Photo 1: Bratislava Castle
Photo 2: 'Legoland' (explained below)
Photo 3: Our bus
Photo 4: Bratislava Opera House (19th century)
On Sunday we toured Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. It is
hard to sum up our experience. The old part of the city is very attractive with
streetscapes similar to old Budapest. The overall mixture of old and new architecture
is more friendly to the eye than Budapest too. But there are quite a few
eyesores from the communist era too. About a third of the city’s half a million
people live in a vast area of communist-era flats built in a style the locals
refer to as ‘Stalinist Gothic’ and which they refer to as Legoland. But there
are some very beautiful buildings too, such as Bratislava Castle, a 15th
century castle that is now an archaeological museum.
Our local tour guide had a great sense of humour and told us
a few jokes about the locals. The Police were not spared. (Why do Police
Officers always go around in two’s? One can read and the other can write. How
do Policemen keep warm? They stand in the corner of the room because someone
told them it’s 90 degrees.)
After the tour finished in the main square we elected to do
some shopping at the local market and …. you guessed it, got lost coming back
to the boat. So we asked a Police Officer the way. He asked if we spoke German.
As our high school German was pretty much forgotten we both said ‘no’. So he
said ‘English’? We said ‘yes’ then he said ‘no English’. Great. So by means of
sign language we were pointed in the right direction and with the help of
another friendly person we got back. All in all it wasn’t a bad experience as
we saw a lot more of the back streets than we would have otherwise and Sophie
will get a lovely present for our troubles.
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