonged to the people.
Here you can see some artwork that is being uncovered and restored on the side of a building.
Gargoyles!
Apparently Bratislava was seriously bombarded by cannon balls by Napoleon. Several cannon balls can still be seen, embedded in the walls of buildings. I’m not sure if they were just left there, or specifically embedded as a sort of nose-thumb to Napoleon.
Me and a friend.
Interesting signage.
Here, right by Michael’s Gate to the Old City is purportedly one of the narrowest buildings in Europe at 130 cm. (I’ve seen it claimed as the narrowest in the world, but there’s a house somewhere that’s 109 cm, so it can’t be in the world. I imagine it’s the narrowest in Slovakia!)
More cool architecture.
When we finished our walking tour, we met up with our motorcoaches, and headed out of town to Devin Castle. It’s not too far from town. It sits impressively on top of a hill. (It’s a bit of a hike up to the Castle, and it’s pretty exposed up there, so be sure & take water with you!)
As you’re walking up the very verdant hillside to get to the castle, we passed various livestock by the side of the road, such as donkeys, sheep and goats.
When we got to the top, the groups spread out, rotating through a few different activities. They were a humorous Medieval weapons demonstration, a tour of the Castle ruins, and an area where ABD had specially arranged some activities for us which were not activities normally available to visitors to Devin Castle. Those were a candle-making area, an area where you could engrave a coin, an area where you could learn to write your name in calligraphy, and an area where they taught you archery.
Our group started with the weapons demonstration, which was fun and funny. It was also, unfortunately, becoming beastly hot & humid out there, too.
They got volunteers to learn how to handle the “weapons”. That was really a blast!
Once we were done watching that demonstration, we headed up to the Castle ruins. Fortunately, once we got up there, we were told that the fountain there had access to a very fresh water reservoir, and that if we had a water bottle (I did!) we could fill it up there. It was very delicious water, and I filled my bottle multiple times!
There was a well there that was so deep, it took several seconds for water to hit the surface down below. They demonstrated it for us. Just about the time you thought you must have missed it, you heard the splash below. Crazy!
The Castle courtyard.
The AmaViola cruising around on the Danube while we were gone.
The tower used to be connected to the wall surrounding the Castle. It was called the Maiden’s Tower, because apparently some tragic Princess whose lover was killed threw herself off of the tower.
This video is of our tour guide telling us about how that’s Austria on the other side of the Danube, which they were not allowed to visit during the time of the communist regime.
Apparently I took no photos of the exclusive Activities. I blame it on a very drippy calligraphy of my name, and the fact that it was seriously hot out now. I did the candle making, smote my coin, and tried the afore-mentioned calligraphy (which drippy ink ended up on my T-Shirt). HURRAH! for the onboard laundry, which was *very* good, very prompt, and reasonably priced. But it was JUST TOO HOT to stand in line for the archery. I kind of wanted to try it, but stood in the shade & watched for a bit instead.
I did take a photo of this strange decoration on the tree where many of us sheltered in the shade.
On the way back down the hill, I came across this chorus singing what appeared to be Slovakian folk songs.
Video!
We then headed back to the AmaViola for lunch and, fortunately, a chance to cool off, dry off, change if necessary, (attempt to get the ink off my T-Shirt), etc.
A towel animal was awaiting me in my cabin!
Continued in the next post!
) There were some teens/college aged kids onboard (I think we only had 14 kids, but most of them were at least pre-teen). They all seemed to enjoy it that I saw. I think a lot of that came from the Adventure Guides. They had them up in the Lounge or on the Sun Deck, using them as a "hangouts", and they got pretty thick. I didn't notice any sulky kids on the excursions, so I think they were OK with it, and having their "gang" to hang with probably helped. I don't know how they'd have fared on a "standard" river cruise vs an ABD river cruise, though. The excursions, from what I've heard, are different from what you'd get on a standard cruise.
Where you going next? 
