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| Slovakia: Bratislava, Devin, and a check up on our Piestany apartment |
This is the third part from a roughly three week long trip to Europe in June-July 2024. The trip started with me attending two conferences, first the Spacecraft Charging Technology Conference (SCTC) in Avignon, and then the International Electric Propulsion Conference (IEPC) in Toulouse.
We flew into Vienna, since Bratislava is served only by low-cost carriers such as Ryanair which fly to mainly summer tourist destinations. Flying with Lufthansa allowed us to enjoy the Star Alliance lounge due to my gold status. Today was an exciting day for Slovakia, as the Slovakia made it out of the group stage of the EUFA championship that I started watching back in Avignon, and was getting ready to play England. While the match started great with Slovakia leading, England equalized in addage time, and eventually won in overtime. We caught the beginning at a Vienna airport pub waiting for our SlovakLines bus to Bratislava, and then finished watching it in a pub in the new Nivy shopping mall built on top of the central bus station (well where the bus station used to be, with the station now found underground). Bit of a bummer but at least they made it to the round of 16! The strange thing about the game was that the footballers came out with (their?) kids dressed in colors of the Colombian national team. We then Bolt-ed (Bolt is the "Uber" of Bratislava) to the Wilson Palace hotel. This is an excellent hotel located very close to the presidential palace. It actually consists of two properties: the more luxurious antique Wilson Palace and more modern Hotel Loft. The hotels share the same reception and a restaurant with a pub.
We started the morning with a buffet style breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was included in the room rate. The food was excellent. We then walked through the Grassalkovich presidential palaca gardens. This was as far as I can remember my first time ever here. The gardens are nice, and feature a fountain called "Joy of Life" depicting three girls playing in the water.
We next traveled to the site where the Slovak Technological University (STU) and the Comenius University science and mathematics faculties have their buildings. Here I went to visit a professor Zdenko Machala whom I met at a past plasma medicine conference held in Bratislava that I attend when still working with Michael Keidar. I was curious to see his lab and was also curious to learn about some possible collaboration opportunities.
Next we went to tour the Bratislava Castle. This was also a first for me. While it is nice to see the castle on the inside, the rooms are very bare. I wonder if there is a plan to bring in some period furniture at some point? But you get great views of the city from one of the towers, reaching which involves climbing bunch of stairs. You then emerge from a tiny crack into an exhibit hall which featured art from the Kovačica Slovak community in Serbia, which became famous for its "naive" folk art. I actually really enjoyed these paintings, especially the grotesquely resized portraits of Martin Jonáš.
We then took the path through the gardens down towards the Danube. On the way down, we spotted a new-looking wine/coffee bar called Viecha pod Hradom. We had some excellent Slovak green wine to go with pastries and coffee. Then later, I met up with Petra's mom (Petra is my half-sister) and we caught up strolling through the Nivy shopping mall. This mall was built just recently and the highlight for me is the excellent food court located below the outdoor terrace. Blažka has never had ramen before and I particularly enjoyed the one sold at the food court so I wanted to introduce her to this Japanese delicacy. Later we took a cab to our hotel so we can show her the room. Unfortunately Petra and her family were out of town so I didn't get to meet up with them.
The following day we took a boat tour to the Devín castle. The castle sits at the confluence of the Morava and Danube rivers. The first originates in the Morava region of the Czech Republic, while the Danube comes in from Germany through Austria. The site of the castle was used as a fort since neolithic times due to its excellent strategic location, however the castle in its "present" form dates back to around 864. Unfortunately, it survives on only as a ruin since Napoleon had it blown up, merely out of spite as there was no army held there at that point, in 1809. Luckily, a tiny watch tower, popularly called the Maiden Tower as it looks like the place where one would lock a princess unwilling to get married to the chosen suitor, still remains. Also, during the communist times (like when I was a kid), the area around the castle was off-limits to the general population due to its close proximity to the "iron curtain", the border between the East and the West.
Then back in Bratislava, we visited a historical pharmacy (Sandra likes collecting weird local toothpastes). On this visit we also met up with my elementary school friend Peter Rafaj (actually the night before at the hotel) and in the morning before the boat, with another such friend Mišo Bužek.
