Danube Capitals – Day 6, 7, 8, 9 – 🇸🇰 Bratislava

The bus arrived in Bratislava ahead of its ETA of 2 p.m., so I had plenty of time to explore the city before sunset at 5.

My first stop was the Lidl in the shopping centre connected to the bus station. I picked up a couple of things to have for lunch from the bakery aisle and headed out.

I couldn't check into the hostel before 3, so I had my usual aimless walk around the city. Good thing I packed super light.

The first interesting landmark I ended up on was the Presidential Palace. It's an impressive building with massive gates and guards posted outside, Buckingham Palace-style.

I continued my walk around the city, eventually ended up on a bridge going over the main road of the town centre, with a view over the Most SNP, the bridge of the Slovak National Uprising.

Michal told me about that huge bridge when we were in the sleeper train. He said it was the world's longest bridge of its kind, and they had to bulldoze over part of the old town to make room for it, and I can definitely see that.

This led me to the castle up the hill. It was already on my list of things to see here, but I thought it would be much further out. Bratislava is a relatively small city for a capital, at least the old town.

I must say I was a bit disappointed by the castle. The buildings themselves aren't much different from those from down in the old town—the Presidential Palace looks more impressive.

The gardens surrounding the castle are rather nice though, offering a great view over the city and the Danube.

After checking in to the Wild Elephant hostel, I starting chatting with my bunk mate Kostas, a Greek-Spanish 18 year old.

The hostel organises plenty of things every day to socialise and meet other travellers. In the evening they serve dinner prepared by one of the volunteer staff—they take it in turns—followed by some games then a bar crawl.

Kostas and I joined for the games with some of the staff and other travellers, but didn't stick around for the bar crawl and instead went for some dinner.

We went to a well rated local place called Slovak Pub right next to the hostel in the old town. The building definitely feels old and traditional, from outside and inside. The food was decent as well, I had a potato pierogi served with meat and cabbage.

We stayed chatting until closing time at 10pm and called it a day.

Before setting off in the early afternoon for a hike in the mountainous woods outside Bratislava, I stopped at Lidl to pick up stuff for sandwiches for lunch. I ended up just eating along the way.

This hike was in the area pointed out to me by Michal in the night train, and I found it on the Alltrails app, though I didn't need it in the end; everything was marked from the start. The starting point was just a 30-min bus ride from the centre of Bratislava.

Bus tickets are ridiculously cheap in Bratislava; it's amazing. You can get a 30-min ticket for 0.97€, less than 1€! And that's just the regular full price, without any discounts or anything.

I was very quickly delighted to be on this hike, between the view over the valley and the small amount of snow on the ground. I definitely missed that sound.

At the top of the mountain, they local council installed a lookout tower to get an even better view over the surrounding area along with pointers to close by points of interest.

Before heading back down, I got treated with a magnificent sunset.

I got back to the hostel after dinner time, and sat down to write about Budapest.

I left the hostel around lunchtime and grabbed a couple of things from Lidl for lunch to complement what I had left from the day before. This time I sat down in a square of the old town to eat.

This hike wasn't as an out-and-back path, but rather across the woods. I took the bus to one side, then caught the tram back on the other side. It was just as well indicated as the previous one, if not better because the markings started right from the bus stop.

Surprisingly enough, there was more snow around on this hike than the day before.

This hike was a little more monotone than the other one, but still varied enough, especially after getting to the more hilly part in the last third. I much prefer spending my day walking through nature than in the city.

The very last bit once I was out of the woods was a bit unusual. I got to walk through what looked like a suburban, mildly industrial area.

I got back to the hostel right after sunset, had my lunch leftovers for dinner, and called it a day.

I checked out of the hostel by 11 as per the rules, then went straight to a laundrette to get my clothes washed. That took about 1h30mins between the washing, drying, and folding. I continued walking around the parts of the old town I hadn't seen for another hour before sitting down for some lunch.

I then tried going to the university library, but couldn't enter without being a student—fair enough—so I went to the public library. Definitely wasn't as nice as the one in Budapest, but just a normal library.

I left after a good hour to catch my 17:16 train for Vienna.

I keep a good memory from Bratislava, mostly because of the proximity to nature it offers. Next up in Slovakia will be the Tatras mountains and Malá Fatra, following Michal's recommendations.