What lies behind the Iron Curtain

During our Austrian expedition we spent a couple of days visiting two interesting towns in the ‘young’ nations of Czech and Slovakia. Their recent communist past were certainly easy to observe, although the Czech Republic seems to have embraced capitalism (and commercialism) much more completely than its eastern neighbor.




The Cabbage Market in central Brno.








After a long drive through northeast Austria we spent an afternoon in the Czech city of Brno. In town we encountered bustling holiday crowds, lots of traffic, and several excellent sights including Spilberk Castle, the city Catherdral and the Moravian (empire) museum. Several miles outside of town, after a long search, we also found the battlefield of Austerlitz, site of Napoleon’s greatest victory.



Cora finds a street statue in Bratislava.









The capitol of Slovakia, Bratislava, lies just over an hour from Vienna. A short drive brought us to this blue-collar capitol where we just survived running into some trolleys while driving on the wrong lane in the street. An impressive castle sits above the city with an interesting museum. In town we visited the market and found tasty sausages and a lebkuchen for Cora.




Old and New in Bratislava, capitol of Slovakia