30.9.24

The pillows onboard the Gracia Botel were the biggest we’ve ever seen. Jolly comfy they were.

Breakfast is served between 7am and 10am.

We arrived in the dining room around 9am. No rush today, nice to just chill and watch the boats go by. Breakfast was good a few unidentifiable objects, but plenty of goodies to last a few hours.

At 10.01, whilst relaxing with extended bellies and coffee the dining room police arrived in the form of a stern female.

From the tone of her voice, despite not yet fluent in angry Slovakian, we were expected to leave.

We smiled and continued to gaze out the window and sip our coffee.

She appeared again few minutes later.

We were very childish in hindsight and said it wasn’t fair as we gestured to the 4 other diners.

So that was that, it was no longer negotiable. Carol defiantly took her coffee with her, whilst I was too scared to do anything other than skulk out of the room.

My set of 3 Primark super comfy looking, with no fastening bras, ready for long dark winter slouching days barely fitted over my head.

We packed our bags and put them in the luggage room and had a lovely long chat with the receptionist.

The subject of staff came up. I tactfully questioned why the guy that checked us in yesterday was so slow and miserable.

Apparently he’d had an interview, a few minutes induction, then straight in at the deep end of passport photocopying and form filling.

Before I had the chance to ask about the dragon in the dining room she appeared with a stare that could turn a grown man to stone.

So off we went back to Primark to change bras. Ryanair might live up to their reputation on the way back, so not too difficult to resist buying anything else.

Coffee, Chinese and Indian food in the mall and a trip round Tesco filled the time before our Bolt Taxi to the airport.

The driver frightened us when we’d been travelling for about 20 minutes by asking which airport we were going to.

Memories came flooding back of the 2 Hamptons by Hilton in Austria.

It was all ok, I think he had confused himself and us in the process.

As we were stamped out of Central Europe I was relieved to find that we weren’t detained on 2 counts.

The first was one of those I’m seriously going to pee on the floor moments. The disabled toilets were locked and there was a turnstile to the toilets with a machine needing Hungarian Forints,which we never exchanged as everywhere took cards.

There was no choice but to climb through the barrier. Unlike the Dalaman airport situation, being unable to stand up again with a backpack, it was a fairly dainty performance. So dainty that a 6 foot man in the same predicament followed my example.

The second faux pas was travelling on trams and metros with an expired 24 hour ticket.

Bratislava departures were great, no palaver and off we flew to Dalaman airport. 

Our arrival didn’t tie in for the airport bus, so John had kindly come to collect us.

So..

Overall impressions :

Loved our time in Bratislava, but wouldn’t need to return.

We really weren’t keen on Vienna. Stunning architecture, but lacked personality.

Love love loved Budapest and it was worth every moment we spent making sure we saw everything. 1 whole and 2 half days were ok for us sprightly old things but it would be nice to have 3 or 4 days and experience the spa pools too. I have to go back as didn’t end up trying the famous chimney cake.

I’m so glad I did some research, not just about cakes. We wouldn’t have known about Devin Castle in Bratislava or the Budapest ruin bars. Both were high up on our favourite places we saw list.

Back to reality but very excited as we have lots of friends coming to Türkiye. Might just about be time to unpack and do the  washing!