Europe Tour 2024 (Series Part 5)

(Part 5 of a Series)

Day 4.75 of the tour
Coming from Prague earlier that day in Day 4, the tour brings us to Bratislava, Slovakia in the evening. The tour package shows that we'll be spending the night here, then move on to Budapest, Hungary the following day.

Bratislava is a "free night" with nothing scheduled on the tour package, so DK arranged a walking tour. Our adventure in Bratislava began upon our arrival.

About the Walking Tour
Guru Walks provides a walking tour of Bratislava. Since we arrived at around 6:00pm, the only tour we'll be able to catch is the Spooky Tour, which is mostly about Bratislava's dark history.

The tour told the story and showed us the old residence of a famous executioner (which, apparently, they don't wear hoods during executions, as movies led us to believe), the site of the old hospital during the black plague, the statue of Ursula, and many others.

Combine those stories with the amber lights of the Bratislava town, the walking tour is a great experience to learn part of Slovakia's culture and history.

Bratislava Adventure
Our arrival in Bratislava was a bit underwhelming. We got of the bus, unloaded our bags, got our room key, settled in, refreshed ourselves, then off we went. DK was worried that we might not catch the scheduled tour at 7:00pm, since we just arrived at the hotel at around 5:45pm. Add to that the lack of prior research about the nuances of Bratislava's tram system (such as getting tickets, the station and the direction to go).

Good thing is that our hotel is right in front of a tram stop. A quick research suggested we take the direction heading towards the town. The fare can be paid for directly using a credit card on the terminal in the tram. (We initially thought we were double charged but we werent.)

Thanks to Goole we were able to identify the stop nearest the meeting point.

I was feeling a bit stressful at this point because I'm the navigator on our trips. I had to walk ahead of DK to be able to reach the meeting point, I figured she can catch up and I can request to wait for a few minutes.

We made it! We were able to join the walking tour.

A stolen photo of the walking tour guide and lead participants, with the amber lights adding to the spook.

The walking tour ended at Bratislava castle. Part of it is crossing a highway with a view of the UFO Tower, and the castle grounds overlook the bridge.

We tried to explore the castle grounds but it was starting to be late, so we walked the long way back to the town center to do more sightseeing and have dinner.

I'm not sure how busy the town is during the day, but this area is where the various embassies are located. And there's a lot of restaurants in the area, so maybe it's busy.

Adventure Part 2
Returning to the hotel was another adventure. We found the tram stop that's going back to our hotel, and we used the kiosk to buy tickets this time. There were two kiosks and while we were fiddling (more like looking for the english version) and a man actually bought tickets beside us. He actually glanced at us and I think he's checking if he needs to offer his help but decided against it.

When the tram arrived, he actually glanced back at us and asked, "you're riding?" to which I answered "No, we're waiting for number 4,". He just said alright and got on.

At that point I was surprised to see a girl almost right up at my face. She was so close it felt awkward. She said, "excuse me, I can't help but overhear you," and I was all shields up. But the girl continued with "...number four doesn't pass through here," I was like oh, and she just continued to tell me that there's an opposite direction station around the corner (it was a big intersection). I thanked the girl and we went to the said station. Indeed it was the train going to our hotel.

Whoever you are, young lady, thank you. We got back safe.

Thoughts on Bratislava
I want to go back. Seriously. I want to experience more of Bratislava.

On a non-serious note, Bratislava was butchered by the 2004 movie Eurotrip. In that movie, Bratislava was showed like an almost-apocalyptic landscape and an under-developed third-rate country. When the movie's protagonists asked if there's any available train, the person replied something like "Yes, soon. They're building it now." Bratislava's depiction was all in humor, of course, and it actually brought attention to the name. Which actually made me curious about how the city is. And boy I was surprised!

(BTW, I still get LSS on "Scotty doesn't know!" when I hear Bratislava.)

Bratislava is just like any other European city. It has a functioning train system similar to what we've seen in Frankfurt or Prague or anywhere else. Bratislava is dubbed as "Europe's most boring city", maybe because there isn't much to see and the government doesn't invest much in tourism. However, my research showed that education is priority, and I guess that's true. I observed that there's more college-age kids in the city than I'm used to.

Overall I really want to experience more of Bratislava. I want to go back and spend a day or two and really see the people and the places.

That and buy DK her city mug. ;)