Bratislava = Dull

Trip Start Nov 05, 2006
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Slovakia  ,
Saturday, May 2, 2009

Bratislava is without a shadow of a doubt the most boring city - and capital city, at that - I've ever been to. OK, so I ignored everyone's advice, "you only need a day there, at the most" and booked two nights. My flight home leaves at 10.20pm, giving me another whole day after today, and I've spent most of today wondering if I could get an earlier flight and how much that would cost me, given that I've already checked in. Of course, I couldn't check as the hostel is still without internet access and the city's internet cafe was closed.
Bratislava is exceptionally dull. It's so small that it's technically a village, and while it's easy to see the charm in the long winding cobblestoned streets, you could walk them all in an hour, tops. The most interesting/odd thing about the city is the random statues everywhere. Modern and quirky, they're mostly situated outside restaurants, like the photographer peeking around the corner of the Paparazzi cocktail bar. The most famous one is The Watcher, a man popping up from a fake manhole. I spent my time wandering around looking for the next statue, which made the walk more enjoyable.
The city's main tourist attraction is the Hrad (castle) and even that is completely covered in scaffolding. The views from the vast grounds over the Danube are pretty good though, with a vista of the Novy Most (new bridge) and beyond. Honestly this all took me 3 hours to explore combined, and this includes the search for the internet cafe (on the ground floor of a shopping complex, it turned out)
Bratislava could do with some more activities - even the tourist info people looked bored out of their minds. Horse riding, climbing, caving, all of these things should be accessible, it's a bit sad for the Slovakian tourism industry when the main selling point of Bratislava is a day trip to Vienna. The two cities are the closest capital cities in Europe, but it does speak volumes about Bratislava unfortunately. Now. How to spend 12 hours tomorrow??!
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