Bratislava- Day 3

We discovered when we checked in yesterday that the hotel charges €25 for a second person in the room, which we didn’t know before we got here, but it’s still an amazing deal for me to be able to come to Europe and spend only that much a night, and it includes a wonderful buffet breakfast, which even has make your own espresso drinks.

They have a very large dining room and a terrace which, unfortunately, we were unable to use this morning, due to rain. The rain did clear before we left the hotel.

Europe is so far ahead of North America in terms of clean, energy generation, reducing energy consumption, and ventilating large buildings. We saw so many windmills on the way from the airport, and you have to put your room key into a slot just inside the door to turn on the electricity in the room, so it isn’t possible to leave things on when you leave unless you have two keys. All of the toilets I’ve encountered, have two buttons to control the size of the flush. The only thing I found that I don’t like is that if you want water in a restaurant, you’re expected to pay for a bottle of it.

Here Michael shows me a narrow window which allows ventilation in the hotel corridor. He says he they have them in the office as well.

We had expected to plug all our devices that need to be charged into USB plugs in the wall, but they don’t have them. So we started the morning by buying a two prong European plug that allows two devices to be charged at once. It wasn’t a problem for Michael in the past when he was the only one in the room. It’s so convenient having the hotel attached to a large mall.

We’ve seen so many different types of trams here. Apparently the rolling stock consists of 211 trim vehicles, and operates on five lines of approximately 42 km in length.

This neighbourhood is being made more pedestrian and cyclist friendly by narrowing the side streets, and having raised, narrowed and cobbled crossings to slow cars.

Bratislava was under communist rule from 1948 to 1989 and has many Soviet style buildings and works of art to show for it.

The trams here don’t even have curbs separating them from the sidewalks on many of the streets, just a slightly different style of pavement.

Sometimes when walking along the street you see a little alley that leads businesses like this coffee shop and residences.

It’s very easy to find places to linger and to find bike share stations and e scooters share all over the city.

Bratislava was a walled city with eight gates, only one of which – Michael’s Gate – Michalská brána) remains. Only a small part of the wall still exists.

Bratislava has many quirky statues, one of which is a soldier from Napoleon’s army. The story is that he fell in in love with as local girl and stayed in Bratislava and became a wine maker.

This is Bratislava’s main square called Hlavne Namestie.

On one of Michael’s previous trips, he sent me a picture of this bike rack. Of course, I had to climb on and pose.

This was built as the Primate’s Palace, and originally belong to the archbishop of Esztergom. It is built in the classical style and was built from 1778-81. It is now used by the mayor of Bratislava.

This is the Ritz Carlton. It’s just down the street from the American Embassy.

This is a brand new park that was created on the former site of a parking lot.

These memorial stones are dotted around Bratislava, and memorialize Jews who were deported to concentration camps during the war. Bratislava has the unfortunate distinction of being the first country to voluntarily pay the Germans to have Jews deported.

We had lunch with Michael’s colleague Andrej and his wife Katarzyna at a restaurant, that had the entry area quite oddly decorated.

This is the location of one of the destroyed city gates.

I can never pass up a beautifully decorated bike in the shop window.

This statue was one of the most photographed things in Bratislava. His name is Čumil which means watcher in Slovak. I couldn’t get a picture of him the first time we passed by because of the lineup of people waiting to photograph him or be photographed with him.

After lunch, we wandered along this beautiful wide long wide park called Hviezdoslavovo námestie. It is named for a Slovak author. We stopped for coffee at one of the many restaurants.

The American Embassy is on the square. We passed many other embassies that fit inconspicuously into their surroundings, but the Americans have fortified theirs.

This is the Slovak national theater.

This is looking down the square with the national theatre at my back.

I roamed around this beautifully manicured park with pieces of art in it, while Michael used one of the few free public bathrooms available in the area.

There are many little road trains, taking tourists around the city.

There are also beer bikes.

Here you can see some of the architecture that was built during the communist era.

About four o’clock I started feeling quite tired and Michael’s tutor has just contacted him to find out if he would like to meet for a lesson, so we went back to the hotel. I had a rest and Michael had a Slovak lesson in the restaurant where we ate last night. He’s been taking Slovak for three years now.

When he returned, we took the tram back to the old city for dinner. We were able to buy a 72 hour pass, which is in an app on our phones, for just over eight euros each for unlimited travel.

Dinner was at Thema which had a nice atmosphere, but the food was only mediocre.

After dinner, we took a walk along the Danube to view the bridge that I called the Red Army Bridge in yesterday’s blog That is the former name of the bridge and it’s now known as the Starý most (Old Bridge).

There were several river cruise boats moored along the river, which made a nice foreground to the UFO bridge in the background.

We then caught a tram in sight of the Hrad back to the hotel.

It was a very enjoyable day today. It was nice to meet one of Michael’s colleagues and Michael enjoyed showing me around this place that he’s been telling me about for years now.