{"id":5873,"date":"2025-06-02T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/?p=5873"},"modified":"2025-07-09T14:45:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T12:45:05","slug":"bratislava","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/?p=5873","title":{"rendered":"Bratislava"},"content":{"rendered":"

The RegioJet leaves a bit earlier than the \u010cesk\u00e9 dr\u00e1hy train I had originally planned to take, so we got up at 0530, packed, and took the Metro to the station. Very nice modern carriages, last leg by bus (they’re working on the rails). Got to Bratislava, immediately bought tickets for Budapest.<\/p>\n

We were way early for check-in, it was barely 12. But the keys were in the lockbox, so we sneaked in, left our suitcases, put the keys back in the lockbox for the cleaners, let the landlady know, and went looking for beer.<\/p>\n

Fabrika<\/a> is kind-of high-end (it’s attached to the Loft Hotel) but the beer is good and they’re not ridiculously expensive by Euro standards. I had the Bryndzov\u00e9 Halu\u0161ky \/ Traditional Slovak Dumplings, Tanya had tomato soup and Pe\u010den\u00fd Anan\u00e1s \/ Caribbean rum-baked pineapple with salted caramel ice cream.<\/p>\n

We were feeling kind of tired so we popped into a small supermarket we’d passed earlier, bought expensive wine, went home, and passed out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Monday we walked down into the Old Town via Michalsk\u00fd most and the St Michael gate. Lots and lots of souvenir shops.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This fellow “Napoleon’s Soldier” by Juraj Meli\u0161<\/a> lives on the Hlavn\u00e9 N\u00e1mestie (which sounds exotic but translates to “Main Square”), while the hard working “Man At Work” \u010cumil by Viktor Hul\u00edk is just down the road.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mondieu<\/a> is a chain — there are seven branches in Bratislava alone, five of them in a 500m stretch in Old Town) — but they serve good coffee (with water on the side As One Should) and good “Homemade” lemonade.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the Avo Toast looks just like the picture in the menu<\/a> and was damn good too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I struggled to figure out the Bratislava public transport system. No joy. I mean, I have a map to the bus\/tram\/rail system, with all the stops clearly indicated. And I have Google Earth \/Maps \/ Mapy. And I can even find some<\/em> of the stops on both the transport map and the “real” map. But I cannot map the one to the other. Not even now, sitting at a PC with multiple screens open. On a smartphone? Not a chance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So we walked to the Church of St. Elisabeth \/ “Blue Church”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In front of the church there’s a monument to the unborn “Pomn\u00edk nenaroden\u00fdm” but it sure looks like a turd on a stone.<\/p>\n

Figured maybe it’s time for a drink, so we walked (again) to 100 p\u00edv<\/a>. They were not open yet, so we waited.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Had a beer… had another beer… went to a stationery shop Tanya had googled across, bought some food and wine at the Lidl, and bloody walked<\/em> home again because I still can’t figure out the public transport.<\/p>\n

Bratislava… yea… not a whole lot to recommend. One day is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The RegioJet leaves a bit earlier than the \u010cesk\u00e9 dr\u00e1hy train I had originally planned to take, so we got up at 0530, packed, and took the Metro to the station. Very nice modern carriages, last leg by bus (they’re working on the rails). Got to Bratislava, immediately bought tickets for Budapest. We were way early for check-in, it was barely 12. But the keys were in the lockbox, so we sneaked in, left our suitcases, put the keys back in the lockbox for the cleaners, let the landlady know, and went looking for beer. Fabrika is kind-of high-end (it’s...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5873"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5999,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5873\/revisions\/5999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}