Whew! We have made it to the last place on our journey before our return to Germany. Bratislava met us at the train station with a blast of cold air. Rain was brewing and it wasn't long after we got off the train that it was lightly sprinkling or drizzling. We were again disoriented and wished desperately that large street maps came with compass roses on the ground. With that said, our wish to get to the old central area was confounded by street turns and our path was more circuitous than we intended. But because of that we again got to see a part of the city that a normal traveler wouldn't have seen. I remember remarking to myself, "how hard can it be to find a cobblestone old town next to a river?" I guess pretty hard. All of us were quite hungry and so I snagged a local travel guide and looked up Slovakian cuisine. A pub popped up that looked promising for beer, but something caught Rachel's eye before we could get there.
We were in the square with the Frenchman, a statue of a man leaning on a bench (I will include the picture). Let me say now that Hungary and Slovakia, along with the Czech Republic since I've been there too, are statue addicts. If you were a sculptor, come sell your stuff here. Anyway, the Frenchman is, I guess, a famous statue along with the Watcher and the Photographer. I suggested we search for the other two after eating, but on the way to the pub, I spotted the Watcher. He is half a guy leaning on the edge of a manhole in the street. Seriously, it is an interesting sculpture just because of its positioning. He is facing towards the Frenchman down a street. Making a 90 degree angle with the Watcher at the vertex, one can spot the Photographer down a different street. He is leaning around a building with a huge camera pointed in the general direction of the Watcher. The cafe/restaurant at the corner he is at is appropriately called Paparazzi. Scratch three famous statues. On to food!
The pub was a nice respite from the relentless drizzle. Inside we found the local beer to be quite delicious and decided to share a combo meal designed to feed 4-6 people, not 3. Out comes a huge chunk of meat on the bone still surrounded by various dips, cheesy and garlic bread, various sausages (one wrapped in bacon), mushroom and cheese sandwich halves, calamari rings and fries filling the rest of the space and acting as a blanket for the plate. It was the most incredible display of food I'd seen in a while. We ate our fill, needless to say, and enjoyed two beers each. It was a good way to stave off walking in the rain, which let up while we were in there.
We walked along the river, snapping photos and people watching. We came upon the UFO bridge, which was built with the stone from a synagogue the Soviets tore down. It was a strange looking bridge, specifically the cable supports, and it did not sit well with me although it was an epic bridge. I think it was the UFO part. Anyway, we felt that we might as well head for the airport and so we turned and followed the map up the way we should have come in the first place. Just a quick little stopover before our flight back to Germany. I won't go into boring details of the flight and what not but I will say that we were able to catch the last bus from the Hahn airport to the Frankfurt main train station. Unfortunately, and as expected, the last train to Giessen had already left. It was 1:30 in the morning 18 days after having left Giessen and it was probably -3 degrees Celsius in the bahnhof. But we persevered and were napping a siesta by 0800. Cheers to a successful ending!
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