Day 1: Home to Bratislava

We had an 08.30 flight from Stansted to Bratislava this morning, which sounded quite civilised until I counted backwards and realised that it required us getting up at 03.30. All went smoothly with the journey though and we didn't even have to queue for too long to check in our baggage at the airport, although there was a slight frisson of excitement when we realised we had to use a self-service machine and attach our own baggage labels again

Our flight departed a little late because of congestion at the airport, but once we were on our way there was a beautiful view, with clear skies almost the entire way across Europe. We landed in a sunny Bratislava just before midday and probably for the first time ever here, stepped off the plane and weren't overwhelmed by a wave of heat. Although it was warm, it actually felt slightly cooler than it has been in the UK for the past few days, and there was even a bit of a breeze

I was relieved to find that the vigour with which we'd ensured our baggage labels were fully stuck together had paid off, and our cases arrived without any problems. We were soon on the airport bus, speeding towards the centre of Bratislava. We were staying in the Mercure again, which is in a great location near to the train station, but couldn't check in until 2pm, so went for a drink at the station cafe to pass the 45 minutes or so which we had left to wait. It seemed like the prices might have gone up slightly since we were last here; €1.70 for an apple juice.

We managed to check in a little bit early in the end which was good, because I was rather tired after the early start. I ended up having a slightly longer nap than planned, so it was 5pm before we eventually headed out for a walk.

It was a beautiful evening, with a clear blue sky above the old town.

We strolled around for a while, admiring the cathedral, before finding a restaurant where we could sit outside and have dinner. I had a lovely spaghetti carbonara, but Tim was slightly less impressed about the amount of gunk which came with the burger he ordered!

I'm not quite sure what was going on in Bratislava today, but as we sat eating we saw a series of people on stilts walking through the town centre.

We had an after-dinner stroll, which took us to the main square, Hlavné námestie....

...admiring the old town hall from both sides.

As we decided to start heading back to the hotel for an early night, we came across another group of people in costume; this time not just on stilts, but also performing tricks on a unicycle. I wouldn't have fancied volunteering to be one of the people they were jumping over