Bratislava - A Peach of a City
Do you know that if you draw an imaginary circle with a radius of 200 miles and place its centre on Vienna, you will capture five other capital cities? Prague, Bratislava, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Budapest are the five. I’ve not been to Zagreb, but have now visited Vienna and the other four and can tell you that they’re all cities you have to go to. Let’s now transpose that circle and put its centre on London: Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol[1]? Bristol and Liverpool are interesting cities in their own right, but the whole thing doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? This disparity of cultural and architectural riches is further exposed if you consider that within the original circle you can add the non-capitals of Salzburg andGraz, the eastern Alps and the Dolomites, and the best part of the Danube; you then begin to ask yourself why you don’t holiday more in central Europe?
Bratislavais a peach of a city. Unlike Vienna which, for no reason I can tell, pushes itself away from the Danube as though the river was an irritating child, Bratislava is built right on the Danube and has its own blow-up hilltop castle, a mad modern bridge, cute old centre and one or two parallel boulevards. It is also very small, with, at its centre, a delightful square which manages to combine a renaissance style French mansion and a delightful, tall roofed Germanesque hall with small Colditz-like windows and accompanying red and white diamond shutters. The supposed highlight of the city are a few cheeky bronze life-size statues which sit just off and in the square. They depict, among others, a chap emerging from a manhole, a paparazzi taking a sneak shot from round a shop corner and (in the square) a military guard in a pillbox. They’re delightful, fun and, with a good number of Malaysian tourists having disembowelled from Danube cruise ships needing something to snap, they do provide a good number of photo opportunities. The poor chap emerging from the manhole had his photograph taken with every member of an extended Kuala Lumpian family sat with their legs astride his head – the smell clearly wasn’t from the drains.
Some of the surrounding streets are narrow (but never narrow enough to prevent one of a plethora of relaxing and inexpensive terrace coffee shops from resting) and at the end of one you find a delightful tall square-sided white gatehouse, which is finished off with an onion-shaped copper roof. Walk a short distance in the opposite direction (Danube bound) and you’re presented with a wide communist-style pedestrian boulevard which, at one end, holds onto the theatre, and heads west towards the Cathedral lined by trees and full of tasteful modern sculptures, including a pair of rust-coloured grand pianos and a larger than life metal statue of Hans Christian Anderson, who, I must admit, I thought was Danish. Perhaps he is?
A few yards later (you can measure everything in Bratislava in short measurements; this is not a city which requires a great deal of effort) you fall upon the confluence of theDanube, the Cathedral, the Castle and the mad modern bridge.
......a mad, mad bridge
The outside of the Cathedral could well be lovely, but its main feature, the tower, was covered in scaffolding, so I couldn’t tell you. Inside it’s Cathedral like. We looked at the treasury and the crypt and they were interesting enough, but there was nothing to mark it out as extra special. The bridge is, well, mad. Built in the 70s it has a single metal suspension pillar on one side. This is set backwards at a slight angle and is crowned by a typical 70s UFO, along the lines of a head of one of the Smash men from the instant mash potatoes adverts from the same era. This dish-shaped affair is a viewing platform, but I worry for the punters as it looks like it might be preparing for immediate take off to another world given half the chance.
The Castle is a scream. We made the effort and climbed up to it and were sort of rewarded for our exertions. The original was destroyed by fire in the 19th Century and its rebuild is still being finished off. Built around a square, it looks like a massive white bouncy castle, with a thin red tiled roof, and four short white corner pillars, each with red turrets. It’s big, Persil white, overly symmetrical in a not particularly attractive way, but very prominent, sitting high above theDanube. But, I’m afraid, apart from its ‘look at me’ appeal it lacks any real character. And God forbid you should stick a pin in it. The walls are very white and new, and looking through its ground floor windows, it looks much the same inside. It didn’t seem possible to get in, so we were not sure what they were going to use it for. Perhaps a museum of inflatable attractions?
The best reason to make the effort to visit the castle is to get a view of the bend in the Danube which, if you follow it westwards, would take you very quickly to Vienna. It is a fabulous river. Unlike the Rhine, which is very busy with barges and cruising hotels (a trait I like), the Danube is much quieter and tries its best to sneak past Bratislava, hoping it doesn’t notice. Cross the mad bridge and you hit Soviet Bratislava; new Bratislava. There is park, wood, and just a few hundred metres to the right, pine forest right up to the river. But beyond that are low-slung, multi-coloured flats so prominent in post-war communist cities. And look slightly further east and you see a huge oil refinery of international proportions. It’s not all ugly, just functional and takes the charming old town and turns it into an interesting city. In every respect it’s a great place to be. Small enough to soak up in a couple of hours, filled with seemingly nice people but not dominated by tourists. With its café culture, quirky architecture and ridiculous castle it somehow remains charmingly understated. A peach.
