Trnava

This morning we caught a double decker train from Bratislava to the seventh biggest city in Slovakia - Trnava.

Possibly a strange choice you might think, but we had seen most of the sights of Bratislava, and Trnava was the easiest large place that we could reach easily. It's not that large, only about 70,000 people, but it had one of the prettiest welcome signs ever.

However, we did a round trip from the station and started with the boring side of town first in order to reach the Synagogue Café for coffee and cake.

There are two synagogues in Trnava, but 82% of the Jewish population were sent to concentration camps and killed in the second world war. So now there is only one and this one instead has been beautifully renovated and turned into an excellent café.

Feeling refreshed we set off again and then we were surrounded churches and glorious avenues.

Trnava has an ancient old town, with church spires on almost every corner.

It also has a huge city wall, and quite a bit of it still remains. Someone has also thoughtfully put model people on the top showing how they would have defended the city.

Once we got outside of the wall we could see how difficult it would be to get in, although nowadays there is a handy gate for cars and people.

We then walked along a lovely street filled with cafes and flowers on our way back towards the station.

Finally, our last image, which if we had been more logical would have been our first, were the local people welcoming us to their city.

Then it was back on the train to Bratislava. A surprisingly nice day out.