Slovakia is country 88 and it is another country that got cancelled because of covid! I was supposed to travel there after the Xmas vacation for a week but had to postpone it after catching Covid on my way back from Italy.

Instead of a week, I ended up spending only a long weekend in Bratislava plus a hike to an abandoned anti-aircraft missile base.

I didn't have any expectations about Slovakia but I was surprised by how beautiful Bratislava is and how friendly the people were, especially after my bad experience in Czechia!

I spent most of the time in Bratislava and it is a fairly small city so I mostly walked to see all the sights I wanted to see. I occasionally used BOLT and I suggest downloading the app before going there as it is a very cheap way to travel to further away places, like the airport! a Bolt ride from the airport cost me only 7 EUROs and it is super easy to use when you can pay with Apple Pay.

These are the places I explored in Bratislava:

Devinska Kobyla (abandoned anti aircraft missile base).

This is a good day trip just outside Bratislava, great urban exploration and a great hike too. So If you are into hiking and abandoned places, I recommend this place.

There is a good map and itinerary on this blog, and this is what I have used to navigate the place.

I also took a BOLT ride to the beginning of the hike and this cost me 8.40 EURO it took 15 minutes BOLT ride to get there.

Getting around once there is pretty easy, especially if you follow the map on the link above.

I spent around a couple of hours looking at the abandoned buildings and then I continued the hike downhill. This was the best part of the hike as you have amazing views from the top.

Once down I took another BOLT ride back. I believe there is a bus back to Bratislava but It was a super hot day and I didn't want to spend time waiting for a bus and BOLT was super cheap anyway: 10 Euros to go back to my hotel.

SLOVAK RADIO BUILDING

A cool upside-down pyramid-shaped building. As with all brutalist architectures I had to go and see this one.

SLAVIN

This is a 60s memorial and military cemetery of Soviet soldiers. Like most places in Bratislava, I walked there and it was a nice way to explore the neighbourhood. I went first thing in the morning to avoid crowds and I had the place all for myself.

HOTEL GALERIA SPIRIT

BLUE CHURCH (ST ELIZABETH CHURCH)

What I found more interesting than this church, is the building in front of it which has a nice set of statues on the facade. So If you plan to visit the Blue Church don't miss out on the building just in front of the main entrance!

UFO BRIDGE

Again I crossed this bridge by walking to go to the other side of Bratislava and continue my exploration. In total this day I walked 32Kms but if walking is not your thing, BOLT is a very good option.

PANELKI (Soviet-style panel blocks)

The reason I came to this side of the river was to explore the colourful panel block building in Bratislava. after crossing the bridge and walking a little bit south you can find a "Panelki Heaven". Numerous soviet style blocks and in many colours. This was definitely worth the walk as I spent a couple of hours just taking pictures of these blocks.

BUNKER B-S 8

This is one of the things I was looking forward to seeing in Bratislava. After spending a couple of hours exploring the soviet style blocks I walked for around 1 hour to reach the bunker. This bunker was part of the Czechoslovak defence system and it is currently a small army museum. It is on the border with Austria and when walking there you can walk on the borderline where one field is Slovakia and one is Austria.

I got there at 3 PM, the stated opening time. When I arrived there the man that is guarding the museum told me to wait to enter as he was going to take me around only if there were other tourists. all I wanted was to see the place considering that he would have explained the whole tour in Slovak! So I waited for around 30 minutes and luckily 2 locals came to visit the bunker. the museum guard told me the cost would have been 5 Euros ( even tho there were no signs stating costs etc). anyway, I agreed and that I would pay at the end of the visit.

As expected the "guided tour" was in Slovak, so really no point in me having to wait for the other 2 tourists. But I started getting suspicious so I asked the locals if the man was charging them. To my surprise (not really) they were indeed charged but 2 Euros.

We finished the tour and I paid the guard the 2 Euros instead of the 5 as I didn't agree with the price surcharge for a tour that I really couldn't understand a thing.

this is one of the things that annoy me when I travel. Locals have this notion that tourists have bags of cash in their backpacks and that are loaded with money. I was happy to pay the 5 Euros if this was the same price agreed with all the participants and if the tour was using basic English at the very least. It was a matter of principle rather than the actual cost.

So If you go expect to wait, expect someone telling you in Slovak very obvious things and try not to be ripped off just because you are a tourist.