Then in the afternoon we hopped on the hourly, one hour long train from Bratislava to Piešťany. Piešťany is a spa town known since the Middle Ages for its supposedly healing mineral mud hot springs. We were met at the train station by my father.
As some of you may remember, I bought a small studio apartment here in a new construction called Pinia. The building is actually not in Piešťany, but on the opposite bank of the Váh river, where the river turns to a large reservoir called Sĺňava (something "sunny"). There were several reasons for getting the apartment, primary among which was the fact that I did not have any place to call home in Slovakia and I would like to start spending more time (like summers) with my dad and to be an uncle to my niece and nephew. I first got to visit the site in 2023, when the building was still under construction. What I purchases were just the unfinished walls. I then had to pay another company to actually install the bathroom, the kitchen, flooring, and the ceiling. All this took much longer (and cost more) than originally envisioned. We were promised that the apartment will be finished by May, so our original plan was to stay there. But as you will see in the pictures below, this was not the case. But I am happy to report that the apartment did end up getting finished by October, and Sandra and I spent our Thanksgiving there. But since the apartment was not yet ready, we opted to hotel in style at the fancy Thermia Palace.
This is one of the most luxurious hotels in Slovakia, probably only topped by the likes of Kempinski in the High Tatras. And while the room rates are high compared to the typical Slovak salary, it is actually a very affordable and excellent deal for somebody from our side of the "pond". We paid 297 euro per night, but this included three treatments, each, as well as free breakfast and dinner in the hotel grand restaurant, and access to the indoor and outdoor pool wellness area. We invited my father to join us for the first dinner. It was lovely. The dining room is spectacular and the food was acompanied by live music.
The next day, after a morning stroll through the hotel, we went to visit the apartment. This was going to be Sandra's first time seeing it, so I was curious what she will think. She liked it but of course thought it was too small, but that's just how things are in Europe. Plus, this was literally the only unit left in the building. The bigger one-bedroom units were long gone and the massive 3+ bedroom penthouses on the top floor were well beyond my price range. But at least we get an amazing view of the lake, at least when the trees are not covered in foliage. We met our project manager from the local Emaila firm, and discussed some outstanding details. I am glad to report that the apartment turned out really well in the end. We next walked to a nearby "koliba-style" tranditional restaurant called Tri Groše for traditional Slovak food.
Next back at the hotel, we went to the attached Irma spa to begin our treatments. We started with the mud and clear water pools. My dad joined me on this one. We then strolled around the spa island (the spa houses are located on an island in the middle of the river) and then ventured to stroll through the actual Piešťany town center. A highlight for Sandra here was a pizza sold by slice. The pizza was actually really good. It was also topped with corn which seems to be some kind of a cultural requirement in Slovakia. Basically every pizza has corn on it for some odd reasons. Something that a visitor to Piešťany may also find interesting is the large number of Muslim women walking in their traditional covers. Slovakia is still not a very diverse place, although things have been changing rapidly in Bratislava, just see Zdenko's graduate students as an example, however Piešťany is very popular with the middle eastern clientele. The city airport primarily serves charter flights from the Middle East and also Israael.
The next morning we went on a run around the spa island for Sandra to get her bearings. We then grabbed breakfast at the restaurant and then continued with our included treatments. We ended up doing a mud wrap and a hydrotherapy one. The hydrotherapy was kind of lame, it is basically a large jacuzzi with various jets. Subsequently we relaxed in the wellness area.
Then after lunch, we all went on a sightseeing boat trip on the reservoir. It was nice seeing the apartment building from the water. We got back just in time to run to a bicycle rental place before they closed so that we could go for a circuit around the lake. One great thing about Pieštany is that the multitude of bike paths here. In fact, there is a path along the river that goes on for hundreds of miles in either direction. There is also a bike path on both sides of the lake. However making the full circuit requires passing over the dam, which is open only at prescribed time periods (usually all day on the weekends, and in the afternoons on work days). It was open at time time, as we actually confirmed from the boat, and thus we were able to make the 8 mile round trip around the reservoir.
And this brought us to our last night in Slovakia. The next morning we headed back to Bratislava and then onto Vienna for our final stop.
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