Bratislava

As of June 30, my Fulbright grant and time in Poland are finished. I am now slowly traveling home via a mostly southern route. I am currently writing from Budapest, but the first stop of my trip was Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Links to my picture albums are on the right of this page, including my photos from Bratislava. If you have Facebook, you can check out my videos as well.

I left my apartment in Gdansk on June 30 for an afternoon train to Warsaw, where I caught a night train to Bratislava. While I didn’t sleep particularly well, I only shared the six-bed couchette cabin with one other person. The train arrived in Bratislava at 5:41 am. This wasn’t really a problem as the sun had already risen, and there were plenty of people about. I still find the early sunrise and late sunset somewhat disturbing. During June in Gdansk, the sky was only dark from about 10 pm to 3 am. Suffering from a lack of sleep, I checked into my hostel before hitting the town.

As a tourist draw, Bratislava is trying to compete with the heavyweights of Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and Krakow, but sadly, it just doesn’t quite have what it takes. My first stop of the day was Bratislava Castle. While the castle has been around in some form for at least 700 years, it is an unimpressive square of stone that was only rebuilt in the 1960s. The castle is also currently undergoing another renovation/reconstruction and is closed to the public, along with the reportedly interesting museums that it houses.

Bratislava used to have a fairly nasty reputation as a city, a reputation that the city is desperately trying to rid itself of. To this effect, they have cleaned up the old town area, but I think that they perhaps cleaned it up too much. Everything looks like it was built within the last 15 years, even the buildings that are supposedly hundreds of years old. Most of the buildings are occupied by designer clothes stores or other high-end shops. The center of the city seems to be set aside solely for tourists to shop or eat in, with no other purpose. That said, the rougher side of the city is still visible occasionally. One can see a swarm of smokestacks reaching for the sky further out in the city, and I am pretty sure that I passed a dead hooker lying on the ground.

The city, while it may not have the historical chops than its more popular and populous neighbors do, does not make enough effort to play up the history is does have. There are guide posts placed around the city, but they only point to the castle, the presidential palace, and a changing random location. The church where the Hungarian monarchs (Bratislava was the capital of the Hungarian Empire for awhile) were crowned for 300 years is not open to the public. There are many museums scattered around the city, but much of their content has little relation to the city or area. The Bratislava Arms and Armor museum mostly consists of Western European armament and bad English translations. The National Art Gallery, which possesses a huge collection of Slovakian art from several centuries, is barely listed on the recent tourist maps. The city should advertise its history more if it wants complete with other central European destinations.

The highlight of my two days in Bratislava was my trip to the nearby Devin Castle. The castle, which was destroyed by Napoleon in the early 19^th century, sits on a rocky bluff at the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers. Settlement at the location goes back thousands of years. While efforts are being made to polish it up just like Bratislava, it is still in ruined form for the most part and offers a gorgeous view of the surrounding hills and river. Check out my most recent picture album to see what I am talking about.

All things considered, I think that the real draw of Slovakia is its mountains and forests further east. If I had more time, I would like to explore them. Bratislava, even taking into account a side trip of a few hours to Devin Castle, is probably best done as a day trip from Vienna. At most, it is a nice place to stop for a day or two in between Budapest and Prague or Vienna. The city is, however, relatively free of the hordes of tourists that plague the larger cities that I have mentioned.