Advertisement
St Michael's Gate
Entry to old town Bratislava I took the trip to
Bratislava with my Canadian friends hoping to watch the semi finals of the world hockey championships. That plan went down in flames when the Russians knocked out the Canadians in the quarter finals as we arrived on the Thursday night. That ensures that we hit up the pubs for them to console the fact that we won't be going to the hockey. The night life in Bratislava is buzzing. Many stag parties and many hockey fans chant on the streets and we find a sports bar to sit outside on the balmy evening where topless barmaids serve Russian groups vodka. The Russians all wear the oversized hockey shirts that still don't cover up their massive guys and man boobs that outsize the barmaids. We enjoy plenty of cheap pints and forget that team Canada is out of the tournament.
The next day we did a bit of a walking tour of the beautiful old town of Bratislava. Which starts by walking through the quirky
St Michaels gate and winding down through the cobbled streets to the town square with its old town hall and the square is currently filled with temporary hockey displays. Wherever you
go in Bratislava there is hockey everywhere, whether it is the figurines on the streets, the souvenir stands or the chanting fans. We pass a couple of old cathedrals, see a few very odd statues and that's the old town covered.
We then went outside the town walls and up the hill to the castle, an excellent vantage point to check out the huge
Danube river as well as looking down on the old town. The castle itself is a massive disappointment. Its history reads well, built in the 9th century and changing hands and purpose numerous times, and then it burnt down in 1811. The reconstruction began in the 1950s and is still going. The building now has no character and is just an unwelcoming and lifeless large box.
We then headed north to the large presidential palace which is a private home but its sprawling gardens are open to the public and we check out more unusual statues and fountains. From there we headed further north up the hill to a large monument and war grave from the second world war. The monument was ideally positioned to get great views of the city.
All the
walking around had us spent and I tackled a schnitzel that was so big it didn't fit on the plate, the perfect insulation for a few pints while watching the two semi finals on TV where Sweden upset the Czechs and the Finns smashed the Russians which pleased the Canadians. With the Czechs and the Russians being the loudest fans in the street the previous night, the streets were notably quieter now that they were out.
The next morning we checked out the
Primatial palace and its famous mirror hall where napolean signed a peace treaty with the Slovaks in the late 18th century before we headed to
Vienna on the twin city liner, a 90 minute boat ride down the serene Danube river. Vienna is just 60kms from Bratislava, making them the closest capital cities in the world.
Sadly it was raining when we arrived on the boat from Bratislava but we still toughed out the 30 minute walk to our hotel in
Mariahilf, the very modern shopping district slightly south of the centre. On the way we walked past the amazing Gothic
St Stephens Cathedral and many beautiful opera houses and museums.
Vienna is certainly
a city of very grand buildings, perhaps more so than any other city in Europe. As a central hub and capital in Europe with much history, I guess that's understandable. The clean streets, many parks and good public transport all contribute to why it is constantly rated one of the most livable cities in the world. Not to say it isn't touristy though, and every man and his dog want to sell you tickets to see
Mozart concerts, luckily my wife can't stand classical music and we give it a miss although we did manage to sneak into one music hall during intermission just to check out the building!
The next day the rain continued and we so we took the one hour tour of the
State Opera Theatre, an amazing building that plays opera shows 360 days a year at an astronomical cost of €90 million annually, thanks to the fact that so many different operas are played and all have incredibly elaborate sets. Tickets are rare as hens teeth despite their sky high prices. So elitist it's sickening! The tour took us backstage to marvel at the engineering feats of the backdrops and to the intermission rooms
with their tapistries and artwork. It was a nicely done tour. From there we checked out the lavish parliament buildings and went inside St Stephens cathedral before heading to
Belvedere's Palace on the way to the station. The palace gardens were an epic walk around and the palace which was a summer house of 18th century Princes and is now an art gallery. Im not much of an art buff, so we found 2 days to be plenty of time in Vienna!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.305s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 40; dbt: 0.0676s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Timothy Barton
non-member comment
Closest capital cities
Are you sure they're the closest capitals in the world. Notwithstanding Vatican City and Rome, since that's a rather special case, I'm sure Kinshasa and Brazzaville are closer together.