Bratislava was my only stop in Slovakia. I traveled there by hydrofoil on the Danube River. It might have been cheaper by train, but a river trip was a nice change from trains and buses. Bratislava is on the western border of Slovakia and only one and a half hours from Vienna by hydrofoil. I arrived on Wednesday, 4 October, at the end of some kind of music festival. After the festival was over the city became quiet. I got a room in Pension Jozeph in the old town area for 900 crowns, about $20. The bathroom was in the hall and I had to share it with one other visitor, but I had a pleasant large room all to myself; a nice change from the crowded dorms in the Vienna hostels.

Old town Bratislava is a nice enough area--nothing fancy but a good place to mellow out after the hectic pace of Vienna. I stayed for five days and accomplished little. I toured their castle and a couple of museums, which were kind of ordinary after the other castles and museums I had visited. The most memorable thing about Bratislava is the statues--they have interesting and unconventional statues scattered about. I don't have a background on any of these, they are just things I bumped into while walking around old town.

Other than the statues the most interesting sights in Bratislava are the buildings. The first shown is of the Grassalkovich Palace, followed by two pictures of the fifteenth century Old Town Hall and then a picture of the eighteenth century Primate's Palace with the Town Hall in the background. After this is a cobblestone street between old houses, and finally Bratislava's 1972 New Bridge with its' spaceship cafe on top and the Soviet style apartments in the background.