James & Charlotte's Travel Blog: Bratislava: TICKET!! TICKET!!

Another early start, another long coach journey. With no direct coaches to Bratislava from Kraków we had to make a connection in the Polish city of Katowice. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem but the fact that the connection was 3 hours, there was no shade at Katowice coach station and the majority of seats were already taken made it all rather painful. Fortunately, we managed to find two seats together on the coach, which always makes the trip slightly more bearable. 6 hours later we arrived at the run down and darkening Bratislava coach station. After a quick trek through the dimly lit streets we made it to our hostel with just enough time after check in to dash to the huge Tesco across the road to pick up dinner. Chicken curry made with Tesco Finest Tikka Masala sauce, a proper taste of home! We'd picked well with this hostel, a large room with 4 single beds and an ensuite bathroom, just a shame the fan was broken.

We awoke from a sweaty night sleep and popped to Tesco once more to pick up some breakfast. After that we headed out and about to see what Bratislava had to offer. First up, we made for Bratislava Castle, situated on top of a hill overlooking the Old Town. Despite being high season and warm, there wasn't many tourist about, which made a pleasant change from the hordes we are used to (but maybe Bratislava just isn't that popular!). The only nuisance was the very strong wind that whipped the dust up into your eyes from time to time. The castle offered great views across the green waters of the Danube, to the heavily built up area south of the river, known as the concrete jungle and neighbouring Austria to the West. We made our way down the narrow and dangerously damaged cobbled streets to the modern "UFO bridge" (named because it has a UFO shaped restaurant and viewing platform attached to it), in order to get some photos looking up towards the castle. A quick bite for lunch followed, along with a rest in the shade in the central square. We browsed the markets situated in and around the streets but, as ever, nothing but a pin badge took our fancy. The old town of Bratislava is very compact and there isn't a huge amount to see outside of that so we headed back to our hostel for some rest and relaxation. Another jaunt to Tescos followed, pork stir fry for dinner and an early night for a rather long day the next day.

(This day will be covered in a separate post)

With not much left to see in Bratislava we decided to head down the Danube to see Devin castle. After a brief visit to the Church of St.Elisabeth, also known as the blue church we headed down to the banks of the Danube to buy our boat ticket, pick up some lunch and wait for departure. The trip against the flow of the river took an hour and a half, so we ate our lunch on the way and enjoyed the views of Slovakia on the left and Bratislava on the right. We arrived mid afternoon and headed along the river bank to where the River Danube and the Morava River meet. Following the path round we entered the castle gates through a metal fence and were imoressed that something like this was free to enter. Our ferry back was at 6 o'clock so we had a good few hours to stroll around the gardens. The castle was blown up during the Napoleonic Wars 200 years ago, so it's only some ruins on a hill now. The area though provides great views of the 2 rivers and the surrounding countryside. The picturesque town of Devin can also be seen, nestled in the valley below the castle. Having seen enough and our boats departure looming we decided to head back to the riverside. On our way back through the entrance we were accosted by a rather large, sweaty Slovakian man, who started shouting "Ticket, Ticket" at us and pointing to a sign on a wall that said "ticket -€4". We hadn't noticed this on the way in and the man, who had been sitting underneath an umbrella when we walked though the gate had made no effort to inform us that we needed a ticket. With it being our last day in a Euro currency country for a few weeks we had run ourselves dry and only had our plastic card to pay with. We offered this method but they didn't have a card machine. The portly security guard (I'm not sure he could have secured a padlock) didn't speak a word of English apart from "ticket" so mimed paper money to us. When he eventually understood, he gave up and retired to his shaded chair to sweat some more. We picked up the pace as we made for the boat, desperately encouraging it to leave before the Slovak police turned up on the riverbank (they never did). Fortunately, the journey back was only a 30 minute due to the flow of the river. Again, we fully expecting to be greeted by blues and twos as we disembarked but the riverside was quiet and empty. We headed back into the old town to take any snaps we'd missed then visited Tesco once more to pick up dinner and top up our smelly selection. The biggest portion of chilli ever for dinner filled us up nicely, then we headed to bed in anticipation for the next day.