When the Slovak capital finally gets some big time international attention it’s in a Hollywood horror flick, “Hostel”, that suggests any tourists foolhardy enough to go there are likely to meet a grisly death at the hands of sadists wielding power-tools.Bratislava has tried to fight back, selling itself as a cheep booze and stag night destination with such inventive tags as “Partyslava,” “Bartislava,” or just “Brats.” Fortunately there’s more to this city of half-a-million. As Slovakia got over its messy, post-independence years of the early ‘nineties, foreign investment has given it one of the fastest-growing economies in central Europe and the capital has had a facelift.
On a chilly weekend between Christmas and New Year, the narrow streets of the Old Town filled with fog, and frost coated the trees above the city up on Castle Hill.
The Old Town, or Staré Mesto, is the freshly restored heart of the city. New boutiques, galleries and bars have sprung up all around and there are enough cosy cafés serving great wedges of cream cake to satisfy the most voracious Habsburg appetite.The Staré Mesto is small in size, but big on atmospherics. Its streets are lined with pastel painted palaces and the skyline punctuated with church spires. With few tourists and most of the locals away skiing or huddled up at home, the pedestrian-only streets were almost deserted as we picked out rococo angels, baroque towers or art nouveau fretwork from out of the mist.
On Hlavné Námestie, the central square, the colourful tiles on the Old Town Hall roof face a trio of great old cafés serving as havens from the wintry weather outside. Café Roland is the grandest, taking up the ground floor of a splendid jugendstil building. Its tall glass façade looks out over the lemon-and-white tower of the town hall, while the dark wood panels inside are hung with turn-of-the-century photographs of the city then called Pressburg or Pozsony by its Austrian and Hungarian overlords.
Roland is a classic central European watering hole offering milky cups of Vienner melange coffee to remind us that the old imperial capital is just an hour’s train journey away, and wonderful makovo-višňová štrúda (cherry and poppy seed strudel), for a fraction of Viennese prices. Just next door, is the rival Maximilan Delikateso, the place for an unctuous mug of hot chocolate. The third of this trio is the Café Meyer a remnant of the Kaiserlich-und-Königlich era where marzipan, chestnut and chocolate tortes are served under a wistful portrait of Empress Sissi.
Café Meyer was a favourite of the great British travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor who stopped over in Bratislava during his epic walk across Europe in the 1930s. In his book “A Time of Gifts” he lovingly describes a lost world where Slavs and Magyars, Germans and Jews mingle in a colourful polyglot city adjusting to its sudden switch from Hungarian to Czechoslovak rule.
Pointing the way into Mayer's with a flourish of his top hat is the smiling statue of a character known, somewhat unfortunately, as Schöne Nazi. It seems Nazi was short for Ignatius, and this old boy was a much-loved pre-war character known for serenading the ladies of Bratislava in his battered topper. Quirky statues have popped up all over the Old Town as part of post-Communist efforts to liven the place up. On the busy Panská street there is a cheeky bronze chappy sticking his head out of a manhole.
Stories vary as to whether he’s a resistance fighter or a peeping Tom looking up the short skirts of passing girls. Outside the elegant French embassy building on Hlavné Námestie is a Napoleonic solider. Bonaparte’s army bombarded the city in 1809 and one of his cannonballs is still said to be embedded in the Town Hall tower. Four year’s earlier, Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz forced the Austrian Empire to sign the humiliating Peace of Pressburg in the glittering mirrored halls of the Primaciálny palác, the pale pink palace of the primate of Hungary, which oddly enough contains a unique collection of 17th century English tapestries.Bratislava became the capital of Hungary after the Turks captured Buda and Pest in 1541. Hungary’s kings were crowned in Dóm sv Martina the great gothic cathedral of St. Martin for 300 years. The Magyar aristocracy filled the city with grand palaces like the Pálffyho palác which now houses art exhibitions or the Grasalkovičov palác, currently the abode of Slovakia’s president. Hungary’s first university the Academia Istropolitana is still in the patrician street Ventruska ulica. After the Hungarian lords moved back to Budapest in the 18th century, Bratislava reverted back to a provincial backwater of the Austro-Hungarian empire, although it still managed to acquire some fine public buildings like the National Theatre on the Hviezdoslavovo Námestie, an elongated square lined with embassies and the sumptuous Carlton Hotel down near the Danube.
Workmen were dismantling the famed Christmas market in Hlavné Námestie when we arrived (it closes on Christmas Eve), but some remnants were still operating in front of the theatre, serving thick, paprika-flavoured kolbasa sausages with rye bread and tangy mustard, and steaming glasses of spiced wine. Just round the corner is a Czech bar, Prazdroj serving Pilsner Urquell, but also the thick, sweet tamavy dark beer from the Šariš brewery in eastern Slovakia.
