Wine tour around the carpathian mountains

August 20

Did an awesome half day tour to see the surrounding areas of bratislava. I normally wouldn't have signed up for a wine tour since I don't drink much but I happened to like the itinerary of this tour and it seemed to be a nice way to see some of the country. We followed the wine route which goes around the foothills of the carpathian mountain range which stretches west to east from slovakia through ukraine to romania.

We stopped in the town of modra to see the famous pottery. Because of the special clay in the area the town has been making these pretty vases and pottery for centuries. Our guide took us to a museum for a demo of how it's made. They don't use the normal wheel but bigger machineries, I guess it's faster for mass production. It was interesting that in the early years red was not a popular color because people associate this color with blood.

We spent a couple of hours at cerveny kamen which means red rock castle, in the northeast of bratislava. Built in the 13th century, it's the most intact castle in the country because it has never been attacked. It was more modern looking than what I expected. Up until ww2 it was occupied by noble families most recently the palffys. We toured through one major wing of the castle where the families lived, and into the huge multi level wine cellars. There was this crazy sled made out of gold, those poor horses having to lug the person and the heavy sled! It was interesting to see the different styles of furniture preferred by the different generations, including a bed made of gold! The funniest was a toilet hidden in a fancy chest of drawers that can be moved room to room.

Our guide was suzanna, a young college student from the area. Nowadays kids learn english starting in secondary school so her english is very good. Now it explains why most people we run into speak some english. It makes things much easier for us! During the ride suzanna would share a little history of the country which was so interesting to me. Slovakia was formerly part of Czecholsvakia, which for centuries was under the austro-hungarian empire. In 1993 with the fall of russia the country split into czech republic with prague as its capital and slovakia with bratislava as its capital. You can see influences of these cultures in bratislava through the music, food, architecture and even furniture.