This trip was for David and was based around work - an activity vaguely remembered.
For several years before retirement, I was fortunate enough to be a member of a Standing Panel that is part of the UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. There were four of us on the panel and we met once a year in the UN HQ in Vienna. When I retired, I thought that maybe the UN would look for new blood, but they obviously watch New Tricks on the TV and think the idea behind it a good one. Hence two of us old dogs on the panel are retired but still stretching the brain cells from time to time for the UN. All good fun and the bonus is that Vienna is a great city, one that I love returning to.
We give our pound of flesh in the three or four days we meet so there isn't always much time for other things. This year I thought I'd stay on a day and do a bit of sightseeing, mainly in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, which is only an hour from Vienna. So once the meeting was all sewn up on Friday 10 October, the following morning I jumped on the train, guide notes from the internet at the ready.
As it turns out, Bratislava isn't a very big city and unfortunately it seems to suffer from being a Ryan destination for lager louts on a weekend's boozing and stag nighting or loutesses on hen weekends. Can't give the Brits much of a reputation. However it does have quite a quaint and historic city centre. On a sunny day, there are street cafes among the old buildings and plenty of activity. Near the main square, which is surprisingly small for a main square, you come across a number of odd statues - one of a paparazzo of 100 years ago peering around a corner with a long lens, another of a worker emerging from a manhole and a third of a chap doffing his hat in a friendly greeting - the latter apparently based on a real character from the late 1800s.
