We had a quiet weekend, just resting and walking and puttering around. Monika´s boyfriend Roland made us some fantastic food. He is Slovakian, but has Hungarian roots, so he made us real hungarian goulash over the fire, and other specialties. 
They each have a dog, both bichon frise breed, so we had some fun canine company for the weekend.
On Monday morning, we returned to Bratislava, only to leave again for a nights stay in Budapest. Roland lived there for 10 years and offered to take us there and let us wander around while he had some meetings for his business. Monika ended up taking the day off and came with us too! I never thought much about Budapest, nor did I ever expect to go there and it was a delightful surprise. We were there for about 20 hours, some of which were unfortunately spent sleeping. We really loved the town, but only got to see a small part of it. We spent lots of time walking around and looking at the sights, and stumbled upon a fantastic Art Nouveau building that is one of the loveliest buildings I have ever seen. I cant remember when it was built, but it had fallen into disrepair when the 4 Seasons Hotel chain bought it and restored it to its former glory. Someday we will come back to Budapest and maybe we could stay there for a night.
Hungarians are big on going to communal baths or spas, so we took the opportunity to go check one out. It was right in the center of town in an enormous park- kind of like central park in New York. It was so much fun. The spa is in this huge old rambling building that has been very well cared for. Lots of light and beautiful tile. There are 3 or 4 saunas, a steam room, a cold bath, a hot bath, a lukewarm bath and a therapy pool. And that is just indoors. Then you go outside and there is a sunbathing area, another hot pool with tons of massaging jets, a cool pool for lap swimming, and a medium temperature pool for just dinking around in. There is a circular area in the middle where huge jets of water get a fast current going, and you can race around in a circle just bobbing along and trying not to get pushed into the people around you. Many of you know how much I love to swim and be in the water, so you´ll know that I was in heaven. We stayed about 3 hours, but I could have stayed all day.
After Budapest, we came back to Bratislava, and spent yesterday exploring central Bratislava´s old town. Much smaller than Budapest, but absolutely lovely and we really enjoyed ourselves. We found a shop that sold old books and Fritz found a gorgeous old woodcut print that he bought for a souvenir. Fritz took a lot of pictures of the beautiful old buildings, and I imagined that I was living here in the early part of the century. Some areas had no cars, so it was easy to imagine that I was in another era.
In the evening, we had a great time with Monika, Roland and Monika´s parents, Imrich and Daniela. We had a barbecue outside in the clear spring evening, and stayed up late into the night drinking wine, talking, eating, and watching ice hockey (Slovakia´s favorite sport!). Imrich, a talented musician, serenaded us with jazz standards and then showed us his wine cellar. He, as a hobby, makes in impressive array of delicous wines in his basement. We talked about the long relationship between Monika´s family and mine, and basically enjoyed ourselves to the hilt.
Today we went to see Devin castle. It was a beautiful ruin on a high hill above the confluence of the Danube river and the Morava river. Pictures are better than words.
Monika and Roland together.
Tomorrow we fly back to France. We are going to Nice, to be exact, to meet our good friends Jeff and Joanne Peterson to have some relaxing time in the sunny south of France.
1 comment:
Wow! Sounds like you guys are having an awesome time.
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