007 TRAVELERS: 007 Travel story: Bratislava (SLOVAKIA) and Vienna (AUSTRIA) 2015

What: 007 Travelers on the tracks of James Bond
Where: Vienna, Austria and Bratislava, Slovakia
When: 17-20 February 2015

Airline: Finnair
Flight route: Helsinki - Vienna - Helsinki
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Price: 833,60 EUR + 5000 Finnair flight points / 2 adults and 3 children

Tuesday 17th of February 2015

On our Finnair flight the staff recognized us, that we are 007 Travelers and offered us adults two bottles of Champagne for free. That was nice, thank you Finnair!

But this 007 location hunt did not start with the best way. One of the children had been ill before the trip but was already getting better. The doctor in Finland said that it is safe to travel. It was, but we did not know that she got another symptoms from different reasons and our flight was bad because of her health.

Right after landing we had to go directly to first aid at the Vienna airport, and they took good care of her and gave her medicine. The service there was excellent, thank you, Vienna airport!

We took a bus from Vienna airport to Bratislava, Slovakia.

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia, occupying both banks of the River Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.
Duration of this bus trip was about one hour. With Slovak Lines Express, it was 7,70 EUR / adult and 3,90 EUR / child.

It was quite a cold day but fortunately our accommodation place was near:

Accommodation: Apartmán Old centre - Rybárska brána
Address: Rybárska brána 9, Stare Mesto, Bratislava
Room type: Apartment with two bedrooms
Price: 115,00 EUR / 1 night + city tax 1,65 EUR / person / night

Our landlord was a nice Italian woman Zanini Zlatica, and she showed us how everything works.

Mika / 007 Travelers

In the evening we had dinner in restaurant Hurricane's.

After that we went to explore Bratislava some more.

Cumil. Residing in the Old Town, dates back only to 1997,
but Bratislavians and tourists love him.

Mika & Pirita / 007 Travelers
in front of Slovak National Theatre.

We also saw this tram which has the same destination Karlova Ves as the tram in Timothy Dalton´s Bond movie "The Living Daylights" (1987). They have not actually filmed here but Vienna doubles as Bratislava in the film. In that time Bratislava was part of Czechoslovakia and it was not really easy to go to film there, because it was behind the Iron Curtain. In 1993 Czechoslovakia was departed to two separate countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia and Bratislava became the capital of Slovakia.

Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC

Wednesday 18th of February 2015

Early in the morning some of us started to feel ill, some kind of virus. We needed to manage to travel back to Vienna by bus. It was cold and we were ill. Somehow we reached Vienna, and we took a nap in our next accommodation.

Coffee and beer were quite cheap in Bratislava...

Accommodation: Luxury Apartments Vienna
Address: Kumfgasse 3, Vienna
Room type: Apartment with two bedrooms
Price: 284,00 EUR / 2 nights including 50,00 EUR cleaning fee / 1 staying

In Vienna we have used public transportation, metros mostly, one ticket is 2,20 EUR.

We had lunch in Hard Rock Cafe Vienna

Pirita / 007 Travelers

and later we visited Madame Tussauds Vienna. The tickets were 14,35 EUR / adult and 11,55 EUR 7 child.

Marilyn Monroe

Daniel Craig

Madonna is the singer of Bond title song "Die Another Day" (2002)

David Hasselhoff

Alfred Hitchcock on the right

Gerhard Berger

But the best was yet to come: our visit to Wiener Riesenrad, the amusement park PRATER!

Tickets: In contrast to other theme parks the access to the Prater is free of charge. Only the attractions themselves are charged. Fees for individual attractions vary between € 1,50 and € 5,00 depending size and genre.

Prater is of course famous from 007 movie "The Living Daylights" (1987). Here Bond (Timothy Dalton) and Kara Milovy (Maryam d'Abo) spend time and have fun before Necros (Andreas Wisnievski) kills Bond's colleague Saunders (Thomas Wheatley). Due to its Bond connection, we wanted to have a round with cabin number 10, but it was not in use at the moment. We explaned the staff how important that would be to us and they were really nice and let us ride with cabin number 10.