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Neil: Today is all about facts , lots of them
We decided the best way to get to know Slovakia is to take a walking tour .
We meet Sebastián at 10 and 3 hours later we finish !
He is passionate about the history of this small country. He explains with the use of maps and pictures Bratislava’s central position in Europe, which explains its complicated past .
More recently it has suffered hugely under Soviet control with lots of brutal architecture and much destruction of old buildings. Central to this is a huge bridge called locally the UFO bridge. An uglier bridge I have not seen .
Their language is similar to Czech and, fortunately for us, lots of signs are also in English which is well understood. They also lean towards Russian influence as they are a Slav nation and all their energy comes from cheap Russian gas.
The population of the country is only 5.4 million and 2 million emigrated.
Today is sunny and a so called family Saturday. Everyone is out and about. The population seems very young . Very few fat people .
We meet a lovely New Zealand couple for a couple of beers later and exchange yarns and addresses
Čumil the sewage worker.
There were many sculptures dotted around the capital
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