Bratislava, Slovakia.
Another mid-sized, charming eastern European city, Bratislava was accessible and affordable. By this time in our travels, we’ve come to appreciate a good city walk and many sites in Bratislava are reachable by foot, so that’s what we did.
The Old Town in Bratislava are streets and alleys of cobblestone with restaurants, art galleries, and other shops. We say many retired-age tourists in groups bearing earpieces, following a tour guide holding some kind of flag on a stick. It was lovely to see so many visitors to what we assumed might be off the beaten tourist trail.
The apartment rental where we stayed was modern, light, and well-equipped. We did lots of laundry. We also cooked several meals at home, though what we tried of Slovakian cuisine we really enjoyed.
Bratislava Castle was an impressive complex of fancy rooms, ancient artifacts from the region, and city history. Leo brought his Rubik’s Cube and was fiddling with it while wandering room to room. He got scolded in Slovakian with a “kids-these-days” tone by an elderly museum staff. She didn’t know, of course, we were in our ninth month travel and doing our best to fit a few more drops into our already-full travel buckets.
Just over the river from Austria (and one-hour train ride to Vienna) is Devin Castle which boasts history dating back to the 9th century. However, its modern history was on display with an exhibit showing how Devin Castle played a role in enforcing the Iron Curtain of communism. From 1951 to 1989 approximately 7500 people were detained and over 40 killed trying to escape to Austria.
View from the castletop.
Hike... with a snake sighting!
Ignore the sirens..