As it was a rather spontaneous decision, I took a train without a map or any idea where I will go once I arrive at the train station.
Having arrived in Bratislava it actually took me about 15minutes to leave the station. Not that it was so big, but it turned out to be a rather hard task to find someone who could tell me how to get to the old town. To a question "do you speak English?" people were shaking their heads and leaving in another direction. When I tried in Polish (Slovakian and Polish come from the same family of languages, so in theory we could try to communicate like that), then the lady in the information asked me if I was from Czech Republik... and then in half-English/half-Slovakian added that she's the train information and she claimed she didn't know how to get to the old town. But frankly, I think she just couldn't be bothered to explain...
Finally, I found a girl who to my question answered hesitantly: "little" and she told me to catch a tram number 1 and showed a direction of the tram station.
I went there, but it was completely empty with a note which, I'm guessing, said the trams are not operating at the moment.
But I decided to follow the tracks down the hill and ask for more directions later.
Luckily I found the sign showing which way was the historical centre, which also told me how to say it in Slovakian, so that later I could ask for it without scaring people off...
Having caught a bus I arrived to the President's Palace, had a lok around and found another sign with directions to a castle and the old town. I decided to see a castle first. Unfortunately, this was the only sign on I've spotten, even though there were many crossroads on the way... But common sense was telling me I should keep walking straight and finally I reached the castle.
Behind it there was a little terrace with a beautiful view on the river, the bridge with an UFO-like structure above it and the other side of the city. The weather was brilliant for pictures - the sun was shining and there were absolutely no clouds. The only minus of that day was that the temperature was on minus too and therefore my fingers were freezing to the camera.
Having seen the river, I walked through a gate in defensive walls and into the castle's grounds. There was another terrace there with a little park and a playground full of children. It all looked really nice and you could see the old town below you. I must say this park by the castle is my favourite place in Bratislava.
I enjoyed walking around, listening to music and taking pictures there.
I walked down the hill to the old town (thanks to directions of a woman who's dog was trying to attack me... and directions were crucial, otherwise I wouldn't think about going THROUGH a construction site) and then around it. Nice, really small. When I thought I've seen enough I found a tourist information point and went in to ask what was the shortest way to get to the train station from there. The lady working there gave me a map and showed a way.
Interestingly, I've managed to have a closer look at that map in the cafe and it turned out that my 3h walk covered basically all the most important features of Bratislava!
And I've managed that even though in the morning I had no idea where I was going.
As you can see, Bratislava is a pretty intuitive capital city.
I can recommend visiting it. Or just having a 3h walk ;)
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