Blogs from Bratislava, Bratislava Region, Slovakia, Europe - page 12

Instead of stopping in Vienna again, we decided to go to Bratislava and see the capital of Slovakia, which is just 60km north of Vienna. Once again, we didn't have much time, but we did take a few pictures and walked around the Old Town. Even though it's quite close to Austria and Hungary, you can see and feel the difference in architecture, culture, food, and people. The Old Town is beautiful, full of old buildings and narrow streets on a hill, on top of which is a big castle overlooking the Danube river. We crossed Danube many times on our trip, and it's not quite exactly blue, but it's an important and impressive river in every city, whether Vienna, Bratislava or Novi Sad.... read more

Squeezing my backpack through the aisle. I noticed these Irish girls from the previous night. “Oh no” I thought but it was too late I was spotted and invited to sit down. Luckily the train ride was only from Bratislava to Vienna (a little under an hour). This train ride was just one reason why seeing Europe through drunken eyes is the only way. I arrived in the Slovakian capital after another marathon day trip from Ljubljana. I arrived early evening so the sun was leaning towards dusk. Reception brings out a map and with his pen he points out. “Okay here, here, here, here and here. Those are the major sites it should take you an hour.” Oh great! I was thinking 3 days here? I spread out the sites in 3 days but an ... read more

Monday Today we met at half 8 to catch the train to Bratislava, Slovakia. We caught the tram to the station and then got on the train. The journey took about an hour and was fairly scenic. When we got there George showed us where to go in the old town before he had to head back to Vienna. We headed up to the castle first. It was under rennovation but we walked around the outside and it gave us great views of Bratislava - a surprisingly cosmopolitan city. Apparently you could also see Vienna and Budapest from there. Tony found north on his compass but we still couldn't quite work out which was which! Then we took a walk down the hill back to the old town. A few people went for lunch and the ... read more

Bratislava really doesn't seem to like me much. I write this from an internet café on the way back from Budapest. I had a really cool time, went there last night for a club night at a boat on the danube which a friend of mine was putting on with some other guys. While it lasted it was good, however we were caught by an absolutely ferocious windstorm which proved having the club on the boat too dangerous, so it was shut down at something like 1:30am, about 4 hours earlier than planned and just as everyone was starting to arrive. So we spent the rest of the evening at my friends flat eating cheese sandwiches and listening to classical music and weird electronic classical stuff. I managed to sleep on the train back as far ... read more

This entry may seem somewhat less like travel writing than my usual and and will have no pictures, as I'm not sure whether writing about this should be considered travel blogging or just generally raising awareness of a certain experience which I've had more than once in my life, and had again on our last night in Slovakia, which we spent in the capital city, Bratislava. Short and to the point, we were mostly offended by how expensive the place was - when we're used to paying 2 euros for a beer and a red wine, going back and paying 11 euros for the same was not particularly welcoming, and we found ourselves waxing lyrical about how much we preferred Banská Bystrica pretty early on in the evening! I suggested that we need to get away ... read more