A fun night out in Bratislava

Our plan was always to explore both capitals, Prague first and then renting a car to drive to Bratislava where we were to spend some time exploring the city. I had previously heard that there wasn’t a lot to see and do in Bratislava however I prefer to experience a place myself rather than just relying on what other people say, which is something that I’ve always tried to follow. 

The drive took us around 3-4 hours, with a pit stop at IKEA (two Swedish guys, where else would we stop) outside Brno, still in the Czech Republic.

Upon arrival, our first impression of Bratislava was that it was a poorer cousin compared to it’s neighbour to the north. This was shown even more so when we checked into our hostel, the Orange Hostel, which definitely had an Eastern Europe touch to them (they were cheap though which we didn’t mind). Staff were great, meeting us at the train station where they handed us a map and explained how to arrive to the hostel. 

Another difference we noticed between the two capitals was that we had next to no problems making ourselves understood in Prague, speaking only English, but here we struggled a bit, in particular when trying to purchase parking tickets. The tickets could only be purchased from a girl behind the counter. She must have been in her early twenties and didn’t speak a word of english. I tried my best with signs and body language to tell her we wanted a ticket for the rest of the day, no luck, but another person, who spoke some English, gave us a hand and we got sorted and parked our car. 

After sorting the car parking, we walked to Old Town where we sat down having a few cold beers after a long hot car ride. First thing we noticed is that the city has a lot of odd statues, like the guy who is looking around the corner with a binocular (The Paparazzi), the worker coming up from the sewer (Man at Work) and others, adding a certain charm to the city. After exploring the old town (and more beers) we made it to the castle which offered views over the UFO bridge and some large (and very soviet looking) apartment buildings on the other side of the Danube. 

That afternoon, feeling that we had seen the city had to offer, we decided to instead of spending another full day here, we would take a day trip to Poland the next day, specifically to the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Oswiecim.

But we still had the evening here, after dinner in the old town, we visited a cocktail bar called Antinori. The drinks were cheap and huge and they had their own version of an Long Island Iced Tea, normally this contains Gin, Vodka, Rum, Tequila, Triple sec and Coke, the difference with this one was that the Coke was changed for Red Bull. And the drinks were HUGE!!. We stayed here for a while having a couple of different drinks and then all of a sudden, GoGo Girls showed up in the windows behind us, for the evening entertainment!

Our night ended up at a nightclub called Cirkus Barok, located on a boat on the Danube river where the dance floor is located on a level underwater. The nightclub was packed with party people, mostly locals from what we could tell and we ended the night by having more shots of Absinthe.

The next morning, finding no breakfast at the hostel, we set off early in search of the highway going north to Poland. However, we got a bit lost and slight detour took us to the Hungarian border where we managed to make a quick u-turn and drove north to our destination.

Bratislava, though small and with not a lot to see, still offered us some great memories. It might not be a place that I will be looking to travel back to anytime soon, but we enjoyed our time here as we were lucky enough to find some good places to go to for some partying that night.