Bratislava, Slovakia

Well, I'm back from a whirlwind weekend and it was phenomenal! In the past few days we have been in three countries with extremely different cultures, Austria included. We were flying Ryan Air to Dublin, because it is the cheapest airline to fly, which meant we had to depart from the Bratislava airport.

Our flight was not until Wednesday evening, but we figured we would go earlier in the day and sightsee in Slovakia! Bratislava is only 45 minutes from Vienna on bus and they depart multiple times per hour. For some unknown reason we thought it was a great idea to buy tickets for the 6:00 AM bus - meaning we had to leave our dorms at about 5:10, making for some very unhappy travelers. We also had to carry our luggage with us all day, which got heavy towards the end so we began resting like this:

We arrived in Bratislava a little before 7, with no problems. It was immediately clear that there were two groups of us - some that were going to be crabby and complain all day, and others of us that were going to embrace the fact that we will likely never be back to Slovakia!

We dropped the crabby group off at a McDonalds were they were going to sit for a while, and headed into the heart of Bratislava. We quickly realized that absolutely nothing was open until 8, so we wandered the streets and saw lots of people heading to school and work, as the city woke up. In the heart of Bratislava, they have many statues hidden in street corners and alleys. These combined make up the 7th most popular attraction in Bratislava, and they sure were exciting!


Once more was open we stopped in a cafe to warm up, grab some breakfast and get caffeinated. The employees there spoke perfect English so we asked them questions about what we should see, and more importantly how to get to the airport from the city center. They were very friendly and gave us all of the information we [thought we] needed.


Bratislava's main attraction is the castle, which we headed to next. Along the way we made some detours throughout the town to peek into churches and a few government buildings. We climbed our way up to the castle, which is atop a hill overlooking the city and river - luckily we still had not met up with the crabby group, because this was an exhausting climb with our backpacks! The castle offered great views of the city, where we obviously stopped to take many pictures and rest. We ventured into the castle, which had recently been renovated and converted into a variety of art museums. Some of the exhibits were very interesting, while we sped through others. One of the more interesting ones was a photography exhibit that showed all sorts of scenes in Slovakia from the past few decades. Many were very simple, but it gave us a much better understanding of their culture and history. We were also able to climb the bell tower which gave us a 360 degree view of the city!

By the time we made our way through the castle, we only had about an hour before we needed to start heading towards the airport. We found the crabby group, and decided to stop for some quick lunch. The waitress spoke no english at all, and the process of ordering was very complicated. We eventually found out after many rounds of ordering that they were only serving two dishes from the menu. A few people ordered, but many of us dealt with the snacks we had packed and figured we could eat at the airport.

We had allowed almost three and a half hours for us before our flight to figure out how to get there and have time to check in. Finding the airport proved to be much more complex and stressful than the women at the coffeehouse had made it seem, especially when dealing with a large sleep-deprived and already crabby group. Another stress factor was the fact that it is very hard to find an english speaking person in Bratislava. We had someone in our group that speaks english, german and polish so he began speaking to people in all three and hoping they spoke one! Polish ended up being the winner!

Where's the airport??

We finally were fairly certain that we had to go back to the bus stop we had arrived at an buy a ticket, before heading to another bus stop which was about a 15 minute walk, and then transfer buses at the train station which would eventually drop us at the airport. Some people got so fed up and annoyed with the process, so they hopped in a cab. Those of us that were still calm and collected went about our way, and eventually did make it to the airport in plenty of time. We figured it out one step at a time, and ended up seeing a lot more of the city on our journey! We also only paid 90 cents to get there, while the cab group each paid 12 euro!

Overall, I am very happy that we spent the day in Bratislava. I would not recommend anyone vacation there, as there is really not much to see at all and the people are not all that friendly! We made the most of the day though, because when are we ever going to be in Slovakia again? Never!