In the old Czechoslovakia it was said that Bohemians made the best beer, Moravians the wine and Slovaks eau de vie. Bratislava’s bars certainly have an array of firewater made from just about every available fruit, although the juniper scented borovička and the slivovica plum brandy seem to be the most popular. The Slovaks also do beer, the pilsner style Zlatý Bažant (golden pheasant) is the favourite in Bratislava. Excellent white wines are produced on the slopes of the Little Carpathian hills that rise out of the Danube valley starting from Bratislava’s own castle hill. Vinyard villages like Svätý Jur and Pezinok are just a few minutes by bus or train from Bratislava.
The best place we found to sample such liquid delights, alongside traditional Slovak cuisine was the imaginatively named 1. Slovak Pub, just out of the Old Town on the Obchodná shopping street.
In a jumble of upstairs rooms this is an old student krčma (tavern), that claims to be the only pub in the world where you can get a free bowl of soup with an A-grade exam result. The rooms are dark and cozy, heated with ancient stoves, decorated with stuffed game birds and portraits of Slovak heroes like the local Robin Hood, Juraj Jánošík or Ludovít Štúr, the 19th century poet who fought for Slovak identity under Hungarian rule.Pride of place here is the national dish: bryndzové halusky - thumbnail sized potato dumplings similar to Italian gnocchi, swimming in melted sour sheep’s’ cheese and topped with chopped bacon and slices of spicy sausage. Brynza sheep’s cheese is the nation’s culinary pride and joy. 1. Slovak Pub gets it from its own organic farm and sells tee-shirts proclaiming: “Slovakia - we gave the world Brynza.” It is a wonderfully warming winter dish, but just one of the delights on the pub’s vast menu. Cesnaková polievka v bochníku is garlic soup served in a hollowed out loaf of bread; gazdovské rizoto has no rice, but groats fried up with smoked meat and vegetables; bryndzové pirohy so slaninou are mashed potato-stuffed pirogi with bacon and yet more brynza; Nakladaný encián is a pickled, camembert-type cheese served with rye bread and chopped red pepper as an appetizer.
There’s infinity of roast meats, guláš and schnitzels and cholesterol-packed desserts like slivkové knedle s tvarohom, which the menu happily translates as “stuffed big dumplings with plums and sprinkled with cocoa.” Our vast meal accompanied with beer, wine and slivovica was followed up with a glass of zákvas, the sour sheep’s milk which Slovaks swear is an effective vaccination against hangover. This banquet came to 700 koruna, or €20, for two.1. Slovak Pub was a happy find. Until then we’d been a bit doubtful about finding a good place to eat in the Staré Mesto, most of the restaurants seemed to be either modern places with cool minimal design serving international cuisine to upwardly mobile Slovaks or folklorish tourist traps. Prašná Bašta, undergound in some old wine vaults, was an exception, offering mostly Slovak dishes to a youthful crowd. We tried fazulová polievka (bean soup with smoked meat and noodles), Arménsky šalát (Armenian salad, basically coleslaw with tons of garlic), Jelení guláš (venison goulash with wine sauce and dumplings) and yet more of the bryndzové halusky, finishing up with a nutty Somló halušky (Hungarian cake). Prašná Bašta has a cool, jazzy ambiance and the food was ok, but not a patch on 1. Slovak Pub.
A couple of other posher places also come recommended, Tempus Fugit just off Hlavné Námestie, Wock among the palaces and churches of peaceful Františkánske námestie, or the restaurant of the new Hotel Michalská Brána in a narrow lane round the corner form the tower of St. Michael’s, the last of the old city gates to survive. Opened in January 2007, the hotel is a gem, with perfumed oil lamps showing the way to modern rooms built into a 600-year-old house. Double rooms start from 4,200 koruna (€120), including breakfast.
Bratislava’s best known landmark is its castle, the Hrad, perched atop a hill overlooking the town and the Danube. Often compared to an upturned table, this oblong block with its four stubby towers is not the most beautiful of chateaux, but the Hrad’s sheer bulk is impressive and the views alone make the climb up to the ramparts worthwhile.
On a clear day you can see three countries _ Austria, Slovakia and Hungary, although when the Winter fog comes down even the endless communist-era tower blocks of the Petržalka neighbourhood across the river where barely visible.The castle was built in the 15th century but gutted by fire in the early 19th by boozy Austrian soldiers and rebuilt by the Communists in the 1950s. The exhibitions of furniture and coins are likely to interest only the specialist.Tragically the Communists also decided to drive a motorway through the center of town in the 1970s, cutting off the castle from the old city. In doing so they demolished about a third of Bratislava’s historic heart, including the Jewish quarter which lay just beyond the city walls at the foot of castle hill. The cafes where Leigh Fermor drank slivovica while practicing his Yiddish disappeared under the bulldozers and although the cobbled lane winding to the castle is still there, its terraced houses are more likely to hold cafes or art galleries rather than the bordellos of the 1930s. Bratislava is never going to rival the splendors of Prague or Vienna, but it’s well worth a visit either on its own, combined with a trip to the nearby Austrian capital, or as a base for exploring the spectacular Slovak countryside up to the Tatra mountains.
http://www.prasnabasta.sk
http://slovakpub.sk
http://www.michalskabrana.com
http://www.rolandcaffe.bestintown.sk/
http://visit.bratislava.sk
