Last night I decided to leave the packing until this morning and to get up at 7:30. That would give me ample time for breakfast, packing, and relaxing, as our train wasn’t scheduled to leave the main railway station, Bratislava hlavná stanica, until 12:06. It is a short walk, to a short bus ride, to get to the train station. Unfortunately, the morning wasn’t a relaxing one for Michael, as he finds travel stressful, and frets about all the things that could go wrong.

We left the hotel just after 11. About half an hour after the train was due to depart the information board announced a 20 minute delay. That delay stretched to 35 minutes by the time the train arrived. Fortunately, it was a very pleasant morning, and we found a bench outside the station on which we could sit to wait. Bratislava has a very utilitarian train station. The most notable thing in it is a mural which contains many of the hallmarks of socialist thought. I came across a very thorough explanation here.


I haven’t been wearing a mask other than on the airplane, because I had Covid for the first two weeks of April, and I think I probably can’t catch it right now, but Michael is still being careful in enclosed spaces, and the ventilation on the train was not great.

We booked first class tickets which cost €160 for both of us, return, for the 340 km journey.
To compare, when Owen and I went to Montreal last year in the lowest of ViaRail’s five categories, I paid $420 for the two of us, return, for a 525 km long journey. The level of service in first class here is similar to what we received on ViaRail, with the exception that we have been provided with free bottled water, today, and the seats are wider as there are only three across. Also, the carriage seems much quieter. Regional trail here is electric. The food onboard here is much more reasonably priced than on ViaRail. Soup and bread for Michael, and a sandwich, and latte for me, was under €10.
When I walked through the train to the other carriages, they looked less comfortable, and were quite a bit noisier.




The first large place that we travelled through was Brno, Czech Republic, which we had planned to visit next weekend, however, I won’t be getting the borrowed bike until midday, Tuesday, and there is still so much to see in Bratislava and the surrounding area, that we decided to cancel our reservations, and stay local. So all we will see of Brno on this trip is what we saw from the train today. It did look like an interesting city.
There is a screen that shows how fast we are travelling. The highest I’ve seen it show is 159 km/h. On our train trip to Ottawa in 2017 I recall the fastest we went was 153 km/h as measured by Strava.
The train was mostly travelling between berms so there are only a couple spots where I was able to get a photograph of the view.


We arrived in Prague 40 minutes later than scheduled. It was an impressively large station.

We purchased 72 hour public transit passes for about $20 each, and rode two trams to our hotel, which is up a steep hill similar to climbing the escarpment in Hamilton, just below Prague castle. The tram ride was interesting for the steepness of the climb and a tight turn that challenged the people who were standing. The Czech Republic used crowns not euros. Google maps really reduces the stress of navigation around unfamiliar places, especially when the “live view” function is available.

It was only 300 m from where the tram dropped us off, to the hotel. We checked in and unpacked our few items, and then went down to the hotel restaurant as an easy option when it was already getting late.


I think it was the waitress’s first day. I ordered a G&T and she forgot to bring the gin. When we told her she brought back a large glass which had so much in it that I thought they had already poured the tonic at the bar. It was very strong, but it was only when I started feeling a buzz I realized it was just gin over ice. In my defence I was trying to finish yesterday’s blog and I don’t drink very often.


Next she brought my food, and then I asked Michael if he would like the same as I had, forgetting that he had ordered a steak. So I had to go ahead and eat my meal while it was hot while his was being cooked. At that point, another waitress took over and brought over a bowl of nuts for Michael as an apology.
The food was excellent, but the portions were small, so we ordered raspberries and ice cream for dessert. It was also a very expensive meal. We’ll find somewhere other than a hotel to eat the next couple nights. The breakfast isn’t included in the price here, like it is a Bratislava, so we will also be looking elsewhere for that. It is high tourist season here and a holiday weekend.
We took a short walk after dinner, and I’ll leave you with a few of the twilight scenes that we saw.
Finally I want to mention, in case someone reading does realize it, that if you click on the small images when they are grouped into a gallery, it will expand them somewhat. I do resize the images to be quite a but smaller than they are as taken to reduce upload time and save on storage.




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