Travel report: Slovakia

Date of visit: July 2002

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Since July 2002 I have traveled three times to Slovakia, whereby I remember the first two visits only vaguely. The first time, I was 16 years old and went 18 hours by train back and forth to watch a football match in the city of Zilina.

The second time was in 2007. I spent the summer holidays with a friend in Bratislava. Why in Bratislava? Good question. At that time Prague was one of the in-destinations in Europe. I had already been twice in the Czech capital back then, and I was a huge fan of that city. Anyway, I needed something new and Bratislava seemed to be the more exotic sister city. A city that fewer people travel to than Prague. Even then I liked to visit places that not everyone had seen before.

Slovakia in 2019

I don’t remember much of my first trip to Bratislava, so a second trip twelve years later would refresh my memories. But after booking the flights I was a bit surprised when I found out through some online research that you can actually do quite little in Bratislava. I tried to remember what we did the first time. To be honest, it wasn’t much either. We went out every night until the early hours of the morning and then slept until the afternoon.

Consequently, I wrote down all the worthwhile attractions and came to the conclusion that one could easily see all the sights of Bratislava in one day. Bratislava is a rather small capital with only 400’000 inhabitants and to be honest, there is no sight except for the castle that really stands out.

That’s why I wanted to make it at least a culinary highlight. A big help here are all the food bloggers who travel around the world and write about their experiences. I was inspired by them and with additional help from TripAdvisor I decided where we would eat in Bratislava. More about this later…

By the way, Slovakia was still united with the Czech Republic until eight years after my birth and was called Czechoslovakia back then. That means that Slovakia is one of the youngest countries today.

Other interesting facts about Slovakia are that the country has the highest number of castles and chateaux per capita in the world, and that Andy Warhol’s parents were Slovaks. Nevertheless, the best fact in my opinion is that employees of the Slovenian and Slovak embassies meet once a month with their colleagues to exchange false mail. I wonder if the employees of the Swedish and Swiss embassies do the same.

Revisiting the Slovak capital

So, how was the second trip to the Slovak capital? First of all, it was like I expected it to be: it was like a completely new city for me because of my missing memories of the first trip. But you have to bear in mind that in 2007, when I last visited Bratislava, there were no smartphones on the market. That means that you were – if at all – on the road with any digital cameras and the photos were never looked at again at the latest three months after the trip. In other words, the cities I travel to today are more likely to be remembered thanks to the flood of photos that collect in my mobile phone or cloud.

One of the first thing I noticed on this second trip was that the city wasn’t really cheap anymore. When I was here in 2007, I perceived Slovakia as extremely cheap. The country still had the Koruna as its currency back then. As soon as a country accepts the euro as its currency, the good times are over. Anyway, people who visit Bratislava for a “cheap weekend in the East” will be shocked. Bratislava is still cheaper than any Swiss city, but the prices for drinks and food were rather the upper EU standard.

As we already suspected, it went quite fast until we saw all the sights of the city. We started our sightseeing tour with Modrý kostolík, a blue church that has a bit a Disney Land-look.

After a short stroll through the old town, we arrived at the city gate called Michalská brána. Here you get a very good view over Bratislava. In general, I have to say that there are a lot of good view points in Bratislava. This is one of the city’s biggest strengths.

From this vantage point we went straight on to the next one. The UFO bridge is Bratislava’s most important landmark next to the castle. The bridge contains a viewing platform and two bars.

And shortly afterwards we reached the third place from where you have a good view over Bratislava: the Sky Bar, apparently the only rooftop bar in the capital.

We then visited the castle on the second day. This castle is omnipresent, you see it everywhere in the city from a different perspective, which is pretty cool. By the way, the castle is another place that offers a great view over Bratislava.

The last thing we visited was Slavín, a 52 metre high war memorial that is about fifteen minutes away from the castle. There is also a military cemetery there. Slavín was the last monument we visited before returning home.

So, what is Bratislava like? The Slovak capital is okay. A cozy city for a weekend, but not a city that absolutely thrills you. There are four to five sights worth seeing, and if the weather is good, as in our case, you can sit outside in many places and have a cup of coffee.

What is the city like when it rains? I imagine it to be terribly boring, because I can’t imagine a good bad weather program. The few museums in Bratislava sound uninteresting to me and the city didn’t give me the impression as if shopping fans were going to be happy there.

The nightlife in Bratislava is also below average. The streets in the city center were rather empty on both evenings. The only passage where there was a bit of life was the one leading to the city gate. The bars in Bratislava are also nothing special. So even the nightlife wouldn’t be an adequate bad weather program.

Otherwise, Bratislava, like Prague or Budapest, is a city that shows a good transition from west to east. This can be seen above all in the architecture and the food. Nevertheless, many people think that a weekend in the Czech Republic or Slovakia would give them the ultimate Eastern Europe feeling. They are wrong. If you want real Eastern Europe, you have to go to the Ukraine or Romania. Geographically, countries like Slovakia or the Czech Republic belong to Central Europe anyway.

