A day in Bratislava

Last friday I went to Bratislava with two friends. Taking the boat from Schwedenplatz, my fellow Dutchie had enough time to explore the banks of the Danube the way one should.

We started at Hviezdoslav Square, walked through Slovakia capital’s old town with it’s many authentic shops and then went on climbing up to Bratislava Castle, situated on a plateau 85 metres above the Danube. Fresh of the boat, one needs coffee and (tofu) bagels. We got ours at a charming little place on a square in old town I remembered from my last trip to this city.

If you focus on the compact historic centre, you’ll see cobblestoned roads, pedestrian plazas, pastel 18th-century rococo buildings and street cafés galore. Expand your gaze and you can’t miss the institutional housing blocks and bizarre communist construction beyond. An age-old castle shares the skyline with a 1970s UFO-like bridge.

lonelyplanet.com on Bratislava

We admired some of Bratislava’s 20th-century structures include the Nový Most (New Bridge) across the Danube featuring a UFO-like tower restaurant and the uniquely designed Kamzík TV Tower with an observation deck and rotating restaurant. We wrote postcards to our loved ones at Greentree, while enjoying chai and matcha latte’s, before moving on to the Slovak National Gallery. One of the current exhibitions is ‘Interrupted Song; The Art of Socialist Realism 1948 – 1956′ (running till October the 21st), exploring the art in the period of Stalinist Socialist Realism.

Onwards to the Slovak National Museum / Natural History Museum (Slovenské národné múzeum), on the riverfront in the Old Town, to see the works of a patriot-with-a-camera and a shitload of stuffed (extinct) animals.

After that history lesson we hurried to the train station to catch our ride to Budapest. The following days in Hungary’s capital made our Bratislava adventure even more bizarre. The city’s mix of baroque buildings, Soviet statues and  futuristic elements is astonishing. For the architect nut, that is. Best viewed from the city’s castle I mentioned before, so well worth the climb!