The train ride from Budapest to Bratislava was nice, following the Danube the whole way. As the Danube was always of major strategic importance the whole way was dotted with various small towns and hilltop castles.
However, once I arrived in Bratislava, I had my first incident with the police anywhere since I left the States. When I got off the train I went over to a little side area and decided to smoke a cigarette. I didn’t see any "No Smoking" signs and there were at least a couple of other cigarette butts there so I figured I was okay. Not so it would seem. A couple Slovakian police came, declared this was a non-smoking area, checked my passport and then fined me €30.00 on the spot. Needless to say, this did not give me a good initial impression of the place.
After that, I had to take a taxi to the hostel (another €14.00) and the hostel itself was already costing €18.00. So by comparison to anywhere else, the prices suddenly skyrocketed. And it wasn’t just a matter of interpretation. Slovakia has just recently dropped its own currency and now uses the Euro specifically, so the prices are really what they say, and those prices aren’t low by eastern standards.
Anyway, I got to my hostel, checked in and set off immediately to go get a haircut, which all went easy enough. After this I went exploring around Bratislava. My train to Brno was to leave early in the morning, so I really only had this one day to check out Bratislava.
After the haircut, I walked through the city center, then up the hill to the castle. The city center at least is all very clean and seems very new to me, very little speaks to its age. Compared to Budapest, Bratislava is certainly a very small and provincial town. For me the center was too clean and too quaint and very obviously grossly over priced. A tourist trap if ever there was one. And, as one would expect in a tourist trap, it was full of tourists, mostly British it would seem.
I took a lot of photos, but otherwise my tour was uneventful. I stopped for a delicious – but overpriced – dinner and then went back to the hostel and went to bed.
I woke up at 6:15 in the morning and was off to get my train to Brno. However, what they neglected to mention was that the train had a three hour layover in Kúty, which was a pain in the ass. This place was really in the middle of nowhere.
Overall, my impression of Slovakia was a bad one. Everywhere else – Romania, Moldova, Hungary, &c. – people at least try to be helpful, but not in Slovakia. In Bratislava the only Slovakian people I actually met were either authorities (police, train people, ticket salespeople, &c.) or service staff catering to tourists. However in Kúty everyone were just normal Slovaks and they aren’t at all friendly. In fact, it seems that they pretty much resent foreigners, so I guess it is no surprise that they just sent a fascist to the European parliament. And it isn’t just a poverty issue. Romania and Moldova are much poorer than Slovakia, but they don’t have the same attitude as most of these people seem to have.
My train on to Brno was delayed (on top of the three hour layover), but it did eventually arrive and I was happy to leave Slovakia, the Czech Republic (next blog) was much nicer.
People I talked to in Brno said that Czechs were cold and indifferent and that Slovaks were friendlier, but that wasn’t my experience at all. In fact my experience was the exact opposite. I got on decently with Czechs, but didn’t care for Slovaks at all, and the feeling was apparently mutual. Slovakia is not much cheaper than other central European destinations and way more expensive than Budapest. Further there isn’t really all that much to see and what there is has been all cleaned up and made “tourist friendly.” I think in the future I’ll just avoid Slovakia all together and if you’re looking for a place to visit in Central Europe, I’d suggest you avoid Slovakia.
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