Bratislava - Day Two

October 20^th, 2026 

Today would be a full day.  I had five places that I wanted to visit.  Normally 2-3 is a big day, especially if it involves museums.  But this was my last day in this city, and I wanted to pack in what I could.

I walked by the Presidential Palace heading to my first stop.

The sentries did similar marching to those in Budapest.

My first stop of interest was to walk up Slavin hill to the Slavín War Memorial.  It is a memorial monument and burial ground of thousands of Russian soldiers who fell during WWII while taking over the city from the Nazis in April 1945.  There are 6 mass graves and 278 individual graves which combine to the final resting place for 6845 soldiers.

A couple of the headstones.  I used Google Translate's camera function to read what some of their ranks were.

The main memorial.

Hard to see here, but it's a Russian soldier crushing a swastika with his foot.

Brothers in arms.

The door at the base of the monument...not sure what's behind there.  But I found it interesting to see some recently laid flowers.

Looking back from the memorial, towards the Danube (not that you can see the river as this is high up on a hill).

You probably can't read the writing on the posts, but in various languages it says things like "May peace be in Slovakia" and "May peace prevail on Earth".

It’s interesting to think that the Russians liberated the city, yet three years later, Czechoslovakia became a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

Looking out to the city.

These are the names of the soldiers who were buried in the mass graves.  Sadly, when you looked straight at the writing, you could barely read it.

Not many of the headstones had pictures of the deceased, but this one was a "War Hero" according to the translation from Google.

A supposedly WWI pillbox.  There were a couple of them but no more information about them.

The modern part of Bratislava.

Walking back down the hill, my next stop was the Transport Museum.  I didn’t expect too much from this place, having looked at some images online, but hey, they had some trains…and I like trains.

An old steamroller outside the front of the museum.

I've always wondered how you get on an off these types of bicycles.

Look at the interesting lever action of the pedals on this one.

This is a mostly wooden bike, that looks like it must be fast considering the wheels!

I liked the look of this scooter.

This car was from 1922 I believe.  It would have been fun to cruise around in this one.

I loved this convertible three-wheeler with it's canvas body.  Makes a fender bender kind of a non-event!  

A replica of an old train station office.  On the left, there are 5-6 telegraph keys.  I guess different ones sent messages to different places.

Trains!  And some old ones too.

This is a custom "Slovakia" chopper made by the Orange County Choppers, a father and son team who have a TV show that I've seen.  I think you'd need really long arms to ride this sucker.

A milk delivery truck.  The operator stood in the front and it looked like there were two levers, one on each side, to control the vehicle.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of Škoda vehicles, seeing as that was the main Czech automobile manufacturer.

Leaving the museum, you can see the Slavin Memorial up on the hill.  I also thought it was to dichotomy of the historic yellow building in the foreground and the red KFC advertising sign up on the left.

Okay, 2 out of 5 stops complete.  I wanted to get number 3 done before lunch, and that was the Old Town Hall, which also included the adjoining building, Apponyi Palace.

I started with climbing up to the top of the tower of the town hall which provided a nice view of the main square of the old town.

The main square of the old town.

There's St. Martin's Cathedral on the left and Bratislava Castle on the right. 

After the tower, I walked down a hallway to Apponyi Palace, which was built in 1761-1762 by Count György Apponyi, an advisor to the King of Hungary.  It has now been turned into a museum, and not one that I found very interesting.  Most of it was about the families who had lived in the dwelling in the past with some of their furniture, kitchenware and even kid’s toys, but I didn’t find it terribly interesting.  It seemed to go on and on too.

"I'm going to party dance with my cannonball!"

Okay, something I can relate to...

Whose got the best crib hand?

Someone's family portrait.

Fancy schmancy.

One of the fancier ceilings in the place.

Two-faced cherubs are creepy...

Not sure whose flag this was, but it must have taken some time to make.

Now this was the most intersting thing I saw in the palace, the inner workings of the locking mechanisms of this chest.  I tried to look at it and figure it out, but I couldn't quite understand how a few parts of it moved while unlocking it with a key.

I guess specifically this key.

In the basement was the dungeon area, which morbidly I found more interesting.  I read how back in the 1300s that when someone was suspected of wrong doing, they subjected the accused to scalding hot water and if they were innocent, God would protect them from the pain, but if guilty, they would react to it.  How ridiculous.  It reminded me of Monty Python, which was likely inspired from this ridiculous notion.  The idea was how do you tell if someone's a witch.  Go through this set of questions:

- What do you do with witches? You burn them.

- What else do you burn? Wood.

- Why do witches burn? Because they are made of wood.

