A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES

Michal and the Black Mercedes Van

Slovakia has yet to qualify for the upcoming FIFA World Cup. The Repre is looking ahead to two qualifiers scheduled for its home ground in late March 2026. I never imagined I’d expend a single neuron on the state of Slovak football. Then again, I never imagined I’d be standing in a shop in Bratislava’s historic Old Town advising my brother-in-law Al on the taste quotient of Repre jerseys and scarves. “The national crest shows off better against the white.” “Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. I like it.”

Edmonton Ann and I travel well with my sister Montreal Anne and Al. We get along without being in the others’ pockets. Ann and I tend to be laissez-faire while my sister prefers some semblance of structure, a partial schedule at least. Our participation is always optional. Ann and I never worry about disjointing noses nor even skinning them. Our quartet booked our trip to Vienna, Austria about a year ago. Once the details were finalized, Montreal Anne proposed a day trip to Salzburg. The four of us would split the cost of a private car, a private tour. Edmonton Ann and I agreed immediately. I thought, “No herding, no chatty strangers in close quarters; worth the cost.”

Well, I did not welcome Michal and the black Mercedes van outside the Hotel Karnterhof before dawn. I suffer from a self-diagnosed ailment: Irrational Bowel Syndrome. I mean, all of my lower plumbing functions, but I like a firm schedule and, my oh my, overseas night flights are terribly disruptive. Salzburg was distant, about three and a half hours away. As we climbed into the rear seats of the van Ann whispered to me, “We could drive to Jasper (from Edmonton).” That far. I was filled with something more than trepidation because despite three deliciously strong black Viennese coffees and a few cigarettes, my metabolic clock wasn’t meshing with our tour’s timing.

I’m a poor judge of age. I guessed Michal was as close to 60 as I am to 70, or thereabouts. A well-built fellow and very gracious – if a bit gregarious. The four of us learned about his ongoing divorce proceedings and his abrupt change of career. “Art therapy” was proving very helpful. He enjoyed ballroom dancing and photography was a passion, but most of all, he loved people and he loved to hear other people’s stories. And weren’t four Canadians just locked in his van? His mien was that of some ersatz encounter group leader whose area of expertise is “feelings” and inspirational platitudes and I thought, “Oh, God,” for a few reasons.

I generally enjoy hearing other people’s stories and I’m always careful not to draw out a windbag. What I truly enjoy is overhearing other people’s day-to-day private discussions in public places; good material. When my turn came to speak, I wasn’t particularly forthcoming. This fast drive through sleet and snow, and walled in by sound barriers on both sides of the highway – it felt like we were in a slick trench – did not constitute a therapy session. However, Michal did establish that I follow hockey. He said he was acquainted with Peter Stasny, a former Quebec Nordique (and later in his life, a respected Slovak parliamentarian). I said that I hated Peter and his brothers Marian and Anton because they were very good and didn’t play for Montreal. Michal said his current favourite player wears number 20 for les Canadiens: Juraj Slafkovsky (20 points and plus 2 in 32 games at this writing). I began to warm up to Michal.      

Salzburg is renowned for sound (and salt). The city, near the German border at the base of the Alps, is the birthplace of Mozart who, like Elvis, will forever be known by a single name. Red and blue shifts are not mere political gerrymandering in the United States: Christian Doppler, born across the street from Mozart’s home some fifty years after his death, described them as fundamental characteristics of sound waves. They come and go. You can hear it. What refuses to fade in Salzburg are songs about lonely goatherds and one problematic nun named Maria; the famous von Krapps.

Michal said that only North American tourists are enamored by the film location of what Canadian co-star Christopher Plummer derided as “The Sound of Mucous.” Michal said he’s tried to watch the movie but keeps falling asleep. I warmed up to him a little more. Mirabell Palace is that glimmering white edifice with the extensive gardens and fountain, fit for a singing and dancing brood of snotty brats. He insisted on taking pictures of our group there as we shivered in the rain. The joint is essentially an architectural attempt to reaffirm the Roman Catholic Church’s status in the wake of Martin Luther’s cataclysmic Reformation. The monk had some nerve lifting the veil on doctrine by translating the Bible into the vernacular. What struck me about the Archbishop of Salzburg’s palace was its grandeur and size. A lovely and elaborate space for an unnaturally large number of nieces and nephews.

Michal allowed us half an hour in Salzburg’s Altstadt. The city’s centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cobbles were slippery to walk on. Tourist trap shop windows were eye level. Ann and I paused to grossly overpay for two mouthfuls of coffee. I ordered mine straight up. The woman serving us promised that mine would be as black as her soul. I laughed; she wasn’t kidding. High on a hill, above all the Baroque flourishes was a medieval fort. There was no time to get up to where I really wished to go. Salzburg is something like a monumental novel in a university literature course: either touched on in context to a lesser work by the same author or demanding an immersive semester of exclusive devotion.

