Bratislava, Slovakia
The Blue Church
Coming from Vienna, our bus ride to Bratislava was only an hour. Then we found a train to take us to the right part of town- gotta love the public transport in Europe! We didn’t have big expectations for Bratislava but after spending a few days there, it’s one of our favorite European cities so far. Our airbnb was such a nice change of pace from the hostels we’d gotten used to. We had so much more of an appreciation for cleanliness and a bathroom all to ourselves! We were also on the 17th floor which had a great view of the city.
Our FlixBus to Bratislava actually had functioning wifi, so I had created a list of things to see in our few days here. Josh had been to Bratislava before but it was right at the start of covid and he wasn’t able to explore much. After dropping off our bags, we headed out towards the Old Town. Our first impressions of the city were that it had enough people to make it feel lively, but wasn’t overcrowded and that there was plenty to do there! We got dinner at Orbis Street Food which had burritos and Belgian fries in a cone!
After that, we walked all around the Historic District checking off the things on my list and then went up the hill to the Bratislava Castle. There must've been a fancy person getting married because they had the whole garden area of the castle blocked off (what a venue!) There were also guards at the front gate collecting an entrance fee. Rather than pay it, we decided to walk around the outside until we found another small door into the opposite end of the courtyard… my frugal self was very happy with our find. We were able to walk all around the castle grounds and get an awesome view of that side of the city and the Danube river. We made our way back down and stumbled upon a fun night market with live music. While we were down there, I hunted out a gelato shop called Luculus which had a bajillion flavors! I tried dark chocolate fudge in a homemade waffle cone and it was one of the best gelato stops we’ve had so far. Stay tuned to see other icecream and food places we try on this trip! Anyways, it was getting dark, so we walked back across the Old Bridge (also called Stary most) to our airbnb for the night.
The next day, we had a few things left on my list so we had to make sure we were energized. I found a donut shop that I knew Josh would love called La Donuteria and we got coffee from a little cart on wheels! Our donuts were literally the best donuts we’ve ever had and our selection was peanut butter, nutella, and cream-filled pistachio! With happy tummies, we walked to see the Blue Church, Slavín Monument, and then Horsky Park, which ended up being a lot of uphill that Josh was thrilled about…
After convincing Josh that our efforts would be worth it, we found the park to be abandoned and a bit creepy… maybe not all I hyped it up to be. It was hot and we had already walked a lot of steps, so we got an Uber to the mall for some food court lunch. Our favorite thing about food courts is that we can both eat whatever looks good to us and we don’t have to decide on one. After eating, we went out to see the last few things on my checklist like the UFO building and Čumil (a statue of a man coming out of a manhole) before walking back across the river. You can actually go up the UFO tower and have a fancy meal with a view, so maybe we’ll do that next time! The rest of the night was spent working and resting before heading to a new country tomorrow.
