Christmas Markets Cruise: December 17

December 17: Home Visit In Bratislava, Slovakia

Today's adventure and excursion was one of the shortest of the trip. We arrived in Bratislava sometime during the middle of the night last night after departing Vienna. We'd been here in 2015 and there were only two excursion options for the day - the "Panoramic City Tour" which we'd done before was the default and provided one. We remembered the town as quaint and a nice place to visit with some typical European sites, but not one that was a "don't miss that!" So we booked the optional tour, which was at the same time as the provided one. We joined five other guests outside the ship and discovered that our guide was also our host. Petr was going to escort us to his home about twenty minutes away on the outskirts of town.

The iconic "UFO" restaurant in Brataslava above the Danube River

The history of the town and the country were provided as we cruised out of town. We were fortunate with our 8:30 am departure that we were heading against the traffic flow. We arrived soon at our drop off spot and we got off the bus and walked about five minutes down the street to Petr's private home. We were greeted by his wife Lucia and their five-year-old son (and the cat). They have an older daughter (11) who was at school. For over 2 1/2 hours we just talked about life in Slovakia and his family. They were very gracious and at least half the time they were answering our questions. They provided home-made apple strudel and I told them my story about how we had gone to Schonbrunn Palace for the best strudel in the world, but that TODAY .... THIS was the best I'd ever had! And it was. Kim only had a bite of hers and I finished it of course. They also gave us their own homemade gluhwein - which also was the best we've had. Lucia explained she made it with wine and a mixture of sugar water. About 2 1/2 hours later we all said our goodbyes and headed back as the ship was leaving at 11:30 am.