25th May

25th May
Budapest to Bratislava, Slovakia

We left Budapest in the searing heat, hitting a Tesco for groceries and then the slow crawl through the city centre to get out on the open road and highway 10. The traffic was slow for a good while and Bruce was wilting in the heat and ended up sleeping on the floor of the van while I drove on. We were headed for Bratislava and i'd already been on the net earlier in the morning to find a campsite address. Just as well that I did, as there was only one listed.

We passed over the border without any hassle, just a quick check of the passports and we were on our way, but only after having nearly crossed into Austria by mistake after taking a wrong turning. Bratislava isn't far from the border and we were soon in the outskirts surrounded by a bit of a concrete jungle. Not the prettiest city seen from that angle. Loads of people were cycling and rollerblading along a path on the banks of the Danube in the late afternoon sun.

Maisy found us our campsite at Zlate Piesky, on the outskirts, wothout any problems and we were soon camped and had thrown all the windows wide open, 2 fans on and trying to cool down. The campsite appears to be a municipal site next to a lake and they also rent out small chalets (huts really) nect to the lake. There were people in swimming and on pedal boats.

I checked with the girl at reception about getting into town and bought tram tickets and we headed in. It was dark by the time we arrived in the centre after the 25 minute journey, and we set about finding a net cafe to get some info on the place.





The guy in the net cafe was a grumpy toad - never smiled once the whole time. We made our way to a bar and had some cheap beers (2 euro for 0.5 litre Staropramen - yay!) and watched some funny drunken dancing. We had all sort of problems finding places on our silly, small photocopied map. We ended up hopping from one city map at the roadside to another, tracing our steps al the way, and found a club up some backstreet. I think it was a club designed for hobbits, as it was down in a basement, and as we went down the stairs, we had to limbo half way down under the ceiling which was only about 5 feet high. Bizzare. Once inside and paid our 50 Kronur entry (about 1.50 euro) we had to negotiate another crazy low arch. I'm amazed no -one has been hospitalized from the place. still, the music was pretty good and the beer was quite cheap, although spirits were again expensive. We rolled out of the place at after 4am pretty drunk and sweaty and grabbed a cab back to the campsite.