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Bratislava – Bratislava Transport Museum (A 100 Year Old Wooden Bicycle)

This bike at the Bratislava Transport Museum might look at though it’s been cobbled together by a particularly imaginative joiner who’d had one too many glasses of some generic lager, but this is a genuine and functioning bicycle crafted by Matúš Povala in 1922. He put it together when he was just sixteen and clearly not burdened by a fear of splinters or broken tailbones, but he was burdened by a lack of money. Born in the village of Pucov in the Orava region of Slovakia, Povala apparently looked at the trees around him, the limitations of early 20th-century transportation, and decided the two should meet. What emerged was less a bicycle and more a moving testament to both ambition and absolute disregard for modern comfort, but it was affordable and ultimately well engineered.

Povala rode this handmade beast from Orava all the way to Prague in 1922 which is around 500 kilometres of not-so-gentle terrain—on a bike that looks like it’s better suited for intimidating firewood than actual travel. Apparently, he managed to earn some money showing off his invention to curious onlookers, although most of it was reportedly stolen by a charming chap in Prague which feels rather sub-optimal. In true central European fashion, he returned home with ten korunas and probably a lot of stories. Personally, I wonder if my cycling friend Liam could get very far on this, although I couldn’t even get to Prague on a normal bike as I get tired easily and need to stop a lot.

June 27, 2025
Bratislava – Bratislava Transport Museum (Fiat 503)

I like an exhibit in a transport museum that hasn’t been modernised and repaired, sometimes the beauty is in the original and its modifications. Well, I say beauty, it’s almost like it’s been converted into a tank. The museum notes that this is a FIAT 503 Torpedo style car from around 1927, although ChatGPT is disagreeing and saying it’s a FIAT 508. Google Gemini is less helpful, it says that it’s not a FIAT, it’s an old truck. Either way, it has been majorly changed and I rather like it sitting here in the corner of the museum.

June 26, 2025
Wizz Air (London Luton to Bratislava)

My Wizz Air flight was the second of the day to leave London Luton, so I just arrived late the previous evening by train and then waited at Pret landside. The security area opens at 02:00 sort of time, which is really quite early for an international airport.

Not many other people were so keen to get through this early in the day. The security process was though well managed and the staff seemed upbeat, which can’t be easy at that time of the day.

At least it’s easy to get a seat at this time of day.

I’ve written about my visit to Big Smoke separately. As for the food, it was a little bland as that avocado was quite watery, but nonetheless it wasn’t unpleasant. It’s the first time I’ve been here for breakfast and the first time that I didn’t order beer, I instead went for a pineapple juice.

I then popped to Avalon for a chicken and avocado salad, along with a Fanta, that most typical of breakfast drinks. This is expensive, well it would be if I was paying for it, at £12 and it was rather dry but I think there was a healthy element to it.

And then an almond croissant and half a pint of Menabrea. It’s a generic lager, but it was free and although the croissant wasn’t very authentic, it was light and was a satisfactory snack. The service here is always warm and friendly, although I was dreading them making an error with the number of guests as Priority Pass might have found it suspicious if I had phoned up again.

And then a double espresso. My flight was called to board twenty minutes earlier than advertised, so I thought that I might as well wander over.

It’s all happening now at Gate 21.

The joys of the bus gate.

Boarding the aircraft, which is G-WUKT, an A321 which has been in service since April 2022.

The flight was uneventful yet again, although the seating Gods gave me a middle seat. However, the two neighbouring passengers weren’t annoying, so the flight went quickly enough (it’s a one hour fifty minute journey), not least as I was asleep for half of it. One advantage of an early morning flight is that everyone seems to be asleep as they’re so exhausted, and I suspect Wizz Air has a fair number of customers who haven’t had any sleep at all, so it’s an extra peaceful arrangement. The crew were quite bouncy and keen, the airline does recruit some really good people and the pilot announcements were all as expected.

And safely into Bratislava, where it was evidently too hot. There was a queue of twenty minutes for border control, but although she did look at my passport stamps I was saved having to wait whilst she counted as she just stamped the passport. All very easy, and another £8.99 well spent with Wizz Air for my first time to Slovakia.

