Devin's Travels: Bratislava

Arriving at the train station in Bratislava we quickly walked down the road and found our hostel just a couple hundred meters away. After checking in and dumping our bags in our room we set off to explore the city for the rest of the day. Our first stop was the Bratislava Castle which is perched on top of a hill just at the edge of the old town and overlooking the Danube River. Climbing up the hill we were able to have some great views out over the old town of Bratislava and across the river to the newer communist side. The views were completely different and on one side we had beautiful old buildings while across the river all we saw were countless apartment blocks which all looked identical. The castle itself was sadly undergoing massive restoration work so we couldn't get close to the actual building but we did discover a small museum detailing Bratislava's history (only in Slovakian though) and contained a small ancient coin collection with some interesting stories in English. After visiting the castle we wandered back down the hill and started to wander through the old town where we found a place to eat a simple lunch. After lunch the rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the small alleyways of the old town and hunting for the unique statues present there. All together we saw at least 4 interesting statues and those were: The Watcher (a statue of a worker peeping out of an imaginary manhole), The Frenchman (a statue leaning on a park bench), The Photographer (a statue peering around a corner taking a picture, something like a paparazzi), and The Schoner Naci (a statue who is tipping his top hat). After exploring the charming old town we returned to our hostel for a short rest before heading out to eat an excellent dinner at a packed local pub where we spent most of the evening before returning home to bed.

The next morning was our last day to explore the Bratislava city area and we started off by taking the bus out to nearby Devin Castle. The castle contains a nice open space with green grass and lots of old stone buildings that are in various states of ruin. Upon entering the castle grounds we were delighted to find out that there was a large reenactment occurring that weekend so hundreds of people had turned up dressed in historic costumes and were marching around and displaying how people used to live in the castle. We watched the main performance for a few minutes but since it was all in Slovakian we couldn't understand anything so we then started to wander around the castle grounds. In one of the more restored buildings we found a small archeology museum that talked about restoration work being done to the castle and some of the finds that they had made there which was interesting; but other than that most of the castle was in ruins and the highest buildings were off limits to tourists so it only took a couple of hours to see everything.

Returning back to Bratislava in the early afternoon we then proceeded to visit the small Museum of Jewish Culture which contained a nice display about Jewish culture and an even more interesting and moving exhibit about the Jewish community lost in WWII. After visiting the museum we returned to the hostel for a short rest before returning to the delicious local pub for dinner and a few drinks to spend our last evening in Bratislava.

The next morning we set off for the train station and quickly got settled down for a long train journey to our next destination Spisska Nova Ves where we planned to explore the nearby Slovensky Raj National Park.