Simply fascinating first-hand reminiscences of a life style that exists no more. Now at home in Pasadena I got my hands on the first volume, A Time of Gifts , which takes the intrepid young man from Holland across Germany, into the Austrian countryside and finally to Vienna and on to Bratislava, with a side trip to Prague.
Formerly Pressburg in German, Poszony in Hungarian, and a historically significant center of the recently dissolved Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bratislava after World War I became the capital of Slovakia within the merged realms known as Czechoslovakia. Evidence of the wildly complex multicultural story of Central Europe, Bratislava is still the only national capital to border two other nations, both of which at one time claimed the city as part of their own territory.
So let me add a few reminiscences about our very pleasant stay in what is now the capital of the independent nation of Slovakia. So many changes in the world since Fermor stayed here with an aristocratic Austrian family who were still coming to grips with the loss of Empire! Our first surprise came when we reached the border between Austria and Slovakia—at one time, a strictly controlled crossing point, with stern guards, formidable gates and elaborate passport checks.
Vienna is only an hour away from Bratislava, so some people even live in one place and work in the other. We arrived by car in the city just as an absolute downpour erupted and the GPS stopped working because we had entered a new country! Somehow, after following a tiny map we had and after getting soaked stopping to ask a parking lot attendant how to get to the right street, we made it.
Our landlady was absolutely delightful—only spoke German, no English—and provided us with freshly baked cookies. We were in the hills above the town, a very quiet neighborhood near to the forests which surround the city. The town has recently become a thriving headquarters for international corporations, with big high rise buildings going up everywhere on the outskirts to accommodate them.
