Day #215 - Bratislava, Slovakia

The Castle - "upturned table"

Old Town Hall

Primatial Palace

St. Michael's Gate - one of 4 gates to ancient fortified city

Grassalkovich Palace

Friday, October 15th

Today I visited the second country which now makes up the former communist state of Czechoslovakia. I've been to the Czech Republic - today, I visited Slovakia. I took a 1 hour train from Vienna to Bratislava - the capital of Slovakia. The cost was 14 euro ($18-19) for the train ride and return. This also included free passes on all buses and trams in the city. My eurail pass does not work in this country - but the cost was incredibly cheap. The tourist info places have these pamplets made out just for trips to Bratislava. I'm sure they're trying to boost tourism in this area.

Pretty interesting place. I wasn't sure what to expect - but it was OK. It certainly didn't have the glamour and spice that some areas offer - but the streets did have a number of tourists and the "Old Town" provided some unique history.

Bratislava has a population of 420,000 people - easily the largest city in Slovakia. It's located on the very western portion of the country - not far from Vienna or Budapest, Hungary. The city sits on the Danube River - which also flows through Budapest.

On the train ride over, I picked out 6 places I wanted to visit per my travel brochure. I knocked these out, had a nice lunch, and was back on my return train in about 3-4 hours. The take home for me will be: (1) The city had four gates to the medieval fortified town. One of these gates remains - St. Michael's Gate. The Old Town is really compact and one could easily picture a fortress enclosing it. (2) The Bratislava Castle (The Burg) sits atop a hill overlooking the city. (not unlike Salzburg). It's referred to as an "upturned table". This place does not look much like your everyday castle - very different. Today, this palace contains a permanent exhibition of the Slovak National Museum and representative premises of the National Council of the Slovak Republic.

The other 4 locations I visited include: St. Martin's Cathedral (Gothic Church consecrated in 1452. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, 11 Hungarian rulers and 8 king's wives were crowned in the church), Grassalkovich Palace (Became the seat of the president of the Slovak Republic in 1996), Old Town Hall (Houses the Bratislava City Museum with an exhibition of the feudal judicial system and history of the town), and Primatial's Palace (winter archbishop's palace from the end of the 18th century).

The thing that interests me the most about places like this today --- it's a new country. It's deceptive. I'm spending 9 months touring all around and seeing this unbelievable history. Well, many of the "historic" buildings have been rebuilt or restored in the past 50 years. Plus, it's all new geographically. The states in the US have more history than many of the current coutries in Europe.

I arrived back in Vienna at the southern train station. I decided to walk back to my hotel. I was able to see many areas I missed yesterday. Vienna is impressive - no 2 ways you can say it. The archtecture, the buildings - it doesn't stop. I walked around the central part of the city between 5-8pm on Friday night. Activity - alot of it. If you like architecture - this is your place. Other cities can easily match Vienna 1-1 on the top attractions; however, it's the quantity that stand out to me.

Tomorrow I need to run long again. Last one before tappering into Athens. There is a gym right next to my hotel. Solid. I'm going to run inside. It's about 40 degrees. I like the cold - and have run in much, much colder weather. Just don't want to expose the lungs to it if not necessary right now. Afterwards - maybe another day trip - we'll see how I feel.