Before I left South Africa, the only time I had ever heard of Bratislava was when it was mentioned on the movie Eurotrip. Not only that, but they made it out to be this terrible, post war Eastern European country with rundown buildings and miserable people everywhere.
After my mom did an Eastern European trip however, she came back to tell me that Bratislava was an incredible beautiful city and I should visit it. Having now been there myself, all I can say is that it is somewhere in between. It is somewhere in between the beautiful side that my mom saw and the dodgy, rundown side that Eurotrip emphasized.
I suppose that our first problem was that we were on a seriously strict budget and I had booked super cheap accommodation in a hostel close to the train station. Most of the time, I tried to book close to the train station so that we wouldn’t have to walk so far with all our luggage; but this actually ended up being to our own detriment, as usually accommodation close to a train station is slightly lacking.
Maybe the name: Hostel Bratislava should have given it away, but once it was booked and paid for, what else could we do but stay there. So, our walk from the train station was interesting. The area around us kept getting trickier and trickier until we eventually found it. We had only decided to stay one night because we were travelling from Austria and wanted to break the extremely long train journey to Budapest with a short stay somewhere and Bratislava had seemed perfect at the time.
The hostel itself looked like we might have been walking into a drug addicts den, what with two burly looking guys sitting outside on broken down chairs smoking and laughing when we arrived. I don’t think that I’m a princess when I’m travelling, but even I saw this and thought: maybe we should just find another hotel and pay extra. Luch (my boyfriend) is a stubborn man though and once you’ve paid for something, you need to stick it out.
So, we checked in and had to fiddle with the oldest lift I’ve ever seen. It even had a door that you have to close before the lift doors themselves will close. I was just grateful it made it to our floor without breaking down halfway. To say that our room was a closet is a bit of an understatement. The only good thing I could come up with was the fact that there were clean white sheets and clean duvets on the bed. That was important. It was so damn hot though and there wasn’t a fan in sight. There was what I can only describe as the tiniest balcony in the world, which was shared by all the rooms on our level and had two old school chairs to sit on.
Besides being incredibly hot, we were also starving, but the problem was there weren’t any grocery stores in the area. We had been so good up until this point at finding the cheapest stores to buy our food at every day and we realised that this wouldn’t happen in Bratislava. Instead, we managed to find an Asian restaurant in the area with relatively good reviews online and we were actually surprised by how good their food was. We had to order through a man speaking Slovak, so pointing at the pictures and numbers was pretty much the only way through. Something with noodles and crispy chicken for me and something with noodles and fried prawns for Luch. Add that together with a non-alcoholic warm strawberry and rhubarb beer and you have the makings of a good evening. 🙂
We tried to make dinner last as long as possible, not wanting to go back to our accommodation for the night, but we also saw how the people working at the restaurant shouted at anyone who didn’t finish their food (and I didn’t want to eat my coleslaw in case it had been washed in water that would make me sick). So, like a naughty little kid, I asked Luch to buy water and distract the guy behind the counter while I quickly ran and put our plates on the self service rack. Turns out, I put them in wrong and got told off anyways, but at least I tried.
After dinner, we needed a shower to cool off for the evening. Only problem was, the room didn’t come with towels and all we had was a tiny microfibre one to share. That and the fact that there was no place to put your clothes while you shower (and try not to flash random strangers in the shared bathroom) is always an interesting experience. We ended up leaving our clothes in the relatively dry basin and had to try and help each other shower because it was one of those hold the shower head over the bath instead of a proper shower. Then, when you’re good and wet, there is the added effort of trying to get dry enough to get your clothes on. Drying one foot at a time and standing on your shoes while you balance and try and get one leg into your pants without falling over. I felt like I was on a game show and I was not winning.
One other plus to the hostel was the WIFI. Without it, I don’t know what we would have done. Feeling so incredibly hot, tired and just miserable in general; we decided to use the WIFI and watch and funny movie on Netflix. It ended up being “White Chicks” and although we’ve seen it so many times, we still laughed our way through it and felt so much better by the end.
The next day was way better than our first had been and after walking for about half an hour, we eventually found the pretty side of Bratislava. Turns out there are really some lovely sights to see and wonderful gardens and parks to sit and relax in. We had no idea how huge the Bratislava Castle was or that it would have a fantastic garden filled with flowers just outside.
We also didn’t know at the time that Bratislava actually has over 140 fountains littered through its city. We definitely got to see a lot of them, but nowhere near 140. Not only that, but we also found a lot of statues throughout the city as well. It seemed like there was another one around every corner.
All the sights and quiet spots that we managed to find on our second day really saved Bratislava for us. If we hadn’t seen what we saw, or strolled along the Danube, I probably would have written Slovakia off entirely. Now, I know different. It seems that behind every pretty city – which is the only part that most people see on a bus tour – there is another dodgier and rougher side. I’m just glad I got to experience both and really it makes for the best stories afterwards. 🙂