Ahh - that's better.
We weren’t sure what to do next and still hadn’t hit temperatures hot enough to fry an egg on the bonnet, so decided to continue to head west intoAustria’s bulge. I’d done a number of the Austrian lakes as a child and we had visited Plansee and Zell on former holidays. A friend of ours recommended Neusieldler See, a thirty by seven mile boomerang shaped lake just southeast ofVienna. It is not in the mountains, but its reputation is secured by being extremely shallow (in depth, rather than culture, although the latter attribute could probably be added if you got out of bed the wrong side). It’s so shallow that local legend says you could walk all the way across it if you felt so inclined. We had a smashing two days there, right on the water’s edge and in glorious sunshine. It is shallow and attractive in a bird sanctuary sort of way, and there are three hundred miles of flat cycle routes to keep the more energetic amused. But the lake lacks activity and the Alps only hint at their existence some hundred miles to the west. But batteries it did recharge….
Next was much more us. Heading into the Alps and after more thunder, we came across a series of lakes on the Austrian/Slovenian border nearKlagenfurt. We stayed again, on the water’s edge – we were getting good at this – on the Keutschacher See. Snuggling amongst alpine pines and with a backdrop of the Dolomites, we had two days of sensible weather up close and personal to a delightful small turquoise blue lake. We walked the not inconsiderable hike to the Pyramid, a tall (communications tower size) concrete viewing platform on a nearby ridge. From the top you had superb views of all of the lakes, looking down on them as if in a helicopter; there were equally outstanding views of the spiky Dolomites andEastern Alps. It was a breathtaking mixture of pale blue water, white boats having fun, red-roofed houses, pretty pointy churches, and pine-green forests. It was a beautiful a scene as if you had been looking at the Italian lakes – and so much more accessible. If it hadn’t been for the threat of rain we could have stayed at Worthsee for longer.
Which way now? South to Ljubljana, which we hoped would be so hot the tarmac would be melting. Well it was sunny and warm, and not knowing what to expect, we found another surprising city for reasons we almost missed. Built on a bend of the Llubljanica River it has its own little hill (underpinning its own little castle) and, like Bratislava, is small enough to lose down the plughole. The Llubljanica River, which is tiny in comparison to the Danube, is an inextricable part of the city with a special triple bridge and ornate riverside walkways with coffee shops and restaurants spilling out of the high sided buildings and somehow managing not to fall into the river; in many ways the river is the city. Founded allegedly by Jason and the Argonauts, it has an appropriately sleepy history, including brief prominence as the capital of the Napoleon’s Illyrian Provinces, until a devastating earthquake in 1895. For me, from that point on it became a city that you must go and see.
The river has pedestrian areas either side of its main bend, the northern of which is a super little square with a peach coloured Franciscan church (which wasn’t open – harrumph). Chose one of the three wonderful short stone bridges that come together as one on the northern bank, and you’re among a market, a small cathedral (not open – double harrumph) with amazing sculptured metal doors and an extra-long, narrowish high-sided street with a super mixture of architectural styles. But it’s the riverside that scores highly. There are countless old and ageing buildings, with peeling plasterwork and haphazard roofs that squeeze the river in tight. Every building serves food or drinks, and they were all delightfully done. Back on the north side there’s the quaintest of art deco theatres and a Moorish cream three storey building with gently arching lime green window façades, and the same colour columns about its midriff.
Ljubijana - the Art Deco capital of Europe
All of these, but none of these, are reasons to come to Ljubljana. It may be the largest coffee shop in the world and be dissected by the most delightful of streams, but it’s the timing of the rebuild after the earthquake that marks Ljubljana out as a city you just have to go to. Think Chrysler building, bring it down to European size and then multiply it by a factor or ten and you have the Art Deco capital of Europe. The Grand Union Hotel is, well, blooming marvellous. It’s all stone arches, cream facing, square columns and rounded corners with turrets and small domes. It’s comic book stuff. Opposite, the buildings are even more Batman. A blue and white tiled building rises out from the pavements, with curling cream apexes and ridiculous statues. The building next door is brick red with symmetrical patches of blue, red, white and yellow tiles in large leaf-shaped patterns. There are yellow buildings, all smallish-scale but monstrously built as though to withstand superhero battles. They’re breathtakingly audacious with wonderful detail and provide a wash of pastel interspersed with primary colours. The main street leading from the square is quite simply awesome and you would need a couple of hours to take in all of the detail.
All-in-all it was well worth the visit and another must-see on any European tour. Just watch out for The Joker, who just be hiding in one of the north bank buildings……..
[1] Technically bothBrussels andThe Hague fall into that circle but as the English Channel is in the way, I’m not going to let a good story be spoilt with the truth.
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