Tuesday 18th November 2025

Primate Palace Courtyard : Čumil : St. Martin’s Cathedral : Michael’s Gate

Our first flight of the day was from our home in Crete to Athens.  Just a short while later, we boarded a flight to the capital of Austria, Vienna.

However, our final destination is Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. I feel this is more of a holiday than one of our usual adventures.  Our schedule is very loose, sightseeing in the two capital cities, wandering around, chilling out and people watching.

The weather will be cold, it is forecast to be 3 degrees Celsius today and colder this evening, quite a contrast from the 20 degrees we are currently enjoying in Crete.

Vienna and Bratislava are an hour’s time behind us in Greece as we are on EET (Eastern European Time) and Austria and Slovakia are on CET (Central European Time).

After arriving in Vienna just after 10am, we managed to get a bus that departed at 10.30am, just one minute after we had boarded the bus.  Aren’t we lucky!

Half an hour into the journey, the sun was shining and the sky was blue and we were passing green fields filled with hundreds of wind turbines.  A few minutes later, we passed through the Austrian/Slovakian Border, the only reason we knew, is that we noticed the sign. Of course, both countries are in the Schengen Area so there are no requirements for customs and passport control.

Our hotel was situated just a ten minute walk from Bratislava’s main bus station. It was too early to check in, so we left our luggage and set off in the opposite direction towards the Old Town.

Passing through a courtyard, I recognised it from my research as belonging to the Primate Palace which is also referred to as the Pink Palace.  No doubt this is due to its pink neoclassical façade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a quick look at some of the statues in the courtyard, we continued in search of lunch. Due to the 3am alarm this morning, we were more than ready for something to eat!

However, we decided on a light lunch and soon picked a small traditional café in the old town. Wanting something warming we both chose soup, mine was a traditional black bean soup and Dave’s, a beef broth with liver dumplings.

My dish was tasty but I admit the black beans reminded me of huge legless black beetles, I had never seen such large beans! Dave’s choice was rather watery and the so called dumplings didn’t resemble or taste like dumplings, as we know them.  Unfortunately, the staff appeared to be quite curt, although that could have been the language barrier.  Their English was far superior to our Slovak!

Just a few steps away from our lunch stop, we came across a gathering of a few people. In the centre, we saw the most famous statue in Bratislava, Čumil!

I nipped back to the café and told a couple where the statue was.  They had chatted to us and were only here for a day trip from Vienna and wanted to find Čumil. The couple thanked me profusely.  The staff scowled at me.

The quirky sculpture has various stories attached to it. These include a worker peeking up women’s skirts and a communist worker taking a break.

In reality, in the mid 90’s, just a couple of years after Slovakia’s independence, various whimsical statues where placed in the capital city.

St Martin’s Cathedral is situated in the historic old town. The city was once the capital of Hungary and the coronations of the country’s Kings and Queens took  place within the cathedral.  A gold plated replica of the ‘Crown of St Stephen’, which weighs an astonishing 160 kilograms sits on top the cathedral’s spire.

The original crown is guarded in Hungary’s Parliament Building in Budapest. Bratislava became part of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Later, in 1993, it became the capital of Slovakia.

 

The cathedral was constructed during the 14th and 15th century, it has 3 naves and a marvellous Gothic rib vaulted ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a while longer wandering aimlessly around the historic part of the city before we returned to the hotel.

While checking in, we were offered a glass of champagne, while Dave declined, my response was ‘yes, please’.  I just couldn’t think of a reason to refuse!

Our room was lovely and an ice bucket contained a complimentary bottle of champagne with a gold coloured balloon.  On the balloon were the words  ‘VŜETKO NAJLEPŜIE’, this translates to Happy Birthday or All the Best or Best Wishes.  The reason for our holiday is to celebrate Dave’s birthday, some would say that it is a milestone birthday.

The reason we chose the Slovakian capital is that I saw an advertisement for an Andre Rieu concert that actually takes place here on Dave’s birthday.  Further research revealed an interesting historic old town with cobbled pedestrian streets.  The city’s close proximity to Vienna was also an obvious bonus.

So, we decided to visit two European capitals in one holiday.  Both of which are on the Danube.  A couple of years ago we visited Budapest which is also situated on the River Danube, the fourth capital located on the Danube is Belgrade (perhaps we should add it to our never ending bucket list).

Due to the time of year, we could only get flights into Vienna.  During the high season, direct flights from Athens are available to Bratislava.

After a couple of hours spent relaxing, we returned to the old town. We walked around for a while before we chose a traditional Slovakian Restaurant. There were seats outside but it was far too cold to even consider al fresco dining.  The place did supply thick furry blankets  for their patrons to wrap themselves up in but there were no portable heaters. There were a couple of smokers, however, braving the cold.

The interior was small and cosy. Dave was pleased the place sold dark beer and I ordered a warming mulled wine. The two dishes we chose were roast beef and onion served with tiny baked potatoes and roast pork which was accompanied with sauerkraut and bread dumplings. Both meals were traditional Slovakian dishes.

While waiting for our food, we perused our list of places that we wanted to visit and ticked off the couple of places we had already seen.

While doing so we realised that we hadn’t looked for the narrowest house in Eastern Europe which our notes said was close to Michael’s Gate.

So, after our meal we walked to the medieval gate. It is the only city gate that still remains and is one of the main landmarks of Bratislava.

 

However, we could not find anything that resembled the narrowest house which apparently has a width of only 1.3 metres and is situated next to the Michael’s Gate.

So we slowly walked back to the hotel admiring the sights along the way. Once there, we again checked our research and we now have a plan for tomorrow.

It has been a long but brilliant day.

 

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