Cars and Caries in Piestany
Concours d’Elegance, Piestany
Every time we go back into Piestany, I fear another spa visit. The Oldies really love the treatments, but I’m not sure if I can take much more of the whiff of sulphur off the pair of them. Thank goodness for outdoor living!
Luckily, there are other diversions. The Piestany Music Festival is on at the moment, and the Oldies treated themselves to a classical concert, would you believe. It was performed by the Slovak Chamber Orchestra in the beautiful Empírové Divadlo the oldest theatre in Slovakia. In the nearby town of Hlohovec, Beethoven apparently played there while he was taking the cure in Piestany spa. The Oldies were raving about the concert afterwards. I might manage to wean them off heavy metal yet!
We also stumbled upon the annual Concours d´Elegance vintage car show, held in the beautiful spa park in Piestany. Now, I know absolutely nothing about cars – even less than the Oldies, which says a lot (remember?) – but it is easy to see where the ‘elegance’ comes into it. There are some real beauties here. The gleaming chrome, polished brass, skillful woodwork, beautiful leather upholstery … It all goes to show how much craftsmanship was involved in the early years of the car industry. No robots back then! Many of the owners of the older vehicles were wearing period costumes, adding to the pageantry of the occasion. Lovely!
His Lordship indulged his fantasies, posing for photos with Ferraris, Jaguars, Rolls Royces and the like. Her Ladyship, true to form, was happy as Larry playing with the vintage Zetor and Skoda tractors. And I managed to find a few heavy metal birds…
There are some cars here that don’t even look like cars at all. The designers of this three-eyed monster of a Tatra looks to me like that they had space travel rather than road travel in mind. I found it quite funky. They certainly don’t make vehicles like that anymore!
All those model names and numbers are gobbledygook to me. I don’t know how anyone can figure them all out. Hang on a second, though. Here’s one I understand: Skoda 1000 MB. No wonder those cars were slower back then. Technology has come on a long way since the old days. Sure, we talk about terabytes these days. Much more powerful!
Life is a bowl of cherries. Or not. Her Ladyship was stuffing her face with her favourite fruit the other day. Unfortunately, she forgot about the cherry stones and, as a result of one over-enthusiastic bite, she’s now nursing a cracked tooth. She’s been making a habit of breaking teeth lately. This is the fourth one in the fourth country since we set out on our travels. It looks like she’s about to get her first taste of a Slovakian dentist. Hopefully not literally…
On the day of the appointment His Lordship, pleading dentophobia, left Herself at the clinic door and beat a hasty retreat. Her Ladyship had to rely on little old me for moral support. Sure, it was no skin off my beak. It also made me realise how great it is not to have any teeth at all!
The clinic itself didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It was on the first floor of a rather run-down apartment block, but, to my untrained eye, at least the equipment looked very modern. The surgery appeared to be teeming with young men. And I mean young. They all looked about sixteen. I think Her Ladyship was praying that they weren’t all trainees. On their first day.
She needn’t have worried. The serious and slightly older looking one (he could have passed for 18 at a push) turned out to be the dentist, the tall smiley one the dental nurse, and they got down to business in a very professional manner.
The only unorthodox part of the whole procedure was when Her Ladyship was told to go to the next room for an x-ray. The next room turned out to be another treatment room – which was also in use. So Herself, Smiley and Serious all piled into the tiny room where a young patient was already installed in the hot seat, being treated by his own youthful dentist and nurse. Whatever about dentophobia, you wouldn’t want to suffer from claustrophobia around here. It didn’t help that the nurse was bopping along to the techno music that he had blaring out of the laptop.
Back in the original treatment room, Smiley’s main concern seemed to be to find music that Her Ladyship might like. Once he made his choice (Her Ladyship, with a mouthful of dental instruments, had no say in the matter), Smiley proceeded to sing along to every tune. Luckily, the singing was the only painful part of the procedure. And at least it wasn’t as bad as the dancing that was going on in the room next door.
Shortly afterwards, Her Ladyship emerged from the all singing all dancing dental clinic, smiling crookedly and clutching her receipt for the €30 she’d paid for her treatment. Not bad. I don’t think they even charged extra for the entertainment.
She immediately tracked His Lordship down and insisted he take her for a pint for being so brave. Let her celebrate. At the rate she’s cracking up, no doubt it won’t be too long before she’ll be back in the chair.
I’m quite looking forward to it.
Stay tuned for the next episode of ‘Dentists of the World’.
