The Travel Diaries -- Bratislava -- Feb 27, 2016

So, I've been feeling a bit cooped up in Vienna for the last while. Our trip home for Christmas was not as relaxing or as decompressing as I had hoped. I haven't found European living to be what I expected (posts on this to come!). During one of our recent conversations about how to alleviate these feelings, Chris and I decided we would take a speedy day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. From Vienna, it is a short 1hour 6 min train journey, which costs as low as €10.10 (I still use the period between the cents and euros) per person each direction.

As this was rather spontaneous, we booked tickets for Saturday February 27, on the Wednesday before. But in reality, we could have purchased the tickets at the train station with no problem for seating. More than half the seats were empty both directions but it is also not tourist season yet.

Another option for getting to Bratislava from Vienna is to take a boat down the Donau River (Danube in English, for reasons I cannot fathom). Unfortunately, the riverboats do not run during the winter so we were not able to take this option. I think it is definitely going back to Bratislava in the Spring/Summer/Fall months by this option because it gives you an idea of the landscape. We will probably do that at some point in the next few years.

A quick internet search later, we discovered that the main attractions of Bratislava are: the quaint Old Town which is within the old medieval city walls, the Bratislava Castle, the Devin Castle ruins, and the Blue Church. Not speaking Slovakian and not really knowing much about the history of Slovakia, I searched for a free walking tour in English.

They actually have these in almost every major city in Europe. I used them a lot when I was traveling around Europe in Summer 2012. The concept is that the company hires tour guides who lead you on a walking tour of the city and tell you stories about the various monuments and locations around. It gives you a more complete understanding of the city and the tour guides are locals so they are familiar with the areas and topics on which they are describing. The idea is that they work for tips, so the tour itself is free and as a result the guides are motivated to give an engaging, informative, and fun tour. Usually each group is at least 30 strong so if each person tips a few Euro, the guide still makes a good sum at the end of the day.

Anyway, I found a free walking tour for Bratislava offered by Be Free Tours. We took the 11am tour and had Dominika as our tour guide. She was a really good tour guide and we walked around basically the whole of Bratislava. The tour leads you around the whole of Old Town and then brings you around to the new town areas. All the while, we learned about the history of Bratislava, Slovakia and its time(s) as Czechoslovakia. It was interesting to hear about Communism from someone who's country was Communist until very recently. In the end, we saw everything there was to see in Bratislava on the 2.5 hour walking tour. We did not actually visit the Bratislava Castle grounds but were given good directions on how to get there. We did, however, see the Blue Church, which is definitely definitely worth going to see. It is beautiful and whimsical in a way that the rest of Bratislava is not, especially the buildings from the Communist era. This is something that we might have missed out on if we hadn't gone on the walking tour. The church itself is a bit out of the way, and if you are going by yourself, I highly recommend seeking it out.

Jewish Memorial

The bell tower of the church.

This guy is called "The Watcher." Supposedly he is just waiting for the day's work to be done and watching people pass by. 

The original outer wall of Medieval Bratislava. See the holes where the chains for the drawbridge used to be?

SNP Square -- This is where many public protests have occurred throughout the history of Bratislava. Its also a popular meeting point for the locals. 

The Blue Church 

This is actually a secondary school directly across the street from the Blue Church, built in the same style.

Can you spot us? (Hint: back, leftish :) )

Entering back into the Old Town. The floating gate is where one of the Medieval walls used to be located.

This is now a museum, but it used to be their Old Town Hall. I liked the building because it had various types of architecture in one building. 

This is St. Michael's Gate, which is one of the inner gates of the medieval Bratislava town.

After the tour, we went through Old Town again, to shop for a trinket. Chris and I try and find a small trinket from each place we visit together so that we can have something to remember the place by. In the end we found this little fella. He reminds me of the medieval-ness of Old Town Bratislava and I just thought he was too cute not to take home.

This is Bertie, our little fella to remember our Bratislava adventure. How cute is he?!

We then went up to Bratislava Castle, which, if I'm honest, doesn't look like anything super special. The view was pretty nice, because you can see the Donau river and the "UFO Bridge" but on the other side of the river is just endless lengths of Communist block housing. This is an architectural style that I really do not appreciate. And I suppose that Bratislava Castle has a similar feel to it. Its so utilitarian and rather boring. It seems like it could just be a large, sterile hotel from the outside. On the front of the castle, however, was hints of what the style was originally. There is a stone arch and window that seems to recreate a peek into what it may have looked like years past. Evidently, the Castle was only reconstructed and finished in 2011, after it was burned to the ground by Italians cooking dinner. And the fact that it was finished in 2011 seems to be reflected in how the building now looks. In any case, the grounds around the castle were very nice and well maintained, and it definitely provided a nice view of the Old and New Towns of Bratislava.

After that we went to the Bratislavan brewery recommended on the tour, Bratislavský Meštiansky Pivovar, and had a house beer and the Slovakian soda, Kofola,  as well as sharing the traditional garlic soup in a bread bowl. We both liked the drinks pretty well, but the garlic soup was a bit too garlicky and rich. The whole bill came to €9 including tip. Eastern Europe is so much more affordable than the West. Its something we are aware of, but I just didn't realize how inexpensive everything actually is in Eastern Europe.

We then decided that since it was just before 5pm we would go for a jaunt around the city before heading to the Bratislavská Reštaurácia, another recommendation from the tour, for dinner. We decided, we'd try and find some of the green-space shown on the map, since the whole city seemed to be largely concrete and stone (much like Vienna). This is where we went wrong, I think. We basically started walking around and in the end started to feel really uncomfortable because the fact that we had seen no real locals in the city all day was massively amplified as dark was approaching. It honestly felt like a ghost town once you walked outside of where tourists normally tread.

For contrast, in Vienna or any U.S. city, at night there would still be locals going about their normal nightly or evening routines. Going to the shops, eating out, going to bars, etc. In Bratislava, we had noticed, during the day, that we saw many more tourists than locals (mostly working in places that service tourists) and at night, when most tourists were gone, the town was just empty. It was an extremely weird experience and it made us rather uncomfortable because it seemed like there might be a reason why nobody was out and about at night.

A little candy shop that had this window display on our evening walk around Bratislava.

In the end, a short hour walk later, we went to Bratislavská for dinner. We were told to try the Bryndzové halušky so slaninkou (potato dumpling with sheep cheese), which Chris tried. I had Naše domáce zemiakové gul'ky plnené údenym mäskom, podávané na sladkej dusenej kapuste so slaninkou (potato pierogi with meat and sauerkraut). We ordered Lokše (latkes) for dessert and they were super buttery and fatty. Overall, the meal definietly seem like traditional Slovakian food but we didn't really enjoy it all that much. Including tip, it only cost us €20 so we were happy for the experience of having traditional food.

After dinner, we felt we had seen all there was to see in Bratislava. We had sort of already discovered this while looking on the map at the brewery earlier and decided that we would take a slightly earlier train home. We arrived back in Vienna a little before 10pm a mere 13 hours after we had left around 9am that morning. All in all, Bratislava was definitely worth visiting but it doesn't take more than 12 hours to essentially see it all. Unless you plan to enjoy the bar and nightlife that is offered, night time in the city is weirdly ghostly.

The one thing that we missed on our trip was going to see Devin Castle ruins. This was a conscious decision after we noticed that all the dirt areas were rather muddy. We'll probably hit it up when we go by riverboat to Bratislava next time.

If you go to Bratislava, definitely go to the Blue Church and walk around Old Town. Climbing up to Bratislava Castle is also probably worth it for the views.