Bratislava, Slovakia

This morning, I met Bodie and Georgia at around 08:30 to head to Bratislava. There were a few others who where planning on coming as well, but they slept in too long.

We walked to the Vienna Main Station and took the REX 8 to Bratislava. An hour later, we arrived in Bratislava and started walking towards the old town. The old town seems like it used to be a walled city, and it is now a really nice pedestrian area.

Then, we headed up to Bratislava Castle. Unfortunately, the exhibits are closed on Tuesdays, but we were able to walk around the grounds of the castle which was pretty cool. It’s located on a hill that ostensibly overlooks the Danube. I was unable to confirm this, as the fog was so thick we couldn’t even see the riverbank. I’m sure the views were probably spectacular, though.

After wandering the castle grounds for a bit, we headed back down to the old town and found a restaurant that served traditional Slovak fare. I got a dish with pierogies, gnocchi with bacon and sausage and sauerkraut. It was quite good, and the portion was very large so I was quite full after that meal.

It was overcast, and kinda cold, so we figured that inside activities would be in order. We decided to go to the Slovak National Gallery. There was a children’s book illustrations exhibit where they featured award-winning illustrations from countries all over the world. There were also exhibits of pieces from a variety of time periods from the middle ages all the way to modern art.

We got art-ed out after about an hour and a half. The last attraction we visited was the Blue Church. It was very blue. The white balance on my phone camera got all confused due to how blue it was.

We then proceeded at a relatively leisurely pace to the train station to head back to Vienna. I slept a bit on the way back to Vienna, and once back at the hostel, I went back to my bed and took another nap.

I really appreciated being able to go to Bratisava with some other people. It was very much not tourist season, so the town felt kinda dead at times. It was nice to get to know Georgia and Bodie a bit better and have some company on the journey.

After my nap, I went down to the bar and had a few drinks with the group that had formed from the walking tour yesterday. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to Brno to visit the Austerlitz battlefield on my way to Prague.