Flaneur and fairytales in Bratislava
What to do on your Sunday in Vienna? Don’t be in Vienna.
Our last whole day in Europe happened to be a Sunday and we wandered around Vienna aimlessly, not having much hope in finding things open. A dreary rainy morning that found the seven of us just walking, crossing roads, taking random turns and walking more. Until we came to a little touristy station on the Danube that offered boat trips to Bratislava. And we thought, why not! We checked the price of the tour and found it a bit a pricey. But there was nothing to stop us from taking the train. So we did! Bratislava is an hour from Vienna, and seeing a whole new country was a much better way to spend our last afternoon in Europe that wandering around a rain-soaked, shuttered Vienna that had very little to offer. So off we went.
There’s a train to Bratislava every two hours from the Wien Hauptbahnhof (Hbf) train station and the ticket is about 12 Euros and some change. The train ride was very, very picturesque. The October landscape is something to write home about. The fields are full of pumpkin and squash towns - orange and full and tumbling all over the ground. The trees, an ombre of shifting, singing colours and a sky that can’t make up its mind whether to smile cheerily or burst into tears. We went into Bratislava not really expecting much. We were honestly looking to kill time. But what a beautiful way to spend our last evening in Europe, it turned out to be.
Bratislava is a gothic dream come true. We began our exploration of the city with lunch. Of course we had the famous, hard to pronounce but very easy to eat bryndzové halušky, potato dumplings with sheep’s milk cheese. A lot of places were closed on account of it being Sunday. But nevertheless, it is a gorgeous city with lots to explore. The rest of the gang chose to do a segway tour. Yours truly was too chickenshit for it, so Sahit and I chose to walk around this bewitching town. Harder on the feet, easier on the eyes.
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, formerly known as Pressburg. Once you cross the Saint Michael Gate with its distinct teal baroque-style tower that lords over the landscape, and enter the Old Town, it’s all cobblestoned, turreted, marshmallow-coloured neoclassical architectural romance. It’s like slipping through a time portal. A veritable Once-upon-a-time town. Cute little stores offer all kinds of souvenirs. Magical creatures and cute witches rule most of the themes. I was cursing myself for not bringing my camera along - we had stepped out for a stroll, remember? Not a stumble into a different country altogether. Or another chapter in time, for that matter.
Saint Michael’s Gate
Saint Michael’s Gate is like that filigreed, first letter of a fairytale that opens up a world of fantasy and colour. You step through this gate, which once was part of a strong, moated fortification, and you step through a portal into the past. Its curiously coloured and shaped tower makes you wonder if it’s the tip of the dragon tail that Saint Michael slew. Or even a charmed witch’s hat that keeps and preserves the Old Town in a timeless spell. You can go all the way to the top for some of the best views of the city. It also houses the Armoury Museum.
Bratislava Castle
We thought we’d walk to the castle, but it turned out to be a bit much. It’s better to take the bus to the castle from the Old Town. The castle sits atop the mountain and the imposing ramparts loom on the horizon, casting a watchful eye on the city below. It is steeped in legend and mystery as far as things intangible are concerned and houses the very tangible Museum of History. It has these funny, sharp angled-conical turrets that make you think of this severe monarch with the sharpest and cruelest of goatees, casting a stern eye on his subjects below. As nightfalls, it gives the impression of hovering over the ground; as if so removed from the hoi polloi and in a realm of its own.
UFO
The UFO is a curiosity that you’ll see popping over the skyline that is predominantly turreted or spired. A veritable space oddity, that got snagged on one of the mighty beams of the bridge. Turns out it’s a restaurant and offers some of the best views of Bratislava. Some sci-fi drama in the middle of all this historical romance.
St. Martin’s Cathedral
This 13th century cathedral where many a royal was coronated is a true-blue royalist. It even has a replica of the gilded Hungarian crown placed on its spire. It even hosts a coronation party every September, in memory of those years when Bratislava offered safe refuge to kings from the marauding Turkish armies. The picture below stars these two motifs of Bratislava from different times. The hovering crown and the flying saucer holding their own in time and space.
The Square
It’s impossible to describe the square or the Hlavne Namestie. The October evening sun turning the jewelled window panes to living water, the bright facades to crystal bijoux*, the flower boxes into a cluster of dancing fairies. The fountain in the middle of the square gushes its joy and welcome, persuading you to stop and listen to its story and its song - of the Knight Roland, so in love who used to sing to his lady-love and then, the children growing used to it, could no longer sleep without it when he was summoned back to France, and how the fountain was made to sing its ceaseless lullaby. The Primate’s Palace - not a home for apes but the bishop himself, is pink as strawberry cheesecake. The air is alive with the smell of caramel and in a church, mass is in session. A furry white wolf with the biggest of smiles walks with his tiny cute wolf master and grown up wolf mother. They stop for ice-cream, quite unaware of how they’ve changed my memory of Bratislava. The square is alive with many, many tiny fairytales in session.
Patisserie Konditorei Kormuth
While researching the must-dos as I usually do, which is a bit too-latedly, I realised that this wonderful cafe was just a few steps away from the square. How I would have loved having my coffee or hot chocolate served in period porcelain!!!! This cafe is all gold cup handles and floral spray and the clink of the “nice tableware”, making you feel like a duchess at tea. Google maps had me kicking myself for missing this cafe with its historical, frescoed interiors and tastefully-put-together menu.
