Dates: November 27th, 2019 to November 30th, 2019
Honestly, this was a city I’d just only known through learning capitals for Quiz Bowl, but we took a chance and checked it out. Definitely learned a lot about the history of this place.
First of all, Bratislava is a relatively new town. It was historically called Pressburg (Anglicized) and was recently renamed after Slovak populations were moved around and this was positioned as the capital of a new Slovak state. Ultimately, this was a city that had been around and has a history, but has seen people located and relocated inside of it as a result of meddling from Maygars, Nazis, Soviets, and post-Soviets. Ultimately, this city feels very new, has a lot of construction going on, and has a small Old Town where we stayed.
This isn’t a particularly glowing recommendation, but I think that if we could do it again, we’d likely have spent less time here and more time in Budapest. While this a perfectly beautiful city, the character and, hmm, personality of cities like Budapest and Vienna are immediately clear. Here it still feels like its figuring it out.
I’ll note there was a Julius Meinl here… but was strangely awful and smoke-filled. Do not recommend. We also went shopping because apparently Black Friday, which we knew had spread to Canada, was also littered through the section of Eastern Europe we were hanging around. Internet and Amazon probably to blame here.