Beautiful Bratislava

I got to Bratislava early Saturday afternoon, and immediately felt a little concerned - what the hell was I going to do here for three days? When I finally left on Wednesday (after extending my stay for a night!) I was sad to see it go. Bratislava was wonderful, and one of my favourite places so far!

The first afternoon, I took it pretty easy; after checking into my hostel (Hostel Blues, which was excellent, I would recommend it highly!) I got lunch at Slovak Pub, where it was something like €7 for garlic soup in a bread bowl, a tomato salad, and a cup of the local soda, Kofola, nearly the size of my arm. Lunch was really tasty, although I wasn't really into the soda, which tasted a bit like a liquorice-y root beer. Tummy filled, I wandered into the area of downtown Bratislava and hung out in the shade for a little while, soaking up the sights and sounds. When that got boring, I headed to the main tourist attraction, Brat Castle, which is a little ways up the hill from the downtown plaza. 

Apparently I failed to get a photo of the castle from a distance. But, uh, this is the castle. 

An outbuilding of the castle. 

Castle gates, which seem to be showcasing different styles of armour through the ages. 

The UFO bridge, which has a restaurant and viewing platform built in. 

I don't remember why I took this picture. It's pretty boring, isn't it?

I didn't get up to much the next day; I ran some errands, did some laundry, and generally tried to take it easy. Sometimes I just need a break from all the touring and touristy crap, and that seemed like a good day for it. Monday, though, I got up at a reasonable hour to take the walking tour and poke around the city for a bit. 

I can't figure out what this fountain is supposed to represent. It makes me think of an anchor, but I've no idea if that's right or not. 

A statue in the same park. I was not able to determine whether it was a man or a lady until I was quite close to it... And now I've forgotten. 

The old Slovakian National Theatre. It'd be quite a bit more picturesque without that banner!

I also went across the river and headed up to the UFO for a bit. It turned out to be quite a nice spot, and the views were really cool. 

There's the castle! And parts of the old town. 

The river's edge and the old town - the bits with the red roofs. 

I had a cold Coke here for a while. It was really lovely, and the wifi worked so unbelievably well I never wanted to leave. 

The next day, I went to one of the memorials visible from the whole city - a huge monument to the 6,000 Russian soldiers who died defending the city in WW2. It was quite a hike, but the memorial is peaceful and pretty. 

Each of the grassy squares you can see on the sides are actually mass graves! I guess they didn't have time or resources to bury many of them independently. 

It had been smoking hot the last few days in Bratislava - to the point that it was getting a little difficult to convince myself to continue wandering around all day. One of the guys in my room suggested we go to the lake a twenty-minute tram ride away, and am I ever glad he did! We headed out there in the afternoon, and met a few other people from the hostel to lie on the beach for a few hours. It was a great spot, with a grassy beach, cool water, and €3 double vodkas from a stand just a minute or so away. We spent the entire afternoon there, swimming and tanning, and it may have been one of the best times I've had in Europe so far. I was almost tempted to add another day! 

Once we finally dragged ourselves away from the water, we returned to town and slowly (very slowly) got ready to head out. We took dinner at Slovak Pub again before joining a really unusual pub crawl that ended in the middle of nowhere... Not so sure about that! Regardless, I had quite a lot of fun, and I made it back to the hostel in good time to catch a few hours' sleep before getting up to check out and head to Budapest in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the sleep I was hoping for, but you win some, you lose some, right?