Old Town hall
It dates back to 1370 and is so incredibly pretty with its shiny ornate teal roof makes you think of a bright bird feather pressed in between the pages of a thick and gilded old tome. There’s something about the fragility of old pages that this building wears like a garment. Like it wants to tell you stories, if you take the time to listen. It wants to invite you into its cloistered renaissance courtyard, walk its corridors as it rhapsodises about a past long gone.
Grassalkovich Palace
This rococo palace is a bit geometric to be romantic. Though i’m sure it lacks nothing in terms of grandeur. Our afternoon in Bratislava did not accommodate this palace either. But it’s one of Bratislava’s famous children - it was built for Count Anton Grassalkovich, chairman of the Hungarian Royal Chamber and advisor to Empress Maria Theresa in 1760. Built for official purposes and entertaining the aristocrats, it is currently the Presidential Palace. The adjoining French Gardens are apparently a sight to see.
Slavin
We didn’t go here - again quite far from the Old Town. But I do think a proper Bratislava experience is incomplete without visiting this place. It is hard to ignore the irony in the name of this memorial that pays homage to the memory of the soldiers who fell during WWII and the event of the liberation of Slovakia (then Czechoslovakia) by the red army. What began as a good thing turned sour very quickly with the oppression of Soviet rule. The style of this monument is a harsh disciplinarian voice of severe angles and cold grey that oddly contrasts with the fairytale architecture of the Old Town. Though reminiscent of the days of the iron curtain, again, it ironically offers some great views of the city.
Blue Church
This art nouveau Hungarian Secession piece dedicated to St. Elizabeth is like a birthday cake, freshly frosted in the yummiest of blues. It was closed when we went there. But we got some nice pictures by sticking in our phones through the grill. I imagine that the townsfolk stole this cake from the giant-wife who resided in the hills. And then, she was so mad that she put a spell on it, turning it into cement and stone, so that the thieves could not eat it. And since it was inedible anyway, the townsfolk had it consecrated so that it would be too holy to be torn down.
Devin castle
How I’d have loved to visit Devin Castle. But it’s quite a way off, and I didn’t know of its existence until a couple of days ago. But now that I’ve seen pictures and read its stories, I have to do my share of waxing imaginative. The ghost of the past haunts the ruins of the Devin Castle in the hauntingest way imaginable. It hangs by its desperate yet unrelenting claws to a crumbling rocky outcrop where the wind howls and wails a lament. It overlooks the confluence of the Danube and Morava, rivers that probably carry the memory of turning a bend and floating into the view of the castle. That sharp intake of breath that time remembers so well, so fondly, that it refuses to let the welt in lungs go, despite the pillaging of Napoleon’s army. The grey stones keep up some strange lover’s tryst, possibly between a Viennese noble and a Devin damsel, possibly a water sprite, that it still seeks Vienna out so much that you can see the city from here on a clear day.
Speaking of things that haunt, Bratislava is crawling with lore and ghosts. The grey building in the picture in its former avatar used to be the residence of some long bearded old men of a dead-for-many-years disposition. The story goes that the honourable men of the town got together to decide the best way to protect the town from the Horde, a thieving nomadic tribe. They decided that paying them off was the best possible recourse. But were butchered at the enemy camp for all their efforts. These thwarted men of honour carried their slight to the grave and beyond - for years they reduced the Burg to a place best avoided, with their sudden appearances and howling and inexplicable candle lighting on the fourth floor. Until it was torn down in 1883. The respectable grey building in the picture took its place.
In a typical ‘keeping up with the Jones’ neighbourly narrative, the green building next to it used to be a pub of some disrepute. It served such good wine, the best in Pressburg, that even witches would stop by for the occasional celebration. Especially when they welcomed a newcomer into their cadre.
This seemingly lovely woman in the picture below, who seems to be a commonplace enough theme for a fountain? Well she is the ghost of a woman who loved her plants so much that she couldn’t bear that they were neglected upon her demise. She would come every night, all vapour and kindness, to tend to her flowers. One day someone happened to catch her in the act, and something that never happens in your average ghost happened. The haunt got such a scare that she turned to stone. The vapour turned to stone. And there she’s been ever since, watering can and all.
Kapitulska Street
The sky suddenly closed its eye and it went inexplicably dark. A chill, as sure as a sudden silence settled around us. These streets were so old, so medieval and so quiet and so eerily baroque that you expect to encounter Count Dracula walking past you in his great coat and his top hat pulled low over his eyes to protect him from the sun. What sun? Wait, was that what this sudden cloud cover was all about? That sweet old lady who furtively hobbled past us into one of those door, was she the Count himself in disguise? I wouldn’t recommend a nightly jaunt in these parts without a little garlic in your pocket.
Bratislava Flagship Restaurant
One of the largest restaurants in Europe, this one is not called flagship for nothing. If you want to have a gastronomic tour of Slovakia through the ages and its geography, this is probably your best bet.
Old Slovak National Theatre
Bratislava is the place to catch an opera or ballet for cheap. Super cheap.Of course, we hadn’t planned for this. So Sahit and I chose to end our meandering of the city outside the theatre and watch real life Bratislava go by. An old man fed his old beagle some doggy nuggets near us. I wondered if he moved to the city recently with his children or if he grew old there. And if it were the latter, what memories of this pretty, postcard city did he hold. Bratislava is a young city in the modern world and an old city in the memory of time. From the Nazi regime to the oppressions of the Soviet state, this once-haven-for kings hasn’t had an easy time in the recent past. It remembers a lot and there’s a story lying in plain sight just about every where.
And suddenly all those witch souvenirs began to make sense. Bratislava does cast spell on you, and a strong one at that.
