Thursday

Bratislava - A to Z of Places I have Visited


For the next few months I am going to write about some places I have visited and do them in alphabetical order.
Still wondering what I will do for the more unusual letters like Q and X etc. but maybe I will have a brilliant idea later.





Well I have visited several places that start with the letter B but I really wanted to pick Bratislava for 2 reasons.

Firstly we never started out intending to go to Bratislava but when we were there we had a very enjoyable time.
Secondly the other places I have visited that start with B could fall into other categories like one of the cities/towns of a specific country that I have been to other places in as well and I might do a little series later on those countries.


Well in 2010 we were planning to go to Vienna in Austria before we would be leaving our home of over 6 years in Belgium to return to live in Northern Ireland (another country I have lots of B places for).   So we started to see where we would fly to for Vienna and discovered that Ryanair flew to Bratislava which was in Slovakia and not Austria but just a train journey over the border to Vienna and it was a very cheap flight.




So we were in Slovakia a first for both Fred & I (even though he has travelled to far more countries than I have).

When we arrived we got the train from the airport to the city; it was still quite early in the morning and the weather was wet and windy so the first thing was a coffee.







Now Fred is not found of coffee and I love coffee but we hadn't a clue about the language and in the little cafe at the train station we had to guess the menu.

I found a coffee ok but he wasn't sure about tea so in the end he picked a coffee and it was different to any coffee we had seen before.   I was actually jealous of it but I just had to get a picture of him with that coffee.








That coffee was so good that he had the same sort of grin on his face after he had drunk it.


Then we felt the rain was not as heavy as earlier and we took a leisurely walk up through some of the the main streets of the city.


Photo Credit:  Pixabay


We came to the Market Square and really no market is very pleasant in the rain






and I was very glad I had my heavy, hooded warm coat for this morning adventure.







We did have a little wander around the market and got something to eat that we had never had before but I can't remember the name of it.  This is why I had decided that I should always carry a travel notebook with me but did I have it with me that day?  NO!


Here is a picture of the same square on a dry day.


Photo Credit:  Pixabay


On the way up to the market Square we had noticed something rather different on the ground so on the way back down we had another look and took a picture





of a soldier? in a manhole?








and then another picture closer up.

Apparently there are quite a few of these types of statues around Bratislava but this was the only one we saw on our short trip there.



We didn't have enough time to go to see the castle close up




Photo Credit:  Pixabay


but you can see it above in a picture over the city during sunset.



Photo Credit:  Pixabay

Then we also didn't get to see the UFO Tower which we didn't even know about.

Not very good at doing our research before leaving on this trip unfortunately and if we had known more and had better weather I think we would have really loved this city.  As it was I do have fond memories of that day.


Photo Credit:  Pixabay



We had to get back then to the train station to get the train to our destination of Vienna and we were glad that we had left ourselves plenty of time because when we got to the station we could not find where to get the train.

We were at the wrong station, there are two of them and the one we came to from the airport was not the one we needed to leave from to get to Vienna.  A little bus journey round the city was needed to find it.



Have you ever been to Bratislava? Check this out to see if it is worth visiting.


I would definitely recommend a day or two in Bratislava but hope for better weather than we got but if the weather is not so good just drop into the Train Station cafe and treat yourself to one of those delicious coffees if you can work out which one it is in the menu.







See Other posts in this series:

A for Alicante