Moving Day - Brno to Bratislava 🇸🇰

A relaxed start to our moving day as the train to Bratislava doesn't leave until 10:20am. Breakfast then packing and out the door at 9:20am. We really should learn to leave later because it's only a 20 minute walk to the station. 

We find a seat outside in the shade and wait to see which platform our train will board at. The platform number doesn't get updated until just 5 minutes before the train arrives but it turns out to be the one right in front of where we had been sitting so it was easy to find. A very similar train carriage to the one we took to Český Krumlov. Very modern and comfortable. 

The journey to Bratislava is just over 1.5 hours. If we miss getting off we will end up in Budapest. Right back where we started! But we do make sure we get off at the right stop. We then need to find the local tram stop to get into the city centre. Initially that proves tricky as we get confused by the nearby bus stops but soon realised our mistake. 

The tram we need is at the station and people are boarding. A bit of running involved to ensure we catch it and not have to wait another 15 minutes. That might be the first time we've actually run to catch something on this trip. Probably best not to make a habit of it. We were keen to catch it though as we had already activated our tickets on the phone app and they only last 30 minutes. It's different to other systems we've used whereby you buy a ticket then choose when to activate them. These activate straight away on purchase. 

For those that might not know. We certainly didn't 6 months ago. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. Slovakia and the Czech Republic used to make up the previously communist country of Czechoslovakia. In 1989, the same year that the Berlin Wall fell, the communist party resigned and democracy was restored. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two countries. Getting to Slovakia ends our Eastern European visit of Balkan states. We missed a few like Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania but did get to visit many of them. 

The tram drops us off within 200m of our apartment. A nice short walk and our host is just arriving at the door to let us in as we get there. Perfect timing given it's only 12:30pm and we had said we would meet her at 1pm. Very nice of her to let us check in early too. 

The apartment is on the 6th floor and the lift is just big enough for the three of us and our backpacks. The apartment is very nice. A studio unit but the kitchen is separated from the lounge/dining/bedroom area. Most importantly it has air-conditioning and no noisy bars outside the windows. 

A quick unpack and then off to the supermarket. We tried to find the Tesco on Google Maps but that ended with failure. We are thinking it has closed and been replaced with a smaller Tesco Express which we did find. But it's tiny so we go to the Lidl instead. It had what we needed for lunch and dinner. Keeping it simple with nachos tonight.