June 26, 2025
Bratislava – Bratislava Transport Museum (Pragotron Display Board from Sturovo Railway Station)

I like a little bit of geeky rail infrastructure heritage and this is the last Pragotron display board which was used in the Slovakian rail network. These are the split-flap displays that were either made by Solari of Italy, or by Pragotron who are a Czech manufacturer. It was taken from Štúrovo railway station where it remained in use until 26 January 2022, before it was brought here. I liked the sound of these when they had them in stations such as Liverpool Street in London, and although I know they had become dated, they did feel like exciting things with their mechanical noises.

For anyone interested, here’s a photo from Google of when this item was actually being used at the railway station. I particularly like that in the museum the top destination is Warszawa Wschodnia railway station, which I’ve caught many trains from.

June 26, 2025
Luton Airport – Efficient Priority Pass Service after Big Smoke Overcharge

The title of this post sounds rather tabloidy, but there we go, it’s 04:00 in the morning at Luton Airport and I’m going to take what excitement I can. One thing that I’ve discovered is that Big Smoke are one of the first outlets to open airside at the airport, being open at 03:00 which is earlier than their advertised time and an hour ahead of many other venues. That at least was handy.

The service was friendly, but the restaurant was in something of a state. The sauce bottles had a not inconsiderable amount of dried up bits of sauce on them and the menu was so sticky that it was hard to open. The surfaces had also not been cleaned the night before, nor had the floor, which felt an odd situation. But, it was early and I was content. I was using Priority Pass which gets me £18 to spend and I specifically mentioned, as I always do, that I had zero guests.

However, almost immediately I received an e-mail confirming that Priority Pass had helpfully charged me £18 for my guest, the one that I didn’t have. I queried this and the staff member insisted that was right and I should have been charged. It evidently wasn’t and I showed him he had typed two guests. After some faffing about he came back and told me to make a claim with my bank. This is a ridiculous way of doing it, that would be a chargeback for Priority Pass, as well as a heap of paperwork for them and the bank. So, I asked for someone else and the manager, who really didn’t seem that engaged either way, came over.

The manager repeated the poor advice and I queried what happened if Big Smoke said there were two people and not just one? They said that they couldn’t do anything, so I asked if they could just note on a receipt that there was just one guest. The manager didn’t show any interest and she didn’t do that, she just ignored the situation. Fortunately, I discovered that Priority Pass have a 24 hour call centre and so I phoned it, at 03:30 in the morning which I thought was rather decent. After some internal querying what to do, Priority Pass said that as I was still at the restaurant they were willing to refund the extra guest as it was a mistake.

No-one came over to check on this situation, so I meandered off. It’s hardly the issue of the century, but I’m not keen on managers shifting responsibility to other people and causing others a heap of work when they could have easily dealt with it. Moan over….

June 26, 2025
Dortmund – German Brewery Museum (Declining Number of Breweries in the City)

More on the brewery museum in other posts, but there was an interesting display at this museum at just how brewing has changed in Dortmund. From tens of brewers at the beginning of the twentieth century, the number had fallen sharply by 1958 and it was down to just one by the beginning of this century.

1901 and there was no shortage of breweries to surprise and delight the locals.

1958 and consolidation and buyouts had begun.

2006 and down to just one brewery in the city, which is Dortmunder Actien Brauerei (DAB) who are owned by Dr. Oetker of pizza fame.

June 25, 2025
Vilnius – Monument to Zemach Shabad

This is the Monument to Zemach Shabad (1864-1935), a physician in Vilnius during the first half of the 20th century, famed for both his medical expertise and his tireless dedication to the community. He was known as the doctor of the poor, which seems to me to be just the right balance of noble and tragic. Unfortunately, the sun was so bright and it was so hot, that the photos are a little exposed.

He was born in 1864 in Lithuania (or Russia, or Poland, or the Russian Empire depending on who you ask and what year it was), Dr Shabad became a towering figure in Jewish intellectual and public life. He chaired everything from science societies to humanitarian organisations, helped found schools and somehow still had time to cure people. He is widely considered to be the inspiration behind the character of Doctor Aybolit, the Russian equivalent of Doctor Dolittle, except with slightly fewer singing animals and marginally more existential dread. He was popular at the time and a monument was constructed to honour him in the 1930s, but that got destroyed in the 1930s.

