Valletta: baroque architecture in Malta's capital city

English:

Valletta: baroque architecture in Malta's capital city.

Hello everybody and welcome back to my blog!

This week I'm coming with a new series about a cruise that I went on with my students back in 2015. This was their end-of-year trip and, as their homeroom teacher, it was amazing to be part of it and go on this wonderful trip with them.

The upcoming posts are all going to briefly describe each and every stop of our cruise and they will mainly include pictures of the places we visited. As some of you may know, when you reach a harbour while going on a cruise, you have a very limited amount of time to see your destination, and so the amount of things you can see is also limited. However, I hope you can enjoy these short posts and the pictures they will include and you can get an idea about how wonderful this trip was and how recommendable it is to try to go on a cruise at least once in your life.

Bratislava: when the young meets the old and mixes it with life, history and culture.

English:

Bratislava: when the young meets the old and mixes it with life, history and culture.

Let's go back, once again, to 2014, when, after a long academic year working, I decided to travel by myself to Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest for ten days.

Bratislava was my second stop, for it is located only 65 km away from Vienna. Therefore, it took me no more than one hour by train to go to a different city, in a different country. To all those who ask me, I always describe Bratislava the same way: "The capital city of Slovakia is a contrast between the ancient and the new, the lively and the historical. What surprised me the most about it was its intense past and its combination with the animation and cultural life on its streets". I said that for the first time almost three years ago and, up to this day, I still feel the same way about it.

The first thing I did once I arrived there was to find a way to reach my hotel. Well, botel. A 'botel' is a ship which has been converted into a hotel and which is located in the Danube river. The one in which I slept - and in which I ate the delicious Indian food served in its restaurant -  was called Botel Marina and it was right opposite Bratislava Castle.

As Bratislava has no Metro, I had to take the bus. For those of you interested in that specific botel, you should get off at the stop called Zochova and, from there, cross the street, climb some stairs down and walk along the river shore until you find it.