A castle, a UFO, and Josef Stalin

During our only full day in Bratislava, Phillip and I visited the Bratislava Castle, visible from all over the city as it is situated on a hill near the Danube River.

The castle grounds opened for visitors at 9 am. We decided that after Prague Castle last year and Schonbrunn Palace last week, we didn't want to see the museum inside this castle. We walked around the exterior overlooking the Danube

walkway leading to the castle grounds entrance

view of the Danube from the castle

We went thru the gardens on the grounds

garden with reconstruction in background

We even walked along the ramparts at the rear of the castle (the only tourists on that side of the complex)

the rear ramparts of the castle

We finished our tour of the castle at 10:10 am. It wasn't a very big castle. I understand that over a couple of hundred years, maintenance needs to be done, but the reconstruction and repairs made the castle look too new. Only a few sections of the rear wall looked old, but all the information about the castle spoke to its role during the Hapsburg rule.

We wanted to get a public transportation ticket because we didn't want to walk the 3km trek uphill on Thursday with our luggage to get to the train station. Our hotel receptionist said we could buy tickets at yellow ticket machines at the tram stops. We couldn't find one, so we asked a lady on the street and she directed us to a tobacco shop. Yep, one can purchase transport tickets there, so we bought a 24-hour ticket. We did a trial run to the train station and bought our train ticket for Budapest a day early. 11 euro each, including seat reservations, for a 2-1/2 hour train ride. Exceeding reasonable! And we saw plenty of yellow ticket machines after we had our tickets.

Since we had an unlimited transport ticket, we rode the tram across the Danube River bridge and walked along the river to the next bridge back to downtown. We walked under the UFO. You can see it in the third picture of this post, the right side of the picture.

The UFO is actually a restaurant on top of a unique cable pylon support for the road bridge. The bridge, with its UFO, was built in the late 1960s during the communist era. In addition to the UFO, that bridge had another unique feature, the pedestrian walkway was under the road surface. It was shaded and cool, much nicer than walking alongside the cars above.

pedestrian walkway under the bridge

I mentioned going to the KGB Pub in my previous post, but didn't include a picture. This pub is underground and decorated with Soviet-era posters, lots of them, just like the ones I remember seeing in history books. 

KGB Pub decorations

While riding the tram to the bus station Thursday morning, I captured a picture of another Soviet-era structure in Bratislava, the inverted pyramid building. 

Actually a radio station building

Our train to Budapest was a few minutes late, but once on board, Phillip and I were pleasantly surprised that our reserved seats were two window seats in a 6-seat compartment on the train car. One other passenger occupied the compartment, but she got off at the first stop outside of Bratislava. For most of the trip, we had a private compartment!

At times, the train tracks ran alongside the Danube, but most of the time, we saw harvested, unplowed fields and fields of corn.

Danube River as seen from our train

We walked from the train station to our hotel, about a km, but it was level and the Budapest sidewalk was much better than the cobblestone ones in Bratislava. Our room is on the 9th floor, with a balcony complete with a view of Budapest. Small room, but a great view!

view from room 907 balcony