Vagabonding times: May 2009

Planing the next stop - Slovakia part 2

Towards the end of my stay in Bratislava I felt the need to see some countryside for a change. A friend had recommended to visit the Mala Fatra National Park and I also always wanted to see the Tatra mountains in the Eastern part of Slovakia. Some planing became necessary and so I spent the best part of my last day in Bratislava on the internet, checking out bus and train schedules, availability of mountain huts, onward connections from the Mala Fatra area to the Tatra mountains and accommodation options in the Tatras. It is the sort of planing I have to do every time I move to a new location. That, together with the fact that every time I move I have to check that I have packed everything, get up early with the help of my alarm to catch an early bus, make sure I find my connecting buses on time, make those periods of traveling quite stressful. So far that has resulted I in a travel pattern where I make just a few stops per country but stay more than just a couple of days in each place, unlike most other travellers – and that seems a pretty nice balance of quantity and quality so far.

Some impressions from moving through Slovakia...

Making the most from the space: rolling timetables

People inside a train station, waiting for the platform to be announced. For some strange reason they are announced only couple of minutes before the train arrives.

Learning from the locals – Slovakia part 1

From Olomouc I moved on to Slovakia, and there my first stop was Bratislava. With no further plans for the evening of my day of arrival, I strolled through the city centre when I noticed this flyer for a concert – and decided to check it out.

Unfortunately, the hostel staff were not familiar with with the concert venue, “Garage under Pristavnym bridge”, but they got me on a bus heading the right direction. When I got off the bus I was lucky enough to run into Mattie, a local, who also wanted to go to this concert. But even though he was a local lad, it was not until an hour and several phone calls to his friend later before we found the place. And it all made sense then: there was this big garage complex where people lock up their cars, and one of these garages was used to host a Czech and a local punk band that night. The whole event felt as much underground as it can get and I understood why the girls from the hostel reception had not heard about that place before – and I also understood that night what the word “garage band” is all about!

Later that night, after everything had been cleaned up, Mattie and I met up with some of his friends at a bar downtown. With all of them being locals I was interested in their views on the separation of Czechoslovakia and their experiences with the Euro currency that was introduced in Slovakia this year. And whilst listening to their stories I felt happy that I had spotted that concert flyer. It is difficult to get into this kind of intimate contact with locals (ok, I still have not used couchsurfing.com yet, but I am on it) and at hostels you usually only find travelers from other countries than the one you are visiting. So, in future, I will keep looking out for these flyers...

Some impressions from Bratislava...

Primate's palace - The Habsburgs made peace with Napoleon here (Peace of Pressburg)

The Watcher, one of many odd sculptures in the city centre

Changing of guard at the Presidential Palace

Headquarter of a construction company

View over the city from the castle

3+1 alternative ways to travel

Leaving Prague I stopped in Cesky Krumlov for a couple of nights and then moved on to the university town Olomouc. Both towns had great hostels with a cosy interior and a much more personal atmosphere than the big city hostel in Prague. Some of the people I met at these two hostels have interesting approaches to traveling. There is Ian & Wendy for example, a couple from New Zealand, who wanted to travel around the world after they retired. They have their boat anchored in Turkey for six months and are now touring through Eastern Europe with just two small backpacks holding a couple of changes. Their next big lag will be crossing the Atlantic ocean in a couple of months. Starting from New Zealand with their boat, it took them about five years to make it to Europe, so I reckon it will take them another five to complete their round trip. It was interesting to hear from them that they are not the only crew doing this kind of long-term sea and land traveling. They reckon there are about 100 crews out there doing the same thing, and every now and then they meet one of the other crews again.

Relaxing evening at Hostel 99 in Cesky Krumlov: at the table are Croatia, England, Canada, South Korea and Germany

Other folks, with less budget, who are also keen to spend longer periods in a place, work for a couple of months or years at a hostel and travel the vicinity during their time off, before eventually moving on to another hostel in another country.

Some folks make a career out of traveling. They roam around, find a nice spot and open up their own hostel. Every now and then they will look for someone to take over runing the hostel to buy themselves some travel time.

And then there are people like me, taking some time off to travel on a fixed budget. Actually, I found the alternatives that I have come across so far quite inspiring – perhaps I will help out in a hostel along the way to get some idea what running a hostel is like.

Some impressions from Cesky Krumlov and Olomouc...