As we drove out of Salzburg my thoughts turned to the water closet in our room at the Hotel Karntnerhof. Michal announced our next stop, a little detour up into the Alps, just another hour and a half. Destination Hallstatt, the most scenic place in all of Austria, Michal promised. I thought, “Oh, God.” He added that the local populace, numbering fewer than a thousand, hates tourists. I whispered to Ann, “Oh, Christ. This should be fun. Swell.”

The isolated village of stone and brick is grafted on to a sheer mountain face. Visitors must be able and fit. Ancient crooked stairs. The view from Hallstatt is picturesque: a placid alpine lake in a granite basin – although nothing out of the ordinary in a Canadian Rocky Mountain national park. Half the hook is the impractical, jerry-built quirkiness of the homes, churches and businesses. Hallstatt’s ailment is celluloid rapidly metastasizing into Instagram selfie idiocy. Hallstatt was used as a location for a popular Korean romance and inspired the backdrop of Frozen, an animated Disney film every young parent I know is utterly sick of. Our time in Hallstatt was short, but the place is awfully small and the weather was miserable.

Talkers talk. Expert ones ask questions. Michal learned our next planned excursion was to Bratislava. The Slovakian capital is on the Danube, about 50 kilometres west of Vienna. Bratislava was Michal’s hometown; he still lived there; his daughters and estranged wife resided in the United States – for now, things being what they are down there south of 49. Al’s mother was from Bratislava. Nellie emigrated to Canada in advance of the Russian “liberation” at the close of the Second World War. Nellie had a window and she went through it. Al still had relatives in Bratislava, first cousins he’d never met. The barrier wasn’t merely time and distance, but language too. Still, he wished to finally meet them.

Michal offered to be our driver, tourist guide, translator and facilitator. There were strings attached of course, cash preferred. And our own plans required modifications. I’d been looking forward to the train ride from Vienna to Bratislava. I love trains, but not in an unhealthy track gauge, locomotive number kind of away. They are metaphors, symbols, plot devices and compelling images in music, film and literature. While Michal, Montreal Anne and Al hammered out details inside the van in front of our hotel, I realized my steel wheel rides this trip would be confined to the subway. I was cool with that; subways are equally enticing. What was not cool was a too long a day of seatbelt confinement. I retrieved our room key from Edmonton Ann and hurriedly excused myself, teeth gritted politely, my colon as agitated as I was.

We left Vienna for Bratislava about an hour later than we did for Salzburg. The schedule wasn’t a perfect fit, but still something of a relief. Michal took the long way, secondary roads. The weather was clear. Very little traffic. I was content in the rear of the black Mercedes van. There was something new to see through every window. This was more like it. This was the only way to go.

My Oxford Atlas of the World is out of date. While it reflects the amiable breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993 in the wake of the parted Iron Curtain, neither nascent republic has yet to tighten up its respective nationalist monicker. I’ve always perceived Slovakia as more of a region of Eastern Europe than an actual country with a dominant race of people. Frankly, my old atlas and my morning newspaper are filled with information about too many places on the planet that rarely, if ever, cross my mind. Travel is, and should be, as illuminating as formal education.

Everyone on Earth shares its history, it’s just that some civilizations left more evidence and kept better records. All of what comes to light, often uncontextualized, can be messy. Human. From Bratislava Castle on a plateau above the Danube and overlooking the Old Town to an ultramodern “luxury” shopping mall complete with a “luxury” hotel, the city’s architecture is a dizzying kaleidoscope of varying styles. History writ in building styles and materials. There is medieval, there is Baroque, there is Soviet Brutalism. Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, Hungarians, Hapsburgs, Nazis, even Allied bomber crews, and Stalinists have all left their traces behind. It’s complicated.

Michal picked the restaurant and tended to the arrangements for Al’s lunch meeting with his relatives. Flagship Restaurant Bratislava. A beer-brewing medieval monastery long ago, heavy stone, heavy wood. Dark. Chilly. The massive space was converted into a cinema during the Communist era. The current occupants, restauranteurs who are very aware of university students (and their limited budgets), micro-brew beer on site. The vats are consecrated. Our group occupied a long table. Al sat at the head with his cousins and Michal. I don’t believe any nuances were lost in translation. I could see Michal concentrating intently. I warmed up to him again; he cared as much about Al’s experience as the rest of our group. They took a while up there. Edmonton Ann, Montreal Anne and I chatted down at the opposite end. The food was basic, cabbage, sausage and dough, very hearty, very tasty, reasonably priced and possibly unhealthy (the queue to be seated when we eventually left was two-wide and far too long for my patience had Michal not made prior arrangements). The beer was divine. And the toilets, an unnervingly frequent destination for me (aging is a fussy business), were a well-scrubbed blessing, homey. And, mercy me, the Hotel Karntnerhof wasn’t much more than an hour away.

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