Day two of our road trip brings us to Bratislava, Slovakia.
We arrived at our apartment in the evening. Turns out the rooms are all themed after different beverages. Ours was the Jägermeister room!
Author: Daniel
- Coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies, shoe stores.
- Cats and dogs.
- An incessant stream of traffic, 24/7. No gridlock, just heavy traffic flow.
- Friendly and super-helpful locals.
- Graffiti; much of it political as far as I can tell, and probably for good reason.
- Lots of lovely ‘old’ buildings (‘old’ is a relative term, here in Athens), many neglected.
- Quite a bit of really new retail, with tasteful, clever, fresh, brand aesthetic. It feels like there’s a youthfulness growing up amongst ancient roots.
- Wind. I think the last few days have been unusually windy. And wind over a dry ground means…
- Dust. The archaeological sites – particularly on the exposed Acropolis – were swirling with dust whipped up by the wind. Many an eye was smarted, and many a hat was chased.
To go into a bit more detail on subjects that take my fancy:
We’re spending a few days in the Saas valley.
It’s great when your work is the internet, as the whole world is your office. Sometimes the view out your window is a brick wall.
Last Friday, we spent the day at Thermalbad Brigerbad. The pools are pretty awesome, there’s a 182-metre waterslide, we had some great weather, and it was an enjoyable time.
We drove to Brig via the Gotthard Tunnel and the Nufenen Pass. It’s steep, windy, alpine country. The Nufenen pass is the highest mountain pass with a paved road in Switzerland. It has amazing views; you can see the impressive Gries gravity dam (holding back the Griessee), some large wind turbines, and lots of rocks.
We’ve got a bit of a forest up behind our house here in Altwis and since today was one of the warmest and sunniest yet we decided to go for a walk and check it out.
We left Auckland at 11pm on Tuesday night. Thank you to those who came to see us off!
The first leg of our flight was with Air New Zealand to Shanghai Pudong on a 787-9 Dreamliner. Air NZ’s service was impeccable; professional, friendly, and without fault. The in-flight entertainment system is decades ahead of the old-school controller-on-a-rope system, still used by others (*cough* Swiss). The bigger windows of the 787-9 are great, and the electrochromic shades are magical.
It’s a grey and sometimes-rainy day. We cleverly waited until the New Zealand winter was over, before heading to the other side of the world for another winter. Once we’re done with that winter, we’ll come back to New Zealand for the next winter. I’m hoping the Europeans have saved us some of their heatwave.
The suitcases are zipped up; we’re all packed and ready. I think.
Benjamin Willis
Daniel
Michelle
Noah Willis
Tobias Willis