Anyone who knows Heathrow and its 5 terminals will appreciate that to arrive at Terminal 5 and use the automated check-in to be told your flight leaves from Terminal 1 isn't a great start! So we duly transplanted ourselves across to 1 and were able to check-in OK; it seems to be to do with BA having bought BMI and it will return to Terminal 5, so I wasn't going completely mad!
We still had time for Connie to fulfil her extensive requirements in duty free before boarding!
Stepping out at Vienna into 30 degree heat was an absolute joy, blue skies, sunshine and warm. I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed the sun, and seeing the blue, and feeling warm.
Peter was there and we headed to Bratislava, a 45 minute drive through the Austrian countryside until you reach the Danube. There has been a fair amount of building since I was here 7 years ago and Slovakia now feels much more seamlessly EU rather than former Eastern-bloc.
After a brief coffee break to meet his partner at their home he dropped us off at our hotel. Checking into a hotel is pretty routine, I've done it hundreds of times before ... however on this occasion once our details had been taken, a phone call was made and the hotel manager appeared and introduced himself and shook my hand ... this was never likely to be a good omen! They had double-booked our room ... by now, on 2 hours sleep, many hours of travelling and yet to be acclimatised to the heat I was not amused. But, the hotel had already arranged an alternative in their sister hotel and a car took us around. In fact, the same driver later took us down to the opera so all in all no great disaster.
The opera - Puccini's Manon Lescaut - in fact the opening night of this particular performance. Opera in Bratislava is excellent and still follows the old state-funded style so tickets are 'cheap' compared with opera elsewhere. In fact, since Slovakia became part of the EU the opera house here is filled with opera-loving Viennese taking advantage of the bargains available.
This was a modern staging of an opera written in the early 20th century of the story of an 18th century heroine. The first two acts were somewhat confusing with strange mixes of period clothing and modern staging, upside down sofas suspended from the ceiling, trees mounted horizontally ... and the weirdest section with almost space-age marshmallow costumes that wouldn't have been out of place as the entry for Yugolavia in the Eurovision of the 1980s! All the while though we were listening to a top rate classical orchestra and first-class singers.
The story is classic Italian opera, young man falls for inappropriate woman, pines, wins her, she's outcast, he follows, they die tragically ... the final act last night was stunning, an empty space with brilliant lighting to depict a desert scene in America. Quite a night.
Hopefully today will be less 'dramatic'.
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