Welcome to Slovakia.

Slovak Sortie

Doing my homework on looking up how to get to my accommodation from the train station paid big dividends, as there is hardly any transport support around, unless, of course, you know how to speak Slovak. Bratislava (or Slovakia for that matter) is definitely not one of those places where you can easily pluck out someone who can speak English from the crowd; Slovaks are quite proud of their language and tourism in Bratislava is actually more recent than most think, so the only places where English abounds a bit (including English signage) is in the old town centre.

Bratislava public transportation uses all of buses, trolley buses and trams, and is ridiculously cheap. A no-transfer journey up to 15 minutes is 70 Euro cents, whilst 90 Euro cents will get you up to a 60 minute journey (or 90 minutes on weekends) with unlimited transfers. Those familiar with the ticket system in Germany will have little trouble negotiating the system here, where you buy a ticket from a fare machine, which is then validated using the validation boxes on board the transport.


Inside Bratislava main train station (Hlavná stanica).


Bratislava main train station from the outside.

I eventually found the bus stop outside the train station corresponding to the bus I needed to take to get to my accommodation, which was quite far from the city centre (or old town centre). By road it didn't seem too far, but it was definitely too far to walk comfortably. The buses were running fairly well on time this evening, so I boarded the bus and made my way eventually to a stop which seemed to be on a stretch of major traffic road (2 lanes in each direction). Crossing the road proved to be a bit of a challenge, even with the cross-signals located about 100 m away from the stop.


My accommodation: Holiday Inn Bratislava.


Accommodation: Holiday Inn Bratislava
Room: King Deluxe Room


As I found out later, the Holiday Inn Bratislava is actually a very popular conference venue, and for some odd reason there do seem to be quite a few conferences happening in Bratislava at any given time. Check-in was nice and effortless; I was advised of the breakfast available in the hotel restaurant (not free and not quite cheap either), and I had been given a room on the highest floor in the property. Can't complain - after all, it's just a Holiday Inn. Getting my room on a bargain basement number of points was great, and the fact that there was free internet (albeit wired internet) was even better.


My room at the Holiday Inn Bratislava.


View from outside of my hotel room window.

The room was clean and appointed... well, pretty much at Holiday Inn standard, which is plain but decent. Interesting to see that the doona supplied with the bed was quite small. There was no thin bedsheet - just the bed cover and the little thin doona. Not a big deal - climate control in the room makes everything OK. Two bottles of complimentary sparkling water were supplied on the coffee table.

The bathroom was a bit dated, but it was at least clean, with no leaks and the bath fittings looked OK. As seems to be common in Europe, the shower amenities are not in separate bottles near the sink, but rather there is a squeeze bottle of shampoo and body wash (courtesy of Dove) in the shower.

I had a bit of a stroll outside the hotel, where shops and restaurants were oddly far and few between. It wasn't the city centre so that definitely explains a lot, but I didn't expect this area to be that sparse. I managed to find somewhere to have a small bite for dinner (managing to successfully order something and pay for it without needing to speak a lot of Slovak). There was a Lidl supermarket nearby, but it was already closed when I passed it.

The front desk staff at the Holiday Inn were very helpful. With the exception of their recommending that I take a taxi to and from the city centre (at a nominal cost of EUR 10 per trip), they were great in telling me where to get public transport, offering a tourist map and showing routes, and they also sell public transport tickets from the desk (with no inflation or fees).

I retired to my room after a long day - sightseeing in one city followed by arriving in another. I had Wikitravel out with a pad and paper plotting out what to see in my one full day in Bratislava tomorrow, before retiring for bed.


Friday 20 April 2012


Sightseeing would have been off to a full start the next morning... if I hadn't checked my work email. Grrrr.... that's when I noted that there was a fire to be put out. Don't you just hate that?

By the time I had finished putting away work, it was already close to midday. Bummer - half a day gone. Lucky Bratislava is quite small, and I still had at least a half-day the next day. I headed out towards the bus service towards the city, which was about a 10 minute walk away from the hotel. Bratislava buses look a bit old on the inside and outside, but the best thing is that they announce the names of the next stops along the journey. This makes it hard to miss your stop. A handy skeleton map of major lines and connecting hubs also helped with orientation and connections.

Once I was in the city centre, first thoughts was food, as I hadn't had anything in the morning and by now was starving. I wanted to try a traditional Slovak dish so I found a pub which didn't appear to be for tourists as there was no English menu. I managed to make out some of the dishes on the menu posted outside the pub, so I went inside, sat down and took a set of cutlery. A waitress appeared quickly and took my order. She immediately sensed that I was a tourist whose Slovak was anything but even rudimentary, but my order was pretty simple and she understood it all.


Starting proceedings with a beer. Like in the neighbouring Czech Republic, beer is drunk in decent quantities in Slovakia, and often is priced very reasonably with good taste. Surprisingly, even the local Budweiser is quite decent.


This Slovak dish is called Bryndzové halušky. It's small dumplings with sheep's cheese and topped with meat, which in this case was bacon bits. The slightly sour cheese compliments the other ingredients well, but naturally this is comfort food, and not good for those on a diet.

After finishing lunch, I started heading towards the Bratislava old town centre to start sightseeing.

Bratislava is no where near the size nor grandeur of its former single-nation counterpart, Prague. Certainly, there are not as many tourists in Bratislava compared to Prague, and unlike Prague, the Old Town (Staré Mesto) is not a UNESCO Heritage site. Nevertheless, the Old Town is the concentration of most of the attractions in Bratislava. Compared to Prague, Bratislava seems more like a small town, which you wouldn't take for a national capital.

They say history has not been kind to the people of the Czech Republic. I'd say it probably equally hasn't been kind to those in Slovakia.




Architecture and style in Old Town Bratislava.