We stayed three days in Guildford, hiking 20 miles over a couple days through the countryside. One day we took a bus to Shere, which was on tiny roads just a few miles away. A lovely jumping off point for a 10-mile hike back to Cranleigh where we were staying.
We enjoyed staying in our friend Helens lovely flat, which she designed and had built some years ago. The kitchen area is amazing!
After spending our time there, Helen’s son Oliver drove us to the airport in his vegetable-oil fueled Skoda, which was a nice luxury considering we were going to take the bus. It only smelled a little bit like Chinese food when we stopped and had the windows open. 🙂 Half a day later, we arrived back in Bratislava via Vienna, taking the bus from the Vienna airport to Bratislava with a couple mostly empty suitcases and one bike bag filled with the other bike bag. Now, we have all the bags and suitcases we need to get everything home in October.
We took an XL Boost (like Uber) back to Martin’s house in Bratislava to test whether it was going to be easy to get a vehicle to transport our 2 bikes in bags back to the bus station when we leave. All good there. And then we bought our return bus tickets back to Vienna on October 5, making sure to include that we are bringing 2 bikes, as required! No bike reservations, no bikes! We’ve spent most of 2 days this past week just making plans for various aspects of returning home, plus a 3-day bike trip to Budapest for me, a long weekend in Prague just before we return to the US and another side trip for Chris. Lots of little details and it’s easy to get lost in the dates, time zones, hotels booked, locations and where we are going next.
Back in Bratislava, we have one day of quiet before Martin returns from Croatia with Doris, the exuberant 5-month old Vystla that we will be taking care of for 3 weeks.
Once he’s back, he showed us the ropes of her care, plus we spent a bit of time in the area with him to get introduced to the area. Chris has been to Bratislava a few times, but never this exact area nor had much time to explore.
As usual, we take some hikes to get acquainted with the area, and we need to anyway to get Doris and us some exercise. There are some hills a few miles to the north of us, with some wineries dotted here and there, and there are myriad trails and dirt roads to explore. Martin suggests hiking to a sightseeing tower, about 1,000 climb from Sväty Jur, a village with numerous wineries and restaurants. In the area are also many small family restaurants specializing in serving whole cooked geese in the Fall to larger parties, which Martin insists is not to be missed. We’ll see if we can gather up sufficient appetite and people….it might have to wait until next time.
The architecture of Bratislava varies from Soviet bloc to Art Nouveau to classical. The Church of St. Elizabeth is also called the Blue Church for obvious reasons, and it’s in a cool area to visit.
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