- How do you check if she is made of wood? See if she floats in water, just like wood does.

- What else floats in water? Bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, great gravy, cherries, mud, churches, lead, and a duck.

- The Conclusion: If she weighs the same as a duck, she is made of wood, and therefore a witch. 

I found a spot for lunch and since it was a cloudy and windy day, I had a hankering for a soup.  Well, I found one, that was supposed to be a bean soup but was also advertised to include sausage and “pork knuckle”, which is the meaty joint from a pig's leg located just above the ankle and below the ham portion.  Not something I normally go looking for when I go out to a restaurant.  Slovaks are known for liking their meat and I think my soup consisted of four large beans and a lot of sausage and pork knuckle.  Nevertheless, it was tasty and warmed my belly.

Okay, it was yummy.

Okay, two more items on my list for today.  The next one, the ruins of Devin Castle, required hopping on a local transit bus for about 15 minutes along the Danube. 

Some interesting graffiti under the Most SNP where the bus stop was.

On my walk to the castle, there was a little zoo with these goats with crazy horns...

...and a few emus.

The castle was built around 864 but was renovated and expanded over the years, up until the 17^th century.  It was destroyed by the retreating armies of Napoleon in 1809.

A little model of what the castle looked like before it was partially destroyed.

The keep.

One of the remaining gates.

A seemingly useless "robo-mower".  The first one I've seen in action...or non-action.

Who doesn't like some nice crenulations?!?

Looking out towards the Danube.

Situated up on a cliff, it was an ideal place for a fort due to its position at the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers. The fort used to watch over an important trade route along the Danube as well as one branch of the Amber Road, which is an ancient trade route from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

Getting closer to the main part of the castle.

One thing that I found quite interesting to think about, was that the Iron Curtain ran just below the castle, along the bank of the river.  There was a small museum display describing the time and how some locals tried to escape to the West, some successfully, some not.

Night vision goggles used to see people trying to escape to the West.

The Iron Curtain...which often was more like a "Barbed Wired Curtain".

The dismantling of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

It was super windy, but somewhat sunny, as I walked around the castle grounds.  There were only a handful of other tourists, and I was happy that I’d made the effort to leave the city to check out this historic spot.

That little turret on the right is known as the "Maiden's Castle".  Separated from the main castle, it balances perilously on a lone rock and has spawned countless legends concerning imprisoned lovelorn daughters leaping to their deaths.

A closer view of Maiden's Castle.

It's windy!

Interesting bathroom...

After bussing back to Bratislava, my last stop of the day was the infamous UFO.  I walked along one of the pedestrian walkways on the Most SNP bridge (the walkways are below the car deck on either side of the bridge).  Oh, an interestingly, it is the world's longest bridge to have one pylon and one cable-stayed plane…that’s if you’re into large, well engineered structures, which I am.

The UFO.

Here we go...

The underbelly of the Most SNP.

My Bratislava Card gave me a 20% discount on the admission price to ascend to the top of the 95-meter, slanted pylon.  Then there was a set of stairs to walk up, which were a bit discombobulating as the pylon was at a bit of an angle, but the stairs were level.

 

At the top, there was just one German tourist, a woman in her early 60s, and we had a brief conversation before I headed down to the bar/restaurant area.  I had been warned that the bar was closing at 5 o’clock, in just half an hour’s time, but that was plenty of time to have an expensive beer!

Looking west down the Danube.

There's the Bratislava Fort and the Old Town is to the right of the bridge, you can see St. Martin's Cathedral there.

Look at all of those Communist era apartment blocks.

The view from the UFO.

Not sure why I struck this pose...

The discombobulating stairs...not that it really shows up in the video.

The restaurant area of "Area 51".

Cheers!

"None shall pass".  I actually tried to walk a bit into the restaurant area to take a picture to the east, down the Danube, but was politely asked to not go any further.

On my walk back, this is from the underbelly of the bridge...it was a good spot for a photo of the Bratislava Castle.

Back in Old Town.

The Portugal Embassy is on the left, and some umbrella display in the middle.

Of course it was related to an art gallery.

A famous statue in the main square just called "Napoleon's Army Soldier".

I sat down in this quiet restaurant/bar to do a bit of blogging with Napoleon looking over me.

What a licence plate to get!  Surely it must be a vanity late...but why this combo of Xs and 89?!?

Okay...I can be childish...

Sometimes you need the full picture.

This was in the window of a fancy cafe...they look busy in there.

What a day!  I was pooped by the end of it and once again I just grabbed a few slices of pizza and headed back to my room.  Tomorrow, I have a 5-hour train ride across Slovakia to the second largest city, Košice.