Quick Visit to Bratislava, Slovakia

On the first day of October, we bid farewell to fair Budapest.  Our next two days and nights would be spent in Moravia, the best wine-growing region in the Czech Republic.  But on the way to Moravia, we stopped in our fourth country of the trip, Slovakia.  The capital city of Bratislava is an up and coming tourist spot.  Although nothing at all on the level of Prague, Vienna, or Budapest, it is definitely worth a quick visit to see how the city is being transformed.

Old town (stare mesto) of Bratislava:

According to Rick Steves' guidebook, the cannonball below commemorates Napoleon's two sieges of Bratislava.  Apparently, Napoleon did more damage to this city than that from World War II.  This cannonball was embedded in the wall just above a chocolate shop.

Central Square, Bratislava 

Nice pose... 

A Statue of Napoleon

(clearly meant to mock him) 

Statue of a famous local citizen 

"the Peeper"

Apparently, these whimsical statues were erected in the late 1990s to try to entice people to visit the spruced up old town area that had undergone lots of improvements after the fall of communism in 1989.

All in all, Bratislava was definitely worthy of a quick visit.  It will be interesting to see how it continues to improve over the coming decades.