Our weekend in Bratislava was wonderful. Bratislava is a well-kept secret to most Americans. Anyone going to Vienna should consider at least a couple of days here in Slovakia’s capital. It’s a day’s bike ride and an hour or so bus or train ride from Vienna.
Bratislava is home to plenty of good vegan food, cheap local beer, a fantastic selection of local wines for less than two euros per glass, a depressing but “nice” American styled mall, a charming old town, and Soviet-era buildings still in use.
Abby and I stayed at the Marrol’s Boutique Hotel. This is a great place to stay in Bratislava because it is walking distance to anything you’d want to do here on a 4 day trip. Plus it has a more than satisfactory hotel breakfast replete with veggies, sweets, unlimited espresso drinks, filter coffee, and the like.
I’m not one to shop except out of necessity, but even I must admit that Bratislava has a nice assortment of boutique stores with quality clothes at unbeatable prices. I picked up a linen shirt and fall jacket.
Just past the Aupark mall lays the city’s collection of dense soviet prefabbed housing. They’re called panelaks and they are bleak.
This neighborhood is among densest in Eastern Europe. It has thousands of units tucked beneath and along the freeway leading into the city center and feels more like public storage for humans than a neighborhood. This is no knock on the people who still live here. Mistakes in urban planning are hard to reverse. One generation’s fuck up can keep screwing people long after the builders die.
Abby and I had so much fun in Bratislava that we realized she needs to visit me in Budapest next weekend too. We bit the bullet and bought her plane ticket.
