Today has definitely been a fast-paced one for the Eurocats! We started our day of traveling off by saying goodbye to Budapest at 8:00 a.m. and getting on the bus and heading to Bratislava, Slovakia. After a nice little nap on the ride there we arrived to the Volkswagen plant. My initial thought when we pulled up was, "whoa, this couldn't be any more cool". That was quickly changed when our tour guide Daniel led us inside of the body shop of the plant. This museum-like factory made it hard to focus on one thing at a time! There were robots that seriously could pass for Transformers that moved with such grace and well...human like qualities that it was easy to see why they are responsible for 85% of the car production process at Volkswagen. They seemed to be the complete opposite of the stiff, up and down, side to side moving bots that you might be invisioning.
Volkswagen is the only place in the world that produces 6 different cars from 5 different brands. They also don't have rooms to store the car parts in the factory. Once they receive the parts they put them straight on the production line, can you say "No Time Wasted?" I totally know your next question, "So if they keep the production of cars in constant rotation, how many cars can they produce in a day?" Great question! The Volkswagen plant all together can produce up to 2,100 cars a day, crazy right? Out of those possible 2,100 cars produced a day, guess how many are sent back for malfunctions or mishaps...one. Yes, they get only one car a day that gets sent back for repairs. These repairs can be simple fixes that are corrected and get put back on the line or bigger ones that winde up getting recycled. Another thing I thought was cool was that they have an on site fire department and medical center in case of anything serious. We were forbidden to take pictures of the inside of the plant so you're going to have to just trust me when I say this place was amazing and deserves a visit by any and everyone, especially those that enjoy Volkswagen cars or Audi or Porsche made cars (2 of the different cars they produce).
After our great visit we headed to the Bratislava city center where we were able to get a good lunch, some cute souviners and nice pictures. We headed back on the bus after our quick visit and made our way to Vienna, maybe not in the safest way (our bus driver George decided to reverse in the middle of a highway- now that's one for the books!) but we all made it alive and with all body parts! :) We met our new tour guide in Vienna named Manuela and we headed to dinner at Wiener Wirtschaft. Dinner wasn't too shabby; it definitely wasn't something I would order on my own but it was tasty nonetheless! Once we all finished dinner we headed on the tram toward the Amusement Park that hosted the oldest Ferris Wheel in Vienna! A bit of a chilly night coming back to the hotel from the park, but it was all worth it. I can already tell that Vienna is going to be spectacular. To learn more about our experience here, keep up with the Travel Bugs, because as usual we are always going places!
All my love from Vienna,
Gabbi Ray :)
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