Bratislava to Vienna

Sunday, May 6, 2018

After packing up and checking out of our room, we were able to leave the car in the courtyard while we spent more time in Bratislava’s old center this morning.  We walked around the Main Square again and stopped into a Jesuit Church where High (sung) Mass had begun.  Despite our total unfamiliarity with the language, the catholicity of Catholicism made it easy to know exactly where in the ritual we’d arrived (late).

Just outside the church, we met a morning walking tour of the old town and castle area.  We spent almost three hours with a small group of visitors from many parts of the world getting an overview of Bratislava’s sights.  The historic center is filled with lovely squares, fountains, beautiful buildings and statues – some historic and monumental, others amusing.  There’s one of Napoleon’s occupying soldiers leaning over a bench in front of the French Embassy, another of “Man at Work” -- a sewer worker peeking out of a manhole, and yet one more of a local citizen renowned for his ubiquitous presence on the streets and friendly greetings for all he met.

The largest square, dominated now by the Opera House, was once outside the city walls and buildings that are now on one side of the square (including the United States Embassy) were actually on land that had once been an island between a moat and the Danube River just beyond.  Nearby is the Plague Column, marking a spot (outside the walls) where the bodies of victims of the six waves of the Black Death that struck the city.  On a lighter note, just nearby was the Bratislava Beer Bike, which (if you’re among the few that care) you can see at https://bratislavabeerbike.com/ , as Tom’s camera battery was giving him difficulties at the time we passed it.

Just beyond the Plague Column, and in the shadow of the Coronation Church, St. Martin’s Cathedral, are two monuments to Bratislava’s Jews.  Standing close together are the Holocaust memorial, dedicated to the great percentage of Slovak Jews who were deported to death camps, and another erected to mark the destruction of the Orthodox Synagogue and the Jewish Quarter to make way for a highway during the Communist era.

We crossed over said highway on a pedestrian bridge from the remaining section of the city walls to the base of the Castle Hill.  Stopping for a break at a café before ascending the hill, we were joined by a young American woman traveling on her own and a Scotsman on a long weekend break from Edinburgh.  She was a social worker working in the area of refugee resettlement, and based on conversations I’ve had with people engaged in that work at home, I asked if she’d seen a decline in the population she’s dedicated to serve.  When she acknowledged this truth, the Scot asked if this were due to Trump – and we were off to the races!  He (very earnestly) asked why we hadn’t just gotten rid of him and a discussion of the realities of the current political situation ensued…

Then, it was up the Castle Hill to see the Slovak Parliament building, some of the remaining original fortification’s walls, the recently reconstructed Castle (now a museum), and the views across the Danube to the suburbs of Bratislava, and just beyond -- Austria.

After our tour ended, back in the old town center, we reclaimed our car and headed to Vienna.  In a short time, we crossed the border into Austria and found that buying the required road toll vignette was made considerably trickier than it needed to be.  The first signs for a point of sale were actually for Slovakian vignettes and necessitated a fruitless walk across a bridge to the other side of the freeway.  Why the opportunity to purchase a permit for the country we were leaving?!?

After that, it was smooth sailing to Vienna, where we became stuck in a Sunday afternoon traffic jam that had us stopping and going (mostly stopping) on city streets for almost as long as it had taken us to travel on the freeway from Bratislava.

We have a fine apartment here, and its owners were here to meet us upon our arrival.  Tomorrow, we’ll set out to see how/if Vienna has changed since our last visit.