Slovakian Castle

Thursday, September 25

After a late night out, waking up in the 7 o’clock hour was not the most wonderful experience ever but I got a good nap in on our hour bus ride to the castle in the little town of Pezinok.

The Red Rock Castle was stuck on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere so all you could see when standing inside was huge green rolling hills, beautiful trees whose leaves were changing colors, and a small lake/river off in the distance. It almost seemed like a fairytale.

After a humorous tour of the castle (the tour guide didn’t know English but had simply memorized everything) we went and toured the largest cellar in Europe. Kind of cool huh!? They use the space now in movies and for concert venues. We also went up and saw a gurad "tower" and got yet another incredible view of the countryside.

We then went into the small town of Pezinok and had by far the best lunch of the trip. Every meal has been fabulous (even for a picky eater like me!) but this one was a step above. Pezinok is in the middle of wine country so we were served this wonderful wine (that was nonalcoholic) but it was better than any alcoholic wine I've ever tried.

We then met up with a new tour guide and went for a short hike through the mountain Baba whic h was beautiful!! It was drizzling which made it a little less fun (and is probably where I got my cold) but the scenery was again beautiful. I did take the time however to work on my German grammar with Maria and we spent a large portion of our walk discussing the Konjunctiv (the grammar stuff that I'm really bad at, but i think i get it now!)!!

We got back to Bratislava in the late afternoon and a couple of us decided to wander around a little since we still hadn't spent a whole lot of time in the old city. When we made it to one of the squares there wer about 20 people dressed in traditional Slovakian clothing (don't worry I didn't know that, I had to ask). Apparently the last couple of weeks have been a culture celbration for Bratislava and today was the end of it. So what did they do to celebrate... they shot guns off in the middle of the square! It scared me half to death/deaf but it was really fun to see.

I broke off from the group and tried to go see the inside of the big church but it was closed for the day. Bummer, but I stil got an incredible look at another part of the city.

Thinking we were coming back to a relaxing evening with dinner at the hotel, we soon realized that the hotel had no idea we were coming. sweet. So we scavanged for food and ended up at this cute little Itlaian place right across from the hotel with huge, cheap pizza!

We came back and packed up for Prague. One more city to go until we're back to the Motherland.