Our last major stop was Bratislava. We’d never heard anything much about Bratislava, but from research done prior to arriving, it seemed that it was going to be considerably smaller than the other capitals we had visited, but was supposedly very popular with the English bucks-party scene… hmmm.

Again, we’d rented an apartment (and again – much better value than an hotel). This time, our apartment was right in the centre of the city. Next door to the American embassy in fact – so at all hours of the day we had Slovakian police and American security walking around. Literally ALL hours of the day.

Bratislava is indeed much smaller than cities such as Prague and Vienna. I wouldn’t recommend a week there – a day or two would be plenty as a stopover enroute to destinations further east or south. Finding accommodation in the centre of the city wasn’t difficult either. We were able to walk across to the Old Town, where there are various restaurants and of course the old streets. A quirky but enjoyable part of wandering the Old Town streets is locating all the bronze statues. Lifestyle statues of people in various attitudes decorate the pavements. The most famous of these seems to be The Watcher – a man leaning out of a pothole. Judging by the number of people taking photos of him (and the number of souvenir T-shirts with him on them), he’s arguably the most popular of the statues.

The Old Town itself is quite a nice afternoon’s exploring. Part of its charm is that it is so small, compared to places like Prague where you can get lost. Bratislava Old Town takes only a few hours to full explore, but it’s quite nice nevertheless. There are a number of run-down buildings which I hope on my next visit may be in the process of being restored… It would be a shame to lose such lovely architectural examples.

Bratislava Castle sits over the highway from the Old Town, but is still a relatively short walk – just look for the hill looming over the town. While it’s fairly impressive to look at, the castle itself wasn’t heart-stopping, but the grounds were nice enough to walk around, and the museum in the castle houses the Venus of Moravany (a prehistoric statue). We weren’t really in the mood for a museum, so we gave it a miss. While wandering around the courtyard though, we did find some stairs leading down to who-knows-where. My husband, being the curious type, took the stairs and we found ourselves in a tunnel under the courtyard, which leads to a large well, constructed in the 15th Century. A plaque on the wall explains the history of the well. No one seemed to be manning the entrance to the tunnel, but it’s a nice little 10 minute distraction.

While up at the castle, it’s also worth looking out over to the other side of the river, where you see rows upon rows of apartment blocks. They all look very similar, and I have no idea how you’d tell them apart from each other.

One thing we learnt very quickly in Bratislava – more so than in other cities – was to really check the prices on menus outside restaurants. By the time we came to Bratislava, we had gone from the Euro, to the Forint, back to the Euro, to the Czech Koruny, to the Slovak Koruny, so we were lagging a bit with our conversions. Particularly in the Old Town, cafes and restaurants will easily charge AUD$20 for a salad. We learnt our lesson well!

We arrived in Prague late evening – much later than anticipated. We had called ahead to let our lift know that we’d be late, and had been told that was no problem – they’d meet us at the station and drive us to our accommodation (we had rented an appartment which works out a lot better value than a hotel). So upon arriving in the main train station in Prague we had hoped to see our lift waiting… but it was not to be. Now, we’d been told already that the main train station is not somewhere to hang out at night time if you have a choice. Hmm.. We wandered around the station, looking for someone with a sign. Walking walking walking… Eventually, a guy came running in from a side door, out of breath and full of apologies. Whew.

Our appartment was over in Mala Strana – an area of Prague west of the river, and out of the most touristy areas. There are also lot of embassies in this area. We had been warned that the prices in the tourist areas were fairly exorbitant, but Mala Strana proved to be a happy medium – still very close to the sights of the centre of Prague and definitely still possessing the “Prague atmosphere”, but without the high prices in restaurants and cafes. A tram came close by our appartment so if we were feeling lazy we could just hop on (although it was such a short distance we only did that once).

Well – what to say about Prague – we loved it! It’s a very distinctive city, both in architecture and attitude. Full of tourists, you do need to watch your belongings (made easier for us because we were two) – a couple of times we did see people being approached by less desireable types and possibly relieved of their belongings. It’s a vibrant city which constantly draws you in with its unique buildings, winding Old Town streets, and smiling souvenir vendors.

Out of three days we had in Prague, it was pretty rainy and drizzly for two days. Still, we tried to get out and about as much as we could. We walked the streets of the Old Town (how confusing are they!!), visited the Powder Tower, Charles Bridge, and the castle. Unfortunately the castle was about to close as we arrived, so we’ve put that on our list for next time we visit Prague. We also spent a lot of time checking out the local fare – bakeries, cafes, restaurants. A beautiful city, and I’m really looking forward to visiting next time (hopefully with some snow!!).