Bratislava—The Quiet Capital

I chatted with our guide before our tour began. She said, “You’re about to leave to go to Vienna, and you have just come from from Budapest. We are not Vienna and we are not Budapest, but such as we are, I will show you Bratislava.”

She sounded almost apologetic, but I immediately fell in love with this city. The capital of the new Republic of Slovakia, it gained its independence on January 1, 1993. Like its neighbors it has stunning architecture, incredible food and glorious music, but it does all these things just a little more quietly than its larger neighbors.

Bratislava does not try to be anything other than it is: a picturesque, friendly and historic slice of the old Czechoslovakia. The city surprised itself it the late 1990’s when political currents sloshing through the remnants of the old Communist Bloc unexpectedly made Slovakia an independent nation. Very quickly citizens found themselves facing the daunting task of creating a new democratic republic out of nothing, and of writing a constitution to sanction it. They came up with a parliamentary form of government, a unicameral parliament and a president elected every five years. Most of the real political power, however, lies with the prime minister.

Andrea, our guide today, holds a degree in cultural anthropology from the local state university, so she was well able to explain to us about the early history of Slovakia as part of Hungary in the ninth century, its subjugation by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, and its prominence as the place of the coronation of the Austro-Hungarian emperors in the eighteenth century. The architecture and the cuisine still show all of those influences. I must try one dish our guide described, potato gnocchi or pasta smothered in a goat cheese sauce. To a cheese lover that sounds like a piece of heaven.

Bratislava has its own unique customs. For example, every elementary school class makes a Christmas tree and decorates it as it chooses. One caught my attention. It was decorated with dozens of birds made out of paper mache. Only, the paper mache was not made of paper. It was made from the dried leaves of autumn mashed into a pulp and dried. The birds were beautiful. After being displayed in the public plaza, the Christmas trees will be given to nursing homes, hospitals and rehab centers nearby. The kids in Bratislava do this every year.

There is a glorious opera house here, and a symphony orchestra. Although, like the city, the classical musicians here do not get the attention of those in Vienna or Berlin, to my ears there is no significant difference. The arts are taken as seriously here as in any other European city. In fact, I love some of the quirky sculptures here. One shows a communist sympathizer coming out of a literal sewer in a public street. Another shows a local denizen who lived here back in the last half of the last century. Unlucky in love, he was rejected by his fiance. Afterwards he dressed in formal clothing after work every day, and stood on a certain corner in his leisure hours handing flowers to passing women whom he considered beautiful. He died in the 1990’s, but a local sculptor made his statue, which still holds his spot on the same corner, his top hat in hand.

The city and its people are as capable, kind and accomplished as any we have found in Europe. If you haven’t heard of Bratislava, it is not because life here is any less interesting than in other European capitals, nor because people here perform less excellently. It may simply be because Bratislava just likes to do things a bit more quietly.Read more