Getting Lost and Found in Slovakia

Slovakia lies almost right beside Vienna. Actually Bratislava and Vienna are the world's most closely situated capital cities and in less than an hour's time it is possible to travel from the centre of one to the other. My collective prior experiences of Bratislava were seeing it in a Bond movie – I think there's a car chase scene through its streets in one – and an unfortunate run in with possibly the most homophobic (in the name of religion of course), and therefore utterly pathetic, female I have ever met who originally came from there.

It's a cute little city that sits on the shore of the River Danube downstream from Vienna. The main bus depot lies under a graffiti covered concrete underpass – not the most promising welcome – but from there you cross the street immediately into the old town. Admittedly these historic centres all start to look similar after a while, and there isn't much variation from country to country owing I imagine to the shifting nature of borders over the centuries. But they are still fun to explore, especially for history deprived North Americans like me. 

The Slovak language is tough to understand and to pronounce and English is not widely spoken, though you can get around somewhat with German. This means you get lost at your own peril, which we did. Many times. The inner city has many confusing narrow winding streets and alleyways and as is usually the case is topped by an impressive castle, a 'hrad' in Slovak, sitting on a hill high above town. This particular castle was rebuilt last century so feels very new, but it is worth the steep climb just to take in the view. On a clear day, should you be so lucky - we were not - you can see for miles along the river and well into Austria. And sitting right at the bottom straddling the bridge is a building called the UFO, serving as both a lookout point and restaurant. It is clearly a remnant from the communist era and by night shoots laser beams onto the city's main tourist attractions. How very Bond indeed. There are lots of old churches with the stand out being a blue church which somehow manages to look edible, as if it is made from candy. In this blue church, we crashed a traditional wedding which was fun to watch even if I did feel a bit guilty for snooping.

The city also features a pink palace with (for me) an unpronouceable name with walls covered by a famous collection of Hapsburg tapestries (it's all about the Hapsburgs in these parts). Bizarrely, despite the seemingly thousands of tourists out front, my friend and I were completely alone inside the palace. Not even staff were to be found in the rooms. This was weird because we could almost imagine what it was like to live there and in Europe you are NEVER alone in such places. Ever. There's always a guard watching you like a hawk and at least five people taking selfies in your way. 

To be honest, you can see Bratislava in a day, but it is still worth a visit. It is a great place to walk, being small, colourful, interesting and accessible. It verges on the run down in many parts, but I actually like this as a feature and feel it lends some personality. In my opinion, some of the more interesting sights lay outside the city centre. For instance, a ways past the Slovakian seat of government the 'white house' lies an authentic glimpse of what the city looked like from behind the iron curtain. Concrete, kind of sterile, and featuring statues and carvings of the hard working proleteriat. Yes, I detect Marx. 

Restaurant food is a little cheaper than in Vienna, but on the whole I think the constant influx of Austrian visitors means prices are pretty similar. I would not be surprised if this changes as you head inland from the border. The food itself is very similar to what you find in the Czech Republic, lots of goulash, stews and dumplings - good, hearty fare perfect for cold weather.

On another trip – proximity makes Slovakia a regular destination – I had the brilliant idea to hike to a massive castle ruin in the countryside around 12 kilometres from Bratislava. You can take a bus if you're lazy but it was a beautiful fall day and it seemed like perfect hiking weather. Plus I googled the hiking route and it seemed reasonably straightforward...according to some woefully outdated website. So my game, and brave, friend and I set off, but probably should have taken it as a sign that we already needed to ask for directions five minutes in. We found an old man who in very broken English tried to tell us we were 'crazy girls' and after inspecting what we were wearing tried to dissuade us from our mission. But no, I was determined to find this castle. So we followed his directions up a mountain, on top of which the sign posts (faded paint splotches on trees) already disappeared. It quickly became clear that no one ever does this hike. Anyway, at least from the top we could see everything for miles around...but not the castle. After many stops, starts and backtracks we found ourselves deep – and I mean really DEEP in the Slovakian woods. We ended up going up and down mountains at least twice, and realized at one point that we were following incorrect paint splotches that were taking us along a First World War historic path where soldiers hid themselves from the enemy. We also felt pretty hidden - from all humans. Eventually, after passing through a really sketchy village that no joke looked like the setting for a horror movie (wasn't Hostel filmed in Bratislava?), we found ourselves in the middle of a national park with five different, dubiously sign posted potential routes before us. We must not have looked as lost as we felt, despite the internal panic, because some random Americans came to ask us if we had found the rocket ship in the woods. Um no, we had not. Eventually we managed to flag down a man on a mountain bike who looked like he knew what was what, and he pointed us along our next pathway even deeper into the woods. This time we had to sneak past a bunch of shirtless red necks yelling and drunkenly brandishing power tools. Somehow it felt ominous to be there and my instincts told me to hurry away asap. Many kilometres and sore feet later we finally came to an opening and a country trail that led us onto a stunning route through vineyards, fields and less dense forest. This, I must say, was spectacular – breathtaking actually. Onwards from here it was still a long trek but we passed though the prettiest little country villages with super friendly people – for instance one old man had to stop us to tell us about his travels in Canada...for nearly an hour. When we finally arrived at our destination village we were totally charmed by it. The castle ruin is really impressive from both near and far, and is strategically positioned high above the river on a rocky outcrop. It would have made the perfect look out back in the day – it's both massive and formidable, and has a fabled watch tower complete with tales of heart broken and suicidal princesses. Ironically for us, after the hike and trouble we went through to get there we didn't have any time left to actually enter the ruin before sunset. But at least we were able to to walk around its base and admire the views. I must confess that  for much of the route I was terrified that I had gotten us lost deep in the Slovakian woods. I had visions of the sun setting and us slowly freezing in the middle of the forest. Anyway, we eventually made it and in fact the journey was ultimately just as interesting and worthwhile as the destination. If you go to Slovakia, Hrad Devin is well worth a visit - but maybe take the bus!