The travels of Tim and Megan: Bratislava, Slovakia

Christmas Eve

On arrival in Bratislava, we were greeted with rain and wind, not ideal. We caught a taxi from the train station to our hotel, the Falkensteiner Hotel, near the Old Town in the centre of the city. The taxi driver clearly saw us coming and charged us a horrendous €15 for the 1.5km trip, which took a little over a minute. Booooo. However, we had been awake since 2.30am UK time and we just wanted to get to the hotel. We checked in and had an early night, as we were exhausted.

Christmas Day

Needless to say, we had a giant sleep-in on Christmas morning. The idea was to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Bratislava, where we could relax and take things easy before returning to Vienna for two days of sightseeing. We were greeted with falling snow on Christmas morning, so it was indeed a "white Christmas". It was bitterly cold, much more so than it had been the day before. The high must have been something like -3 degrees, if that.

After a solid buffet breakfast in the hotel, we set off (wrapped up like the Michelen Man) to explore the Old Town of Bratislava. Besides the snow falling and the strong, ridiculously icy, wind, the Old Town was lovely. Bratislava is much smaller than its neighbouring central European capitals, Budapest and Prague, but it does have a certain charm to it. It is one of four European capital cities that the Danube river flows through (by chance, we visited all four of those cities in 2010 - Budapest, Belgrade, Vienna and Bratislava).

Slovakia is a country in central Europe with an area of around 49,000 sq km and a population of more than 5 million. It is a land-locked country, bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest and capital city is Bratislava. Slovakia is a high-income advanced economy with one of the fastest growth rates in the European Union and the OECD, thanks largely to a low flat tax rate (fantastic idea). The end of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, was followed by the country's dissolution into two successor states. The Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic went their separate ways on 1 January 1993. Bratislava has a population of around 430,000 and is the political, cultural and economic centre of Slovakia.

Slovakia is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, so both Christmas Day and Boxing Day were public holidays, meaning that very little was open while we were there. However, we visited a couple of souvenir shops and we picked up the obligatory fridge magnet and some postcards. We also checked out the Hlavne namestie (Bratislava's main square), which was looking stunning, with a huge Christmas tree in front of the beautiful Old Town Hall at one end and the 1572 Maximilian Fountain covered in Christmas lights at the other end. The main square was also full of little Christmas market stalls, which were sadly empty, as the markets had closed on 23 December.

One of the quirky features of Bratislava's Old Town is a collection of life-size statues scattered throughout the town centre. The "Napoleon's soldier" leaning over a bench in the main square was our favourite, but there is also a workman poking his head out of a man-hole, a newspaper photographer aiming his lens from around a corner and a man tipping his top hat. The Old Town is packed with beautiful Baroque-style buildings and plenty of lively bars, cafes and shops.

We also found the restaurant where we were booked for an evening Christmas dinner. It was on Michalska ulica, close to the enormous and impressive Michael's Gate. Built in the first half of the 14th century, Michael's Gate is the only surviving original gateway to the medieval city. In 1753-1758 its Gothic tower was raised to its current height of 51m by the addition of a Baroque cupola and the statue of the Archangel Michael.

We popped into an Irish pub and ordered some hot chocolates with a shot of Bailey's to warm ourselves up -we were frozen after an hour or two of wandering the town. We then retired to the hotel and had a lazy Christmas afternoon there, out of the snow! Tim ventured out for another look around the Old Town later in the afternoon while Megs had a little nap.

In the evening, we visited a couple of local pubs - the first was very much like somebody's lounge of their house - very cosy and comfortable. We had a drink and some potato chips there before moving on to a pub called Jimmy's. It was much larger and a little more lively. We shared a bottle of bubbly there to celebrate Christmas. As we were leaving, we discovered they had a large room at the back of the pub that was filled with dozens of big soft toy animals...a little bit weird...

We then headed to La Ramblas Spanish tapas restaurant for Christmas dinner. Not your traditional Christmas dinner, sure. But the food was ridiculously delicious and the service was great. We had the "all you can eat" tapas, salads and grill option. It was awesome. We had a bit of salad and then we ordered a selection of grilled specialities including fried calamari, mussels in wine, prawns, chicken nibbles, salted beef and pork strips, washed down with a bottle of Spanish red. After dinner we rolled down the street to the Irish pub, via a spot of moonwalking in the main square, and rounded off the night with another hot chocolate with Bailey's. Yum!

Boxing Day

Boxing Day began with another enormous sleep-in. Unfortunately we woke to the news that Australia had already got themselves into a losing position in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. They were bowled out for nothing and England had passed their score for no loss on the first day. Not the exciting Test we had hoped for. And even worse, England was now surely going to retain the Ashes and we have to listen to months of ranting about how brave, courageous and unbeatable the heroic, superhuman gladiators of the England XI are...yawn. There's only one thing worse than a bad loser and that's a bad winner. England tend to be both.

After packing up our things and checking out of the hotel, we wandered up the hill to check out the Bratislava Castle. It was another crazily cold day, but it was not snowing and it was actually clear with a bit of blue sky. The Bratislava Castle is a massive rectangular fortress on a hill above the Danube river in the middle of Bratislava. It provides an excellent view of Bratislava, of Austria and, on a clear day, of Hungary. The Castle dates back to at least 907 AD, possibly earlier. Fortified in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Castle was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 15th century and in 1552-60 was remodelled into a Renaissance residence. In 1811 the Castle burnt down and it was rebuilt in the 1950s. Inside the Castle are several sections of the Slovak National Museum, including the Slovak History Museum, a Music Museum and the Treasury of Slovakia, which boasts the tiny "Venus of Moravany", a fertility figure carved from a mammoth tusk about 25,000 years ago.

Naturally, the Castle was closed on Boxing Day, but after admiring the views, we carefully made our way down the other side of the hill towards the Old Town, passing a statue of a crazy bird lady and a little tunnel that had 30cm long icicles hanging from the curved ceiling at the entrance. That's pretty chilly! At the foot of the hill is Bratislava's largest and best known church, St Martin's Cathedral. We wandered in for a look - it was beautiful. We were impressed with how well lit it was (a lot of churches in Europe are very dark) and with how many Christmas trees they had!

From the church, we walked to a cafe in the Old Town and had hot chicken paninis and hot chocolate/coffee for brunch. This was followed by a trip to the City Museum (or at least the main part of it), just next to the main square. The City Museum is actually split into several different arms of the museum, located in different spots around the city. The main part, which we wanted to see, houses the Museum of City History, Museum of Wine Production and the Slovakian Period Rooms. Sadly, like many things in Slovakia and Austria, Museum of City History was closed for renovations. However, we did have a look around the Museum of Wine Production (boring) and the Slovakian Period Rooms, which shows rooms decorated with restored wall paintings, furniture and other examples of town-house interiors from the end of the 18th century up to the end of the 19th century, showing how the upper-classes of Slovakia lived during that period.

A bit more wandering of the town, a little bit of chocolate-buying at a chocolate shop, some more photos and a drink in the pub and we had conquered as much of Bratislava as we could. We decided to catch a slightly earlier train back to Vienna, leaving at 3.45pm and arriving in Vienna at 4.55pm. Slovakia was a big milestone with Tim and Bear cracking 40 countries, but Megs still leads the way on 43. Giddy up.