Bratislava, Slovakia

Today we traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia (the capital)! Instead of driving the shortest distance, on the highway, we took the scenic route through the back country of Slovakia. When entering most European countries, it is mandatory to purchase a vignette, which is a highway tax for driving there. Dad told us to just pull over once we crossed the border and purchase a vignette at a gas station. Crossing the border between Hungary and Slovakia was very easy because they are both Schengen countries, so they share open borders. There are no guards patrolling the border, so we just drove in.

About a mile into Slovakia we spotted an old wooden building off to the left. We pulled off in hopes they sold vignettes. When we approached the window, the man behind the counter did not speak any English. He quickly got a woman from the back to help. She spoke little…very little…English. At first, we thought they were saying that they did not have any vignettes, but then she pulled out the price sheet. The prices were higher from those that we read online. Perhaps the prices were higher because we were in the middle of nowhere, we’re not sure. We entered into Slovakia carrying 10 Euro with us. Now that we were out of Hungary, Euro was the new currency, opposed to Forint. According to the vignette prices online, 10 Euro would have been plenty. Our plan was to pay for the vignette, and then find an ATM to pull out more Euros. Dad had given us the 10, in order to purchase a vignette quickly.
The lady behind the counter asked for 13 Euro, we then asked her if she would accept Forint, she agreed. In Forint, the balance due was over 3000 and we paid. She then requested something, not in English , and it took us a quite a few minutes to understand that she needed us write down our license plate number. We did this and handed over the number, she then needed to know what country the license plate was issued (again, this is all in Slovakian). “Hungary” we kept repeating, and she kept saying “English”…we realized she meant “From England”…she assumed we must be from England because we spoke English!! This took another few minutes to work out. She finally understood, but became even more confused! LoL!
She entered everything into the computer (we assume) and handed us a receipt. Typically when you purchase a vignette you receive a sticker to place in the lower right hand corner of your windshield..we just got a receipt. She insisted it was all we needed, so we thanked her and began walking to our car. Looking at the receipt, we saw that the receipt stated we paid only 8 Euro, opposed to 13! So, we went back to the counter and pointed this out to her. She smacked the side of her head and apologized. She had charged us for a more expensive vignette, but entered a cheaper one (the one we needed) into the computer. (Perhaps she would have pocketed this over payment)This is where it got REALLY confusing!! She attempted to give our change back, and call it square. Unfortunately, what she gave us did not add up to our proper change. This took time to sort out, but we eventually got our overpayment back! We are not sure if she was meaning to rip us off, or it really was an accident…but we caught it, called it, and got our money back!
With our “receipt” we began our journey into Slovakia. The country side was very similar to Hungary. We drove past vast fields of sunflowers, corn and wheat. Small towns with churches stood every few kilometers (we are still trying to understand the metric system haha!)

As we approached Bratislava, the view quickly changed from country to city. Many signs were in English, and there were high rise buildings as far as the eye could see. We knew we wanted to go to the old downtown, so we followed the signs which lead to the center of town. Parking signs quickly appeared in abundance, and we found a parking lot directly in the center of downtown. The price would be 1 Euro ($1.30) per 30 minutes. The price was a little steep but we knew it would be the same everywhere, and it was a great parking spot! We parked the Jetta and began to explore the city.

The first thing we spotted were open church doors! None of the churches ever seem to be open in Papa (except on Sunday). We were excited to see if we could just walk in. Fortunately we could, and we were amazed by the beauty. The art work was exceptional, all along the walls and the ceiling! It was magnificent! There were paintings of angels with harps in the clouds and portraits of Jesus. Much of the interior of the church was trimmed in gold. Other tourists walked in as we admired the historic sight.

After exiting the church, we began wandering around the huge city. We came across many clothes shops which had beautiful dresses!! The styles are much cuter than the shops in Papa! We spotted a castle off in the distance, which we assumed was the Bratislava Castle. So, we began walking in that direction.

We noticed very quickly that Bratislava is the old meeting the new! There are ancient monuments next to new coffee shops and pubs. Old buildings lean against the new, and church steeples grace the views at the end of alley ways. Colors dance across the entire city from both the modern advertisements and the beautiful old architecture.

The people in the streets were different from those here in Papa. The difference may be due to the fact we were in a different country, or solely from the fact we were in a much larger town!

To be continued…