Bratislava Encore

A bright and early start saw at the train station by 8:30am and soon on the train back to Bratislava. We had enjoyed Budapest, with it growing on us each day, but had managed to see quite a lot of it during five days and were happy to set off again. The train trip between the two cities takes just under three hours, and gives a good view of the vastness and flatness of the Hungarian Plains. Cropping is the name of the game, hence we have seen very few livestock of any sort. Most of the rural houses you see seem to be relatively recent in construction, so we imagine that a lot was wiped out during the various wars and uprisings.

Our first impression of Bratislava when we arrived in the dark and rain a week ago was not great. We had arrived direct from the airport and were off again by train early the next morning to Budapest (we chose to do it this way because Ryanair's most convenient and cheapest flights flew from Girona into Bratislava not Budapest). However, we have now arrived back here and have a few days ahead of us to look around.

A few people have told us that Bratislava is rather average, full of hideous communist apartment blocks, that there is little of note to see or do and even the castle is recently reconstructed and had lost much of its history. When we set off on foot, as always, to explore the historic centre we were very pleasantly surprised. The tall blocky apartment buildings on the distant side of the Danube are certainly pretty plain and lack any appeal, but we found the older buildings in and around the historic centre generally in very good order and full of character. The city is rather lower-rise than many other capitals, the streets are wide, and the overall impression is of brightness. In fact, by comparison with the centre of Budapest, Bratislava is for the most part more vehicle-free, paved, clean, and with lots of outdoor dining and drinking on quiet, wide and often treed streets. The number of museums and suchlike to visit is a lot less, but if you are just into wandering around an attractive, clean and pedestrianised area, it has a great deal of charm and appeal. We really like it here.

The communist architecture is pretty good too. Very much monumental and stark, but with good proportions - really just quality architecture of the era, and no doubt deliberately rejecting the heavy decoration of the older architecture. Unfortunately many of these buildings are becoming rather tired, or even abandoned. It's a pity, simply because they are not fashionable.

The walk up to the Bratislava castle was worth it, not for seeing the castle but for the view out over the city and the Danube. The day was perfect, with clear blue skies and lots of sun. This definitely helped us see the charm of the city, rather than the dark and dreary ride in from the airport through the suburbs a week ago. Having arrived at midday, we had walked back to the apartment where we had the first night here, had a bite to eat and set off to explore. By 5pm it was time to put our feet up. They are starting to complain a bit. John's Fitbit which calculates mileage tells us we walked another 17km today. We've walked 104,000 steps in the last week. That's 82km! It was very pleasant sitting down watching everyone else walking instead. 

I forgot to say that we had to do the ice-cream thing again today. One of the few Must-Dos here in Bratislava is to visit a gelateria called Koun. Unfortunately everyone else does this too, and the average wait is about 20 minutes. So be it. The scoops are supposed to be delicious and very generous. So they were. Just like Budapest, everyone here seems to wander around with a cone in their hand, and that absolutely includes locals as well as tourists. Gelato shops are so numerous it's incredible they can compete with each other. It must almost be a national dish, like Hungarian goulash, or something. It's better than having every second shop a hairdresser, as is the case in France - that's not nearly as delicious!

The morning saw us up and off to the train station at a stupid hour. One of the good things about Bratislava is that a day-trip to Vienna is very easy - it's only an hour away by train, or a little more on the Danube by boat. We managed to arrive in Vienna before 9am for a solid day of sightseeing. Our ticket included a day pass to the Vienna public transport network - metro, trams and buses. We hadn't planned on this but when we bought our tickets to Vienna at the train station, the woman behind the counter interpreted our sign language as meaning we wanted a public transport ticket as well. We didn't know she was even asking us that. However, by day's end we had experienced all three modes of transport, and were extremely pleased we'd had easy access to it, plus of course worn our shoes out with another 15km-worth. First stop was an area with three Hundertwasser buildings - these are lovely and bright, very eclectic and an anarchic breath of fresh air after the normal ornate and staid Viennese buildings.

Hundertwasser Village

A coffee break and on to the Museum Quarter where we sat and had a roll for lunch. Into the Kunsthistorisches Museum, not to reemerge for 3.5 hours! Our main aim had been to reacquaint ourselves with the world's best collection of Brueghels which we had last seen on our OE in 1982.

Before them though, we thoroughly enjoyed an excellent Egyptian collection. Quite amazing being up close and personal with 4000 year-old hieroglyphs and mummies, and even being able to enter a complete tomb transplanted from Egypt - not a replica but the original. Top women's tennis player Marion Bartoli was wandering around too. Then through a good collection of Roman and Greek antiquities, before rounding out the non-painting part of the visit with a series of rooms of odd things from the museum's collection.

Can you get more over-the-top?

This ship rolls along, the players play and the guns fire!

These included automatons, clocks, and much amazing kitsch from the distant past. The ubiquitous seaside souvenir made of glued-together seashells is certainly not a recent phenomenon.

Finally onto the paintings. The bulk of them were collected by one particular Habsburg king who managed to piece together a collection of some 1400 paintings, which he eventually gifted to the museum. It was absurd walking through entire rooms of Titians, Raphaels, Van Dycks and so on.

This density is how the Habsburgs used to display their paintings

The religious masterpieces we find monotonous (John the Baptist's head wasn't much fun to look at the first time), so on to the Brueghels. Vienna has most of the really well-known examples, and it was lovely to view them again. Finally back to the cloakroom for our bags and out into the heat of the mid-afternoon.

One thing we wanted to do was to have a cake and coffee in an old-style Viennese coffeeshop. On our way back towards the station we found just what we wanted, Cafe Tirolerhof. Old, tired, with lots of little booths and old people reading newspapers. It looked like it hadn't changed for many, many decades. Perfect! We enjoyed a white wine and the obligatory apfelstrudel.

Back on a bus to the station, back on the train and back to Bratislava, where we arrived rather tired at 7.30pm.