DAYTRIP TO BRATISLAVA

JUNE 2019

I visited Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) as a daytrip from Vienna. The trainride to Bratislava takes about one hour and costs € 10. You can be even quicker when you take the Flixbus, as it apparently will drop you of in the city center, while the train station is located a bit outside of the center, but I love traveling by train.

I did not do the standard touristy things in Bratislava, as I only had a few hours, but instead decided on a few spots I really wanted to see. When visiting these spots you do get a general feeling about the city. I liked the combination of cool creative initiatives and historical buildings. The historical center is pretty small, so this is a perfect daytrip location.

These spots were the following:

Hotel Galeria

This is an actual hotel, however the reviews are not very good. Still, it makes for an interesting stop. It is located right behind the train station, so it was just a short walk.

The Blue Church

This church is actually called the St. Elisabethchurch, but just add “The blue church” in your navigation, or you will end up at the wrong church… This art nouveau building is worth visiting, as it will give you serious Wes Anderson vibes. The interior is blue as well, so they have gone really strong on the theme. The church is a short walk from the historic city center (10 minutes).

An added bonus of visiting the Blue Church is that you get to see cool streetart, as the church is located in a less-historic part of the center. In June there is an annual street art festival and some installations are still visible for the remaining year.

Old town

The old town city center is really beautiful. I especially loved the umbrella street which was founded by an Art Gallery Nedbalka (where you will find it). The historic center is small, so easy to wander around, you will automatically pass by all the worthwhile sites. We also liked taking the walk up to the Hrad (castle). I personally prefer to enjoy castles from outside, but you can also visit the Hrad.

Views from the Hrad

Food

As we only visited for one day we did not get to taste a whole lot of food, however I do have some recommendations:

Enjoy Bistro food&coffee: We had lunch here and were really satisfied with our choice. This bistro is located in the main street with restaurants and a lot of the restaurants offered “discounted” lunch menus (which consist mainly of meat & rice). We wanted to eat something healty so we ended up at Enjoy. We liked eating in the main alley, as you can do people watching, but we also liked our  healthy lunch. They have really good information about allergies as well and they also offer vegetarian options. The interior is really cozy as well.

Bon Manefaktur: This is a sweets shop and we ended up hear as Hielke is a big sweet tooth. You produce lollies on the spot, which was quite spectacular to watch. They also have chocolates in really cool forms, such as photocamera’s and chocolate tools. It makes for a cute visit.

Infinity room

We bumped into “Multium infinity rooms” on our way to the Hrad. So if you did not have a chance to visit one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms, this is a good option. They have six rooms, of which you can enter some. It costs € 5 to enter and we spent about 15 minutes here. The lighting was not as good, so I did not take good photographs, but it is still a nice way to spend some time. It did make me think that Infinity rooms might be the new Escape rooms, I can see them popping up everywhere.

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