Bratislava 2 – Day 12

I had a restful night of sleep, but woke feeling like I’m getting a cold. My throat was a bit irritated the last two nights by a soapy smell in the room, and the air quality in our room had suddenly become quite poor the last two nights, as well, so I’m hoping it’s related. We weren’t sure why, but then I realized Michael had bought some bar soap which has a very strong scent, and it was that which was irritating my throat. And it was probably more of a problem than it would usually be because the ventilation in the room wasn’t working properly. On my way out this morning I mentioned it at the front desk, and it’s better this evening so I’m hoping I’m not getting a cold, but it still feels a bit like I am this evening.

In light of the that, and the fact that it was raining, I decided to take the tram to the UFO tower on the SNP bridge after the rain tapered off. I’m amazed how Bratislava keeps these old trams in service.

My brain just didn’t seem to be working too well today and I got off the tram too early, but the headway was only five minutes, so I didn’t have to wait for long to get back on and continue to the correct stop. I could see the tower from the correct tram stop.

I walked over to the pedestrian level of the bridge, which is underneath the motor vehicle traffic level. There are stairs and ramps, and you can walk on the east or the west side.

When I got to the south side of the river, I realized that I didn’t know where the entrance was. I wandered around, looking for it unsuccessfully. I pulled out my phone and put in “UFO observation deck”  into Google Maps and it told me to walk back across the bridge. I was skeptical, but couldn’t see a way in where I was so I walked back across the bridge. Keep in mind that this is a 500m walk one way!  Google told me to continue walking and I ended up in the pedestrian underpass with the murals that we visited yesterday afternoon. At this point I was certain it was completely wrong.Here I am in front of a mural of the tower mystified as to how to get to the real one!

This morning at breakfast I read an article about two cat cafés in the city, and I was now near one of them, so I decided to go sit down, have a cuddle with a cat, and some coffee, and then figure out how to get where I intended to go.

The coffee was good. The café was spacious with lots of comfortable places to sit, and lots of cats.

I texted with Michael and he told me I definitely needed to be back on the other side of the Danube. So I finished up, used the bathroom, passing this aphorism on a mirror, on the way. I thought it worked well as the theme for my trip and blogging: Make Each Day…A Story Worth Telling. It’s unusual for me to get lost, but at least it gave me a story to tell.

Bratislava is on the edge of the Little Carpathian mountains. Many of the streets, wind up hills, and the street where the cat café was was one of them. The sidewalk often turns to staircases in these neighbourhoods.

Bratislava used to be a walled city, but only a small amount of the wall remains. Here it is beautifully covered in ivy changing with the cold weather.

I decided to walk back across the Danube for the third time today on the west side of the bridge.

When I came down off the bridge on the south side for the second time it still took me a minute to find the ticket booth, but once I found it, I was astonished that I had had trouble, but I had basically been looking for it away from the river, but it was between where the ramps came down and the river and across a road. But as I said earlier, my thinking seemed to be a bit fuzzy today.

The silver lining of having taken so long to get there was that the day had brightened up a bit. It was €11.90, two euros more than it would have been in the morning, but I’m sure the views were better. I was surprised it was that much, but it was still much cheaper than going up the CN Tower, and the views were worth it.An elevator took me up to the restaurant and café bar level. From there it was 30 steps to the outdoor observation level.

I took a picture in each direction with my iPhone.

Then I got out Michael’s point and shoot which has a 40 times optical zoom and took a lot of detail pictures.

The south side of the river is called Petržalka. It is the largest borough of Bratislava and shares a land border with Austria. It is home to about 100,000 people. It was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. In April 1945 it was freed from the Nazis and taken by the communists. It was returned to Czechoslovakia after World War II. Construction of housing blocks began in 1977. It is the most densely populated residential district in Central Europe. Note the wind turbines on the horizon in the third picture. That is in Austria.

Bratislava castle, and the parliament building are right next to each other.

You can see the city climbing the hill behind the steeple of St. Martin’s.

The brown and white striped building is an abandoned hotel, which had a giant public art project executed on it a couple years ago to make it look like a circle had been rotated 90°.

The black building on the left is where Michael works.

Our hotel is the middle height building on the left – The Lindner.

The views were wonderful, and I took in my fill, and then descended and walked back across the Danube for the fourth time today. There is a great view of this complete street with its wide sidewalks, and brand new since I was here in the spring bike lanes, tram tracks, with a little bit of space left over for motor vehicles. Perfect.

I took the tram back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit, and then took the tram to the Christmas market to meet Michael for dinner. They had the Christmas decorations over the street lit up tonight for the first time.

It was still well attended, but much less crowded, which was more to my liking.

We bought food from both of these stands, and it was delicious.