Weekends

When we decided to come to Bratislava this year, we initially had skiing on our minds. As you know however, there is not a lot of snow so far in Europe. But, there's lots to do on weekends nevertheless.

Last Saturday, we visited the National Gallery in Bratislava. It's cheap - about $4.00 Cdn. Presently they are exhibiting Dutch masters, which included some amazing etchings by Rembrandt. These are about 4" x 5" in size, but the detail is incredible and the people in the scenes come alive. One etching was of the raising of Lazarus, and as we know, Lazarus actually did come alive!

.When we last lived in Bratislava, we often travelled to Vienna for a weekend day trip. We love the galleries, the architecture, the efficiency of the place and most of all, we love the Naschemarket. It's a length of outdoor market stalls, about 5 blocks long, selling seafood, fresh meat and veggies of all descriptions, amazing breads and pastries, wine, cheese, olives, truffles and other delicacies, flowers, vinegars, herbs and spices. It's awesome, but it can get expensive so we decided to watch our budget, when we travelled there this past weekend.
This time we bought a beautiful small rack of lamb (meat other than pork and chicken is not abundant in Slovakia). Usually we add white or green asparagus, but we are on a budget this time you remember, so we decided to pick up veggies and potatoes in Slovakia. We did buy plump pickled caperberries, a slice of Gouda cheese (aged 5 years and it melts like candy in your mouth), and large, fresh, pickled garlic cloves to eat as a starter.And to all of this we'll add a glass of Slovak Cabernet Sauvignon (about $5.00 Cdn. a bottle). It's a meal fit for the Archduke (or for 2 Canadians that like nice food). To our friends and relatives in C.R. who like nice food, we say, "eat your heart out"! We're going to!