A Northerner Abroad...Part Three

Bratislava

Like I said, first impressions late at night after a long day including a lost bag are unlikely to be accurate. However, as I’m not in the employ of the Slovak tourist board, I will share them with you all the same. In fact I will stretch it a bit further to include my first daylight bathed trip to the train station by bus, from where I caught the train to Vienna.

So, first impressions? Well, the first thing I noticed, other than the fact in Slovakia they trust you to buy a ticket for the bus in advance and validate it yourself, was that all the buildings seemed to be a universal shade of washed out grey. Imagine your local Andale centre, which if the one in my hometown is anything to go by will be a concrete monstrosity, and that’s the colour I mean. In fact the only colour evident other than grey was from the graffiti which graced more or less every building I saw. In many ways it reminded me of those news documentaries about East Germany just after the fall of the wall, which I suppose is probably not a bad comparison. The closer to town the bus took me the more shops and neon signs became apparent, and the more recognisable things I saw, most notably of course the Coca Cola sign on every kiosk. I think Coca Cola is probably the only word other than Taxi that has achieved universal status throughout the world. Obviously, McDonalds and Starbucks are trying their hardest to join the club. Actually there may be another word in that exclusive little group, for I was surprised to notice that one particular graffiti artist with a little bit of commercial nous has sprayed the words Sex Shop in 10 foot high letters, complete with a helpful arrow, along the bottom of an entire apartment block.

The train station was disappointing to say the least. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I found. There’s no grand entrance, or flight of stone steps, or anything even remotely suggestive of the central station of a capital city. The entrance I used was squashed between too tobacco kiosks, and the whole place had a general air of missed opportunity. I bought my ticket and waited for the board to tell me which platform to go to, it was one of the old fashioned boards where all the letters and numbers flick round in unison when a change is made. I know I’m sounding very much like the capitalist twenty-something I am, with expectations of a King’s Cross or a Gare du Nord, and it is not meant to come across as a slight on the city as a whole, in fact I would probably have been equally disappointed to find electronic boards and flashy signs. The point I’m trying to make is really that for many travellers a train station is the first stop in any city, and had I arrived here by train I would have probably bought a ticket to somewhere else straight away. There is an almost temporary air about the place, as if everyone is waiting for the real station to be built. (Actually, having been graced by my presence one part does need a bit of work doing; I leant on a handrail to steady myself while scraping chewing gum off my shoe on the steps, and the railing came free of the wall. Needless to say I haven’t moved so fast in years.) However, that being said, it didn’t affect the punctuality and efficiency of the train service itself, which at the end of the day is the most important part of any train station. Britain take note. As with 99.9% of all trains I have take in continental Europe my train to Vienna arrived and left exactly when the timetable said it would. It is quite ironic really that one of the principal reasons for establishing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was to facilitate train travel in Britain, as people in different towns had their watches set to slightly different times. The idea being that by having a consistent time standard train timetables could be established and followed. As we know in Britain it seems that this is still awaiting introduction, whereas in the rest of Europe you really can set your watch by the trains.

So, with my watch suitably adjusted to 10.50 I headed for Vienna, in search of Wiener schnitzel, Coffee houses, Sachertorte, but first and foremost, somewhere to live. However, before we cross the border, let me tell you about my second impressions of Bratislava. That very same day, refreshed by a rather impromptu thunderstorm, I headed into the centre with Saša, my colleague, for a bite to eat. To get to the centre we again took the bus, but a different one this time. Again, I looked around me, wide eyed enthusiasm and child like wonder at being in a new city but I couldn’t help but feel I was in Sheffield or Halifax on a wet Monday morning. The rain had done nothing to improve to overriding grey of the buildings, and even the graffiti now seemed dull. I did note though that there was a lot of construction underway, signs of improvement on almost every street corner. But then, as we got closer to the centre the city began to change, the streets widened into tree lined avenues or boulevards even as I’m feeling vaguely European and romantic. The buildings changed too, fewer apartment blocks, more offices and banks. Saša pointed out her favourite bars on the way into town, including a place where, and believe me these were her words, “they have the best strippers”. Now, having never once set foot in a bar where they have strippers I have no idea what she meant by best. Are they the best looking? The best dancers? Or just incredibly proficient in the actual removal of clothing? Hopefully, it’s all three, for as my girlfriends over the years can attest there’s nothing worse than the sight of an ugly bloke getting his foot caught in his boxers and falling on his arse.

The city centre itself is magnificent, particularly the old town. It is everything I hoped and imagined it to be. The main square is beautiful, old municipal buildings on all sides, all in perfect condition, now home to bars and cafes whose tables stretch across the square. A small fountain marks the centre of the square, and in an evening the locals can be found sitting on its edge, sipping a beer and generally enjoying life. From the square the city spreads in all directions, to the Danube, the train station and the magnificent Castle on the hillside, all within 15 minutes walk. One thing I love about Bratislava is that in the centre a lot of the big old buildings are painted in various shades of yellow, blue, green and pink. It’s the same in some of the German cities I have visited. It sounds a bit garish really, but it really works. In fact I’ve seen something similar in my hometown, usually in areas where a high concentration of Pakistanis live, I guess it must be a cultural thing, but it always looks wrong in Bradford. Maybe it’s the difference in light (the sun always shines in Yorkshire, just not always as bright as here!). It’s interesting to note actually that in terms of population Bratislava is roughly the same size as my home town, give or take a few illegal immigrants on either side. Unfortunately that is more or less where the similarities end. Where Bradford is a shrine to everything the 60s got wrong; traffic filled streets criss-crossing the centre, concrete monoliths where once stood fine Georgian and Victorian buildings and an infuriating layout where all the shops are on one side of town, and the bars and restaurants the other, Bratislava is almost the polar opposite. Now, for fear of sounding too much like a tourist guide I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice to say that the socio-political histories of both towns differ wildly, but in Bratislava at least there is a sense of that very history that shaped the town, from the elaborate architecture of the heavily guarded Presidential Palace, to the brass plates that line the cobbled streets of the centre marking out the route taken by the horse drawn procession following the coronation of a king. In Bradford we have tens of former textile mills that have been turned into flats and a Wool exchange building that is now a Waterstones/Starbucks. Not quite the same really is it? I know it is woefully unfair to compare an industrial town in my beloved north with the capital of an eastern European country, but still…!