Hey guys, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this post! Since the last time I talked to you, Anna Maria and I have spent a night in Bojnice, Slovakia and made our way to Bratislava and spent a couple of days hanging out with her parents and aunt in the city. We then went back to Budapest for her flight home and I have since made way back to central Slovakia, enroute to Ukraine.

On Wednesday morning, we left from Levoca, Slovakia and took a short detour off the highway to drive through the scenic High Tatra mountains and stop by Strbske Pleso lake. The drive was really cool, with some great mountain scenery, and it was great to get a little exercise walking around the lake and seeing the beginnings of the leaves changing colors.

After the lake, we made our way to our destination for the evening of Bojnice, Slovakia. Along the way, we stopped and washed and cleaned out the car – which lead to a another minor car disaster, as we were to find out later in the evening. It wound up raining most of the afternoon and evening on Wednesday and we didn’t arrive to the hotel in Bojnice until shortly before dark, so we didn’t do much on Wednesday evening except grab dinner and enjoy the hot tub and sauna at the hotel.

When I went out to the car to grab something before bed on Wednesday night, the driver’s side door handle literally came off in my hand! We are thinking that it got knocked loose by the car wash earlier in the day. Luckily the door still closed and locked, but the door now had to be opened from the inside. Since part of the reason we were meeting Anna Maria’s parents, Klaus and Inge, in Bratislava the next day was to take the car in to have the winter tires put on it, I guess the timing was not as bad as it could have been. We just hoped to find a place in Bratislava that could fix the new problem with the door in addition to changing the tires out.

On Thursday the weather was better, so we set out to get some lunch and then do a little exploring of the Bojnice old town, the highlight of which is the Bojnice castle.

After walking around the castle, it was time to get on the road to Bratislava to meet Klaus and Inge, along with Dagi, Anna Maria’s aunt, who had joined them on the trip from Germany. Enroute, we saw some more nice scenery and made a very quick detour to see the ruins of another castle along the route called Beckov. The castle had seen it’s better days, but was still really interesting because it was built on top of a random mountain.

After checking out Beckov castle, it was just a short drive to Bratislava. Our first order of business was to find somewhere to take the car for the tires and door repair. My first thought was to take it to the local Ford dealership, but after looking at the car they told me it would be about 2 weeks before they could get to it because they were very backed up. I did some more searching and found another shop a couple of miles away that looked promising. Upon arrival there, we met Mike – who said to bring it back first thing in the morning and he would do his best to fix the door. Success!

After getting the plan for the car work settled, we headed to the Airbnb that Klaus had found for the next two nights and had a happy reunion with the German family. It was great to see them again for the first time since I arrived in Europe in June.

Dinner was at the Bratislava Flagship restaurant which I had randomly found on the internet based on reviews I’d read. It turned out to be a great choice! It is one of the largest restaurants in Europe and the food and atmosphere were fantastic. The place even had its own brewery!

On Friday morning, Klaus and Inge and I took the car over to the shop I’d found the previous evening and dropped it off with Mike, who said he’d give us a call when it was done. He still was not sure if he’d be able to fix the handle, but he said he would do the best he could. After that, the three of us went back to the airbnb and then all of us headed into the center of Bratislava to do some walking around and exploring. The highlight of that exploring was the Bratislava castle on top of the tallest hill in the old town.

After checking out the castle, Anna Maria and I decided to branch off from the family for a few minutes to walk across the bridge and go up the UFO tower for some views over the city. We were the only ones that really wanted to go up there. Klaus joined us for the walk, but stayed down by the river while we took the elevator up to the top and Inge and Dagi chilled out at a cafe on the other side of the river. I didn’t like paying the 8 euros to get to the observation deck, but I have to admit that the views from up there were probably worth the money.

Shortly after coming back down from the tower and reuniting with everyone on the other side of the river, the call came in that the car was finished. Since everybody else was wanting to go on the free walking tour that was about to start, I decided to just grab a taxi to the shop to pick it up from Mike. After arriving, I was happy to discover that he did indeed get the door handle repaired in addition to changing out the tires. That was a relief!

