Postcards from Europe #2
A series of my first time travelling through Europe before settling into my writing residency at the Chateau d'Orquevaux. This postcard is from Budapest about my time in Bratislava
My dear Musers
Welcome to all my new readers! It’s lovely to have you here. If you haven’t checked out my Welcome post, I’d recommend that.
This post is part of a series of Postcards from Europe chronicling my first trip to Europe travelling through Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest to get to Novi Sad where my father-in-law comes from before heading to France (Paris, Dijon and Joinville) to begin my three week residency in Orquevaux (side note, they are open for applications for 2026 residencies now).
How wonderful it is to be writing to you from sunny Budapest. I’m writing to you in a moment that I have on my own. M has decided to climb the 364 stairs of St Stephen’s Basilica, something that I don’t need to do in the same way I didn’t need to climb the UFO tower in Bratislava (see last Postcard). These opportunities he takes are the same opportunities I take to write, it seems.
It’s hard to believe that only a week ago we were in Bratislava as it feels like we have been in Budapest forever. Our Budapest apartment has begun to feel like home as my feet walk the well-worn path back to it and climb the three flights of marbled stairs each day. Travelling is a lot of walking and, in Europe it seems, a lot of stair climbing. I’m not complaining but I am regretting being ‘too busy’ to fit in a lot more time at the gym in the lead up to coming. Note to self (or anyone else about to embark on a big travel trip): get onto that stairmaster at the gym.
Bratislava
Last I left you, we were in Bratislava. I fell hard for Bratislava. The place I rented on AirBnB was in a Middle Ages house on the third floor (I seem to have a habit of booking places on the third floor). The house, the owners claim, was where the last witch executed in the witch trials lived. It’s a great story and adds to the charm of the place. From our window, we looked down to the main town square and we were able to listen and watch the pulse of the days and nights.
Two short videos from our room’s windows
There were three young brothers who entertained day and night – two played the guitar and one sat on a box and used it as a drum. They belted out two traditional folk songs day and night. Mum and Dad trailed around with them, Mum with a plastic bag of food for them in one hand and a shoe box in the other to hand around for money. Dad occasionally sat in for one of the boys to give them a break. They moved around the old city touting themselves and it became a great thing of interest to see where they were next. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of them.
I picked Bratislava on a whim and because I was trying to slow our trip down so that our middle son could join us in Serbia. I literally picked a place on the map that was between Vienna and Budapest and this was it. A number of people asked where it was, and why we would go there. One person told me to change our plans, that Vienna had a lot more to offer and we should spend more time there. Luckily for us, I didn’t. We had stumbled on a gem of a place. Bratislava, like the rest of Slovakia, was behind the Iron Curtain, and as such, there is a lot of references to their time under Communism and all Bratislavians (not sure if that’s what they call themselves) we met said we were the first Australians they had met. Everyone was super friendly, even if they had a slightly austere look about them.
While there, we visited the Bratislava castle, saw ruins from the Roman times, ate a lot of traditional food (which is similar to Hungarian food but with less variety), walked thousands of steps over small cobblestones, drank local beer and honey wine, popped into the public library, and watched the world go by listening to the lilt of the language not understanding a thing.
Everything there was beautiful and there are courtyards everywhere that give respite to the thrum of the place (although having been in Budapest now for five days, the Bratislava ‘thrum’ seems like a whisper). We joined in a hidden secrets tour of the city that showed us many of these courtyards along with evidence of the Napolean wars (a canon ball lodged in a building still), Holocaust and Communist days. It was an excellent tour that had two Australians (us), two Americans, two Canadians (father and son and the father had been born here and it was obvious that it was quite an emotional tour), one English person, one Slovakian, one German and two Israelis. We began in the old city where we learned about the age of many of the buildings and were taken into a Roman cellar that houses the Slovakian National Collection of Wine and through a music shop to find the birth house of Hummel. One of the buildings visible from our place was the old town hall that was built around 1370. Ridiculous that it is still there. This is the building that has the canon ball lodged in it. Over the years, the adjoining buildings were purchased and added to the town hall. The tour finished on a bridge built during the Communist years.
The next day, we wandered around looking for a good place to have a drink and bumped into the Americans we had met on the tour. Over drinks we chatted until we both needed to go our separate ways. These are the things I love about travelling. The laneway in which we drank was a locals hangout (we’d learned from the guide) and it was buzzing with the long summer evening. Beautiful women of all ages catching up over spritzes and wines, men smoking (inside the venue and out) downing ‘big’ beers (0.5 litre glasses).
Bratislava was a slice of very old world and new. Everywhere there were things of beauty – old and new – like juxtapositions.
I could probably bang on about Bratislava until the cows come home, but maybe I’ll leave it at: mark it as a place to visit. We were there for four days and I wish we’d been there longer.
I’ll leave it here for this postcard and send the next tomorrow as there’s so much to say about Budapest! Budapest is like Bratislava’s bigger and louder cousin.
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that while here, I was noodling around the internet and discovered that M’s great-great-grandfather lived in Bratislava for a few years studying philosophy! I have a feeling we might be following M’s heritage along our way down to Novi Sad.
Are you enjoying these postcards?
Please drop a comment below to let me know if you are and that I’m not just writing into the void. Thank you!
Until later with a postcard from Budapest!
x M
The photos, too, Meg, are lovely to see.
An exciting, enriching time. And I love reading about it!
You're not just writing into the void 🙂 Your travels sound marvellous, Meg. What a special trip. Enjoy chasing down the family history.