The statue itself is genuinely rather lovely. Created by sculptor Romualdas Kvintas and unveiled in 2007, it shows Dr Shabad in full sage mode, gently leaning down to a small girl who is holding what looks like a cat. The whole scene feels very deliberate as this isn’t one of those ‘man on a horse shouting at the sky’ affairs, instead it’s quiet, tender and just a little melancholic. It’s tucked away in a nice quiet part of the park, all rather understated.

June 25, 2025
Vilnius – Portal with Lublin

There are a few of these portal arrangements around the world as something of an art installation and to make people feel closer to each other. There was one between Dublin and New York which was ultimately scrapped as there were a minority of people on the Irish side trying to spread hate which was all a bit sub-optimal for the country’s reputation. Although the Dublin situation wasn’t exactly the spirit of global harmony they were going for, this one is linked to the rather glorious city of Lublin in Poland and hasn’t had the same issues.

I can’t be doing all that socialising, but there was a lady nearby who was fully engaged in the whole arrangement.

The Vilnius portal is located in front of Vilniaus rotušė, which is the Vilnius City Hall. It’s all rather exciting in many ways, almost like going back to 1998 and the excitement of the earliest webcams. There are plans for more of these to be installed and this seems like something that seems really quite positive in building bridges and all that, perhaps between cities which are already twinned in the more traditional way.

June 25, 2025
Podcast – Travel, Craft Beer and Bar Billiards (but mainly gossip)

As if my blog isn’t exciting enough (now that I have two loyal blog readers although I’m starting to think one of those is a bot) I’ve also decided it’d be a great idea to start a podcast with a friend. My bit will be travel, food and craft beer (mostly the beer and food elements to be honest) and he’ll be focusing on his thoughts about beer (often quite opinionated although his Untappd isn’t as curated as mine), reacting to my travel ‘excitement’ and dishing out bar billiards gossip like he’s the Hello! magazine of Norwich’s niche sporting scene (we’ll see if it becomes an agenda item at next year’s AGM).

We know we’ll get at least ten people listening to see who we’ve been rude about, and frankly, if that’s not a solid marketing strategy, I don’t know what is. The first edition of this earth-shattering audio marvel dropping soon. Buckle in. Or don’t. Either way, we’ll be talking as we’re good at that.

June 23, 2025
Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market (2025 Edition) – Week 18 and City Taco

This is week 18 of James and I eating at every food stall at Norwich market and this is the former site of Cocina Mia which was honoured with third spot when we did this in 2023. It only closed a few weeks ago and there’s some hype about its replacement, City Taco. On this week’s ‘how many middle class people did we bump into that James knows?’ the tally was 5, including one actually at the food stand which I think is a first. At this rate, James will be hosting his own artisan networking brunch and LinkedIn masterclass by mid-July.

The menu is limited in size, but I think that’s very often a good thing. I’m not sure that there’s much here for vegetarians and I’m not sure if there are plans to expand the menu offering in the future, but everything looked tempting to me.

The service was excellent, engagement about the menu, general conversation and clear enthusiasm about the food. I think it’s really positive when there’s that excitement from the team members, it all bodes well. I did mention to James that it reminded me of the tacos that I’ve had in southern California, but reading on the stall’s social media, that’s understandable as the owner spent several years living there.

I couldn’t decide between them so I went for one carnitas taco and one beef taco, so a total of £6. James went for the same, but he’s often creatively inspired by me even if he doesn’t admit it. The pork one is on the left, the beef one on the right. The sauce in the pot is the consomme and the team member mentioned we could either use it as a dip or down it, which transpired to be a good suggestion as I tried it both ways. Both tacos had a depth of flavour to them, they were well presented and at the appropriate temperature. I enjoyed them both, but the delicate nature of the beef and dipped in the consomme was my favourite of the two.

James remembered to take a photo this time, which will save him having to draw the whole arrangement. He said something about enjoying them, being pleased about not spilling them down himself and also thinking they were a little small but still decent value. To avoid any bird attacks, we had our food whilst standing at the stall, as the neighbouring dining area shared by Toby’s Beers and formerly Cocina Mia now seems to be closed.

Although it’s a shame to have lost Cocina Mia, this seems a really quite decent replacement. The service was some of the best we’ve had yet and the food had a depth of taste and flavour. The pricing was reasonable as the food was surprisingly filling, with everything seemingly well managed. I look forwards to returning here and trying the burrito to get the full taste experience.

June 23, 2025