Got to Bratislava in the morning and worked out the trams pretty quickly to head straight into the old town. I had been looking forward to this as I had seen so many beautiful pictures. Started at the St Martin's Cathedral end where we also had views of Bratislava Castle and the Danube River...as well as the 'Space ship' observation deck on the Novy Post Bridge. Bratislava is a lively place to walk around. Every street has beautiful buildings and trendy coffee shops. St. Michael's Gate and Street are one of Bratislava's popular sights and is a quaint street lined with many shops on it. The shops are lively, mostly souvenirs, but still good to browse....the souvenirs are not cheap items, but lovely art, glassware etc. St. Michael's Gate - dates back to the 1st half of the 14th century.
We really didn't have a plan of attack or order to our walking today and we found ourselves outside the old town and near the Sheraton. The penny dropped when we saw all the police, security and black SVUs parked in cordoned off areas. The many military helicopters doing laps was also a give away. All the heads of Government fro. The European Union were in town for the Bratislavia Summit to discuss both Brexit and the refugee issue. BR was excited to think he might see Angela Merkel...his dream girl...but although we searched, no luck.
Back to the old town and The Town Hall and Square were also very pretty. But the two stand out buildings for me were the Primatial,Palace and the Second Church of St Elisabeth (the Blue Church). The palace was a majestic pink building and the church a beautiful baby blue. The Palace, built in 1778 and its pale pink and white exterior is topped with various marble statues and a large cast iron cardinal’s hat. The hat is a symbol of the Archbishop, for whom the palace was built, and of the various cardinals who lived here throughout the years. Took quite a few photos. It really was beautiful. The second was the Blue Church. Looked at this for ages....mainly because a couple of girls took forever to get a few selfies. The church was built in 1907, so not as old as many we had seen. In fact after seeing so many churches along the way, I never expected to see something so different. It was a very soft baby blue, that really stood out. As well as being a church, there is a high school there...this would be pretty cool...no graffiti in there I hope. Spent a long day walking around and after deciding to visit the castle in the morning we headed back to the hotel for a rest before dinner.
BR went to the supermarket to get pre dinner supplies of Camembert cheese, crackers and beer. On his return he had been attacked by wasps and had 4 nasty bites (the guy in the hotel said he had been attacked and had about 20). Found a local restaurant, ordered salmon and the lovely young owner gave us complimentary chocolates as we were tourists eating at her place. I'm guessing they didn't see a lot...we were a 15 minute tram ride out of the old town.
Headed back into old town day 2 keen to visit the castle. Sadly, it was all cordoned off and all entrances guarded by police...as was the river, with police stationed every 10 meters or so. Damn Angela and her gang were meeting there. I thought of suggesting they could all see the castle at any time and we had come all the way from Australia, but machine guns can look pretty convincing. Instead we walked over the Novy Post bridge and headed up the spaceship observatory. Had a coffee while we looked over the Danube at the castle...again we could see all the black SUVs. Discovered we couldn't get up to the outside lookout...snipers on the roof. After some rejigging....we were determined to see a castle, we saw that Devin Castle was only about a 15 minute drive. So, off we went. What a great idea. The ruins of this castle still ain top of a massive cliff, with the cliff forming part of its walls in places. It has amazing views over the confluence of the Danube and Moravia Rivers (learnt a new word...confluence). Walking around the cliff there was what looked like a war memorial. It was peppered with very large bullet/shell holes. Couldn't find what that was all about.
Next stop Vienna...really looking forward to this.
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