Since everyone was still on the city tour when I got the car back, I decided to branch off and check out the Soviet military cemetery on top of a hill outside of the city center called Slavin. I really wanted to see it and it seemed like a good time to do it while I already had the car out (since it was too far and too steep to walk to from the old town area). The cemetery was moving, as there are almost 7000 Soviet soldiers buried there who fell during the liberation of Bratislava from the Nazis in 1945. Some have individual graves, but most are interred in a series of 6 mass graves in the complex.

After spending some time at the cemetery, I took the car back to our Airbnb to get it parked for the night and then walked back in to town to meet up with everyone. I arrived just as the walking tour was ending, so that was good timing. After reuniting, we headed to a restaurant that Klaus had picked out called the Slovak Pub for our last dinner as a group. It also turned to be an excellent choice and the building it was in was really interesting.

On Saturday morning, it was a little bit hectic in the Airbnb with everyone getting packed up and the cars loaded. But Klaus got up early and cooked everybody a nice breakfast beforehand, so that was nice. One little hiccup was that Klaus noticed that he’d forgotten to give the mechanic the correct lugnuts for the tires (the ones from the summer rims are aluminum and the ones from the winter rims are iron), so we had to take about a half hour and change those out before we could get on the road. But we tag teamed that, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. It wasn’t too long after that the cars were all loaded and it was time to say goodbye and get on the road to our respective destinations. The family back to Germany and us back to Budapest for Anna Maria’s Sunday morning flight home to Kentucky. It was a little sad to say goodbye, but we had a great visit, and it won’t be too long until we see the German family again!

The 2 hour drive back to Budapest was done completely in the pouring rain, so that wasn’t too much fun. It actually rained the entire day on Saturday, so Anna Maria and I did a whole lotta notta during the day after we arrived to our guesthouse in Budapest, nearby to the airport which is about 30 minutes from downtown.

In the evening the rain let up, so Anna Maria decided that we needed to go to the city and do something since it was her last night in Europe. She picked us a ghost tour. I’m really not much for ghost tours and I’d have been happy to relax in our room, but you know what they say – happy wife, happy life. So we grabbed some dinner and headed in to the city for the 830pm departure. As I suspected it would be, the tour was kind of lame, but we did get to see some really nice nighttime views of the city and of the Budapest Castle (which we didn’t go to before) so in the end it was definitely worth driving in to town for.

This morning, Sunday, Anna Maria departed at 430am for her flight and she was nice enough to take the airport shuttle so I wouldn’t have to get up and drive to the airport. I was only awake long enough to tell her goodbye and then I was back to sleep for a few more hours. It was great having her with me for another 8 days and I already miss her a lot! I wish she could be with me for more of the trip, but such is life – she’s bringing home the bacon now! But she will be back in early December to do the Christmas markets with me in Germany shortly before I head back home, so I’m looking forward to that even though it’s a still a while from now.

When I got up and checked out of the guesthouse, I headed back to Slovakia towards my destination of Banska Bystrica. Along the way, I took a small detour to see the UNESCO world heritage city of Banska Stiavnica. The drive was really nice, particularly once I crossed the border into Slovakia, and the town itself had a really pretty central square.

After the short stop in Banska Stiavnica, I got back on the road for the 45 minutes to Banska Bystrica – where I had a room reserved in a hostel for tonight. The drive was also scenic and the town is really pretty, but I have to say that it is basically a ghost town right now. Hardly anybody out and about and not much to do. I had hoped to maybe do some busking this evening, but it really would have been a waste of time. But my hostel is nice and it gave me the time to finally sit down and write this blog post for you, so all is not lost!

This evening I’m just kicking back and doing some research for what I’m going to do for the next 3 1/2 weeks before Grant arrives to Budapest.

I have to get out of the Schengen zone as soon as possible so that I don’t overstay my 90 days total that I’m allowed when I come back to Schengen in November/December before going home. My current plan is to spend one more day in Slovakia (in Kosice, the second-largest city in the country) and then high tail it to Ukraine and Moldova for a while before heading to Romania (Grant arrives October 30 in Bucharest, Romania). All of those countries are close by and outside of Schengen, so that will stop the clock for a while. Also, I haven’t visited any of them yet, so it would be new territory. But as of right now, I’m totally winging it until the end of the month.

Talk to you guys again soon!