Today it was time to take in some more of the culture of Bratislava. First up was the castle. This was a properly odd state of affairs – in England it would probably be a pile of bricks with some English Heritage signage indicating what it might have looked like. Bratislava, on the other hand, decided to go big – it was an almost total ruin come the 1950s, and had been since the early 1800s, but they just went at it and made a massive chunk of it look like nothing bad had ever happened there.
Anyway, it now contains a chunk of the Slovak National Museum, which is interesting enough to explore for a couple of hours. Fatigue had set in by the time we reached the underground exhibition, but it looked like a livelier mind would have enjoyed reading all the information about the Celts around that area. There were lots of artefacts on show and a really cool visualisation of the spread of the Celts using a projector pointing down from the ceiling onto a table with a completely-white surface (but with hills and stuff raised up on it):
Since it was a castle on the hill (don’t start singing), there were good views down onto the Danube:
After all that culture, it was time to relax. We had kept walking past a crazy-looking cafe, so that was our next target. It should be noted that the Konditeri in question has a window display with lots of dolls in period costumes, some of which move about and do things every now and then. The interior decor is almost indescribable, which is a nuisance as they have a “no photos” policy. The ceilings are hand-painted with blue skies overlaid with constellations. The walls (again hand-painted, apparently over 6 years) show soldiers and various religious figures looking jaunty. Lights and fittings stick out at unusual angles, and the whole thing has the general appearance of someone having let their imagination run wild with little regard to subtlety or taste. Yet it somehow works.
Ok, look, I can’t describe it, but I obviously didn’t respect the “no photos” rule, so here we go:
Wall 
Ceiling 
Tea 
Toilet 
Urinal
The “deal” on offer was a hot drink and a slice of cake for €10 per person. That’s a bit on the pricey side of a cafe experience (even for a regular in Bettys like me). On the plus side, the range of cakes available was superb – we went for these:
Blueberry gateau 
Caramel topping, chocolate layers beneath
Sorry not sorry.
Anyway, we then had to balance our gluttony with some more culture and walking around… this time, it was to the Galeria Nedbalka, which is a brilliantly-curated modern art gallery. We followed instructions to start at the top floor and work downwards, which worked perfectly as the ground floor held less interest for me, as it housed a temporary exhibition of 18 of Koloman Sokol’s pictures that didn’t really excite me (too horsey).
Skutezky’s and Mousson’s paintings really grabbed me and told lots of stories about the country.
Back out in time for sunset on the boulevard near the opera:
The last part of the day was spent in the pub. This was a fairly unassuming one near to our hotel, as we wanted something more laid-back than a big tourist place. When we sat down, I noticed a large group of men sitting on two benches nearby, one of whom seemed pretty rowdy and and prone to singing snippets of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (just the chorus, which is fair given that it’s one of the longest songs in the world ever).
We had a pilsner plate, which was a selection of cold meats and pickles. It was cheap and delicious.
While working our way through this, a couple of accordion players came into the pub and sat with the big group of guys. They proceeded to sing their hearts out to a good few Slovakian folk songs (I’m guessing), some of which involved most of the rest of the pub too.
We struggled with not knowing the words of course… can’t really attempt to bluff it when you’re obviously completely unaware of the lyrics. Unless you’re the despicable John Redwood trying to get through the Welsh national anthem, but that didn’t work out brilliantly for him.