However, my assessment of Bratislava may sound a bit more negative than it actually was. This weekend in Bratislava was the first Euro trip and a good start into 2019. Two days was just the right (and maximum) number of days and thanks to the nice weather we were able to keep busy. It’s just that this trip could not offer anything spectacular. Except when we were in the restaurant…

A food tour through Bratislava

As I have already written, after my research I did not expect much from Bratislava when it comes to sightseeing. Therefore this trip should be worthwhile at least from a culinary point of view. I searched out three restaurants, in two of them we went on Saturday, in the third on Sunday at noon.

The first restaurant was one in old town specializing in simple Slovak cuisine. No fancy food, just authentic cuisine. Meštiansky Pivovar was the name of the restaurant and it was empty when we entered it on early Saturday afternoon.

I asked the waitress if she could recommend me a typical Slovak starter and a typical Slovak main course, whereupon she pointed with her finger to four to five positions on the menu. I chose a Slovak sausage as a starter and beef in a vegetable cream sauce as the main course.

The sausage and the homemade bread were good, but the main course was visually a catastrophe. The whole plate was covered with a bad smelling soup, which was supposed to be the vegetable cream sauce. The bread was also gross.

It didn’t taste too good either. On a scale of 10 I would have given this food a 3. 2 for the miserable preparation and 4 for the taste. In other words: the first meal was a disappointment at least for me. And this despite the fact that the restaurant is ranked 21st out of over 1,770 restaurants in Bratislava.

What certainly didn’t help was an old, overweight woman who ate her food at the table next to us like a pig. Luckily, it was only after the meal that I saw her put her finger in the scale bowl to be able to lick the last drops from her finger. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten a bite down any more.

The second restaurant was also special. Very special. The choice fell on a burger restaurant, of which not only the internet raved, but also the receptionist of our hotel. A taxi drove us out of the old town, because the restaurant named Roxor BRGR was a bit outside.

When we first arrived, we thought we were wrong. It didn’t look like a restaurant but a canteen. Seriously, every McDonald’s is more stylishly furnished than this restaurant. After all it was full of guests, which is a good sign.

Also the table we got was rather bad, because we were squeezed somewhere in a corner between the kitchen and the other tables. “Are you sure this is the right restaurant?” I was asked. Maybe there’s a second Roxor.

And then… came the best burger I’ve eaten in recent years. Maybe it was the best burger ever in my life. Perfectly prepared meat with melted cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, cucumber, salad and a sensational homemade sauce. In addition, chips of rosemary salt with another homemade sauce, which was at least as good as the one in the burger.

The hipster lemonade with lavender and blueberry taste rounded off the whole perfectly. And that in a restaurant that looked worse than any cheap canteen. What do I learn from it? Never judge a book by its cover.

After a rather bad and a sensational experience it was the turn of the third restaurant on Sunday afternoon. The Hradna Hviezda is a restaurant in Bratislava Castle that offers more sophisticated Slovak cuisine. No star cuisine, but definitely a different league than the first restaurant.

In this restaurant I first had a pumpkin soup as a starter and then goulash with bacon dumplings and buttered potatoes.

The food was also excellent in this restaurant. There was no wow effect like in the burger restaurant the night before, but it was solid Slovak food. And an ideal refreshment before the castle tour.

I won’t tell you any more about the pizza we ate shortly before the transfer to the airport in Vienna. But all in all the trip to Bratislava was very worthwhile, especially from a culinary point of view. The exception was the first restaurant, but the Burger Restaurant was a real highlight.

Is Slovakia worth a trip?

I’ve been to Slovakia three times now. All three trips were okay and it was good to visit a city where I was 12 years ago for the last time. You may ask if a trip to Slovakia is worthwhile. Let me put it this way…

Like practically every European country, Slovakia offers one or the other thing that justifies a trip. A perhaps rather undiscovered jewel is the Tatra National Park in the north of the country, where you can hike or ski. However, there are certainly more interesting countries in Europe purely in terms of cities. Bratislava may be okay for a weekend, but compared to other European capitals it is in my opinion not a spectacular city. Also the other cities in Slovakia, as for example Košice or Zilina, are rather not must see cities.

It goes without saying that, from a tourism perspective, Slovakia is not a European heavyweight like Spain, France or Italy. I would even go so far as to say that Slovakia receives less attention than neighboring countries such as Hungary or the Czech Republic, which is to some extent justified. But perhaps this is what makes it attractive for some to travel here in order to avoid the crowded tourist spots in Europe.

The trip to Bratislava was in the end a normal city trip in Europe, which included sightseeing, good food and drinks. Nothing spectacular. For this reason I am looking forward to the 19th of April, because then the journey to country #85 begins. And this country is definitely unique…

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Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!