Pezinok Wine Festival

Links:

Pezinok

festivals

On the weekend we took a short bus ride to a town called Pezinok to sample some wine and food at their annual wine festival. Apparently, the "thing" is to drink young wine - a very sweet, very pulpy new wine which continues to ferment in your stomach for a period of time. Too many of these results in total instant drunkeness, potential "digestive troubles" and terrible hangovers. Knowing my abliity to deal with these side effects, I stuck to one glass! And decided to buck up and pay 50 cents as opposed to 10 cents, for a nice glass of regular white wine! They also sold a delicious fried pancake/crepe-like thing called Loksi at every other booth. There were different stages playing traditional type "oomp-pa-pa" music and folk dancing, plus this one strange Slovak Beatles cover band, dressed in matching suits. Cool.
On the way home, our friend John drove us back with a short visit to meet his jack russell puppy - soo cute. I tried to steal little Skippy, but John wasn't having it.
Now it is back to work for the rest of the week and looking forward to my parent's arrival on the 22nd!

See the album "Pezinok Wine Festival" at

Shan's Sony Image Station Photo Albums

for more pictures.

Petržalka

Links:

Better picture

Petržalka - Wikipedia

another picture

Perhaps because it is so unbelievably ugly, Petržalka has become one of the city's tourist attractions. One international travel magazine even advises readers: "If you only have three hours in Slovakia, see the Bratislava Old Town and Petržalka".

Petržalka is a housing estate on the opposite side of the Danube from the Old Town. Although its seal of arms is a green tree, Petržalka is one of the most notorious concrete jungles in Europe. Some 150,000 people, more than one-third of the Bratislava population, live here crammed into the endless sea of paneláky blocks of flats (paneláky comes from the word 'panel' and signifies the buildings' construction: large slabs of concrete stacked together in a manner similar to that of a house of dominoes).

So far we have steered clear of this scary soviet housing development except to drive by it to get out of the city!

You can also see Nový Most (New Bridge)but usually referred to as the UFO. There is also a very expensive (for Blava standards) restaurant at the top.
This suspension bridge connecting Petržalka and the Old Town was finished in 1972. To clear space for the bridge, the Communist regime demolished two-thirds of the city's Old Town buildings, including the Jewish synagogue, that had formerly stood next door to St. Martin's Cathedral. The Jewish quarter was completely wiped out and a huge highway now runs right in front of the Cathedral.

Don't go on vacation

UNDP retribution for going on holiday.

The Opera

For $14 you can get seats in your own box at the Bratislava Opera House. Kathryn, Mamura and I decided to "get some culture" and went to see MacBeth last week. Interesting; play written in English, opera sung in Italian (it was Verdi) and subtitles on the screen in Slovak. I have to admit to being quite bored until they started killing people off. We also had a moment of hysterical, silent, crying laughter at one point. Yes, the opera really touched us - a true Pretty Woman moment. I was even able to dash across to McDonald's for a quick cheeseburger during one of the intermissions. Classy!

Link:

Slovak National Theatre

New Link

Castles, Firefighters, party tricks...
See them all on the new link I have added to the right - Shan's Sony Image Station albums.

Weekend in Croatia

For the long weekend, Glen and I decided we needed to get out of rainy Blava so we rented a car and drove to sunny Croatia! It took us a little over 3 hours to get to our first stop in Croatia (we drove through Slovenia and Hungary) Only one small incident when Glen panicked and just drove past the Hungarian border guards. They didn't like this much, but let us through anyway. We spent the night in Valazdin - a random pick on the map which turned out great - lovely town with a festival going on. We definitely felt a different "vibe" in Croatia: everyone was friendly and spoke more/better english than in Blava!
We loved Croatia - beautiful coast, mountain scenery, scary windy roads, interesting fried fish dishes...(as seen above) We also plan to return for a longer visit, maybe when Paula and Erin arrive.

See the album "Croatia Weekend" at

Shan's Sony Image Station Photo Albums

for more pictures.

It is hard to believe that this country was at war not so very long ago. Again if interested, see:
croatian perspective:

http://www.cascarino.homestead.com

serbian perspective:

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/bookstore/voices

wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence