After my discussions with Stanley in Brno, I was expecting Bratislava to feel quite poor and shabby. As I got off the bus into a super modern shopping mall this was not what I was met with. I even saw a robot barista making coffees. I met up with Will from Prague and we explored Bratislava together that afternoon and evening. We wandered around the old town, it felt more open than Prague, a lot quieter and a lot smaller. Perhaps a little bit prettier, but that might have been the better weather. We crossed the Danube river, walked through an averagely nice park where I realised how useless my biology degree really is when Will had to teach me that the pretty flowers in the park were in fact roses. We crossed back over an adjacent bridge and saw the blue church. It’s probably the most famous site in Bratislava, and it really was beautiful. It made me excited to see more blue churches in Turkey and further east. This one was originally orange, but when an inside wall was painted blue the Priests liked it so much they ordered the whole church to be painted the same colour. I bet the painter cursed them all.
That night I was staying at the Wild Elephants hostel, one I’d heard a lot about as a bit of a crazy place. My room was the worst dorm room I’ve ever seen, but the pub crawl was cool. Some others from Prague were also staying there so that made it even more fun.
The next day I walked up to the castle with the people from Prague. The view was pretty good but we couldn’t go into the castle because there was some political conference going on. We spent the afternoon on a Communist walking tour which was extremely interesting. I really love communist Russian history after studying it during my A levels (not an Alex Cleere Falklands level obsession, but I do listen to a lot of Russian history podcasts), so I thoroughly enjoyed it. One titbit is the design of the large square and fountain in the communist city centre (it isn’t the city centre anymore). It was designed with the purpose of looking pretty in pictures for propaganda, but not really being suitable for use and especially not for use as a place to protest. For example, mounds of grass were included to prevent formation of crowds, and benches were left as unpainted metal to make them too hot to sit on in the summer, and too cold in the winter (your skin would literally freeze to it). There’s also the famous UFO soviet bridge of course, which Will is modeling beautifully.
On my last full day, Greg and I went to Devlin Castle which is just a short bus ride away. The castle was only ruins but had a great view of the Danube. As we wondered back down the hill we saw some medieval stands so went to explore. We stumbled across a medieval re-enactment festival sort of thing. There were knights and princesses and horses and a jousting set up. We sat down, I was excited to see some real life jousting! The games began and it turns out it wasn’t real jousting, but different competitions to pick up hoops with jousting poles whilst on horseback, or pop balloons, or smash fruit with swords. I felt silly for thinking they would actually joust. But then they did! It was very exciting, and they really did smash into each other, their joust poles splintering and the losing knight very dramatically sliding off his horse to be helped by the peasants. It was really wonderful to watch, especially as we had no idea it was happening.
Once we got back to the city we showered and wore our smartest clothes as we were going to the opera. It was a small opera production, in the rehearsal space rather than the main stage. We had no idea what was going on, it was all in Slovakian (or perhaps german?) and seemed strange anyway. But the singing was wonderful to listen to, and it was a very pleasant 1.5 hours. Letting the strange language wash over us like a pretty painting. I’m not sure I’ll go out of my way to go to another opera though, I’m glad this one was only 12 EUR. As we walked back the skies opened and it poured with rain.
Beautiful Bratislava
Bratislava really surprisied me. It was peaceful, but had a great nightlife. It was cheap (I paid 3.20 EUR for 2 pints of beer), but it also had bougee brunch places. It had a beautiful old town sqaure and wonderfully ugly communist buildings. The communist walking tour was the best tour I’ve done so far. I loved walking around the town with friends from Prague. Devlin castle and the jousting were a delightful surprise. Because the city is much smaller than Prague, I do feel like I know it in the way I didn’t with Prague. I recommend Bratislava with my whole heart, for a slightly different European city break.
