Weather: 🌤️🌤️⛈️🌤️⛈️🌤️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, bread at the gas station, taking shelter from the rain. Bread was good, location could be better…)
Track: 🇦🇹🇸🇰🇸🇰(3 out of 5, diverse walk along the Donau and through Bratislava into the forest)
Milestone: Austria ✅
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌 (3 out of 5, nice room with a good shower and shared kitchen)
Name of followed trail: Grenzlandweg (07), SNP trail (heroes of the Slovak national uprising)
We leave our last Austrian campsite and walk 10 km along the Donau, into Slovakia. We can see Bratislava from a distance, and also spot Sultans trail signs. Another hiking/ bicycle trail to Istanbul from Vienna.
The border stone is all that remains of a once strict border. We continue past a few bunkers and go across the Donau.
We enter Bratislava in a complex highway area where we get lost a few times, before finding the trail.
We enjoy the view and visit the memorial of fallen Sovjet sdiers who liberated Slovakia. So many different stories about WW2, in all the countries we visit…
From there, we go through a park where we have our first encounter with Slovak locals. These locals are friendly, welcoming and speak English. Big thumbs up for Slovakia!
The waitress at the restaurant is very friendly and explains what kind of snacks we can get here. Everything we get tastes good, including the coffee. We like Slovakia more and more 😁.
After the park we pass a gas station and we go into the shop to get some lunch. When we’re sitting outside to eat it, the clouds starts to rumble and it starts to rain. We quickly find shelter and wait until the rain has passed. Our weather app doesn’t show anything, so I guess we need to change apps …
We continue into the forest and up the hills. We take shelter for 2 more rain showers and we hear the thunder for more than an hour around us, with nothing on the weather app. Really annoying, but it can’t be helped now. The second shelter left us still wett, because we were under a tree that eventually let the water through.
We do enjoy the trail, which is well marked and easy to follow once we’re out of the city.
The trail climbs up towards the broadcasting station we saw when we crossed the bridge I to Bratislava.
We continue for a few more hours until we reach Biely Kríz, the white cross. Here we get 2 very nice wraps and a Radler, to being a toast to our entry of Slovakia.
We decide to ask for a place in the hut, and we’re in luck! So we enjoy a good shower, wash our clothes and sleep in a bed tonight! There is also a proper kitchen, where we make some dinner.
With this luxury, we celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. I remind Mark that our room now is definitely more luxurious than the one we had on our wedding night at the scout centre 😁.
ps: for anyone who wonders why the posting is irregular: finding a spot with connection is a thing 😅