Bratislava Part 2. It’s Raining

Tuesday didn’t start well, heavy rain battering down along with thunder but no lightning. The rain continued for a few hours but within minutes of it stopping the streets were dry so it was on with the sightseeing.

The old town of Bratislava is similar to old towns I have seen while in Kaunas and Tallinn but that is not to say it isn’t worth seeing because it is. It’s lovely and well worth visiting. Compared to the others it is smaller and has a spectacular castle atop a hill watching over the town.

From the castle you get fantastic views of the city and beyond. According to the information board the castle burned down but was rebuilt in 1956. On my visit the central courtyard was set up to stage a play that was to take place later that evening in front of a paying audience.

I should mention that although I’m here during the Covid 19 pandemic Slovakia locked down really quickly and as a result had very few cases and only 28 deaths. The country is now fully open with live events in front of audiences. However you need to wear a mask on public transport and in shops and public buildings. The other things I have noted is everyone abides with this and if you forget they quickly remind you!

I was speaking to a local who informed me that when the country went into lockdown all the borders were closed but the citizens were not confined to their homes. They were still able to go about as normal as long as they observed the lockdown rules. He also told me the country is now suffering a Covid spike. He then said there were 7 new positive cases in this spike!

The city has some of the most unusual street art from a building with an ear attached to a worker taking a rest from his work in the drains.

There are many lovely buildings to view and probably the most unusual is the Blue Church. Not only is it blue and white on the outside it is also painted blue and white on the inside and looks like something from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post I’m drawn to churches as they are, usual, lovely buildings inside and out and Bratislava has many churches, probably the most I’ve seen outside of Rome.

The church in the photo below looked like any church I had been in before.

It was ornate, like much churches but this one had something I have only ever seen in the Vatican, in that, below the alter are catacombs. Vaults where dead people are bricked up inside the walls on closure inspection one was not that long ago!

While walking through the city I notice lots of signs and references to SNP.

I was wandering around thinking Wee Nic must be more famous than I had previously thought or perhaps there is Slovak National Party who long to go back to the days of the Soviet Block. There was even a sign indicating where most of the SNP could be found.

However after a wee bit of digging I found out the the Slovakian word ‘most’ means bridge and SNP stands for Slovenskeho Narodneho Povsania or the Slovak National Uprising which took place in 1944 when the Slovak Resistance made a stand against the Nazis. The bridge was built to commemorate this event however the bridge is more commonly known as the UFO Bridge.