A Sunday Afternoon in Old Town Bratislava
The train takes just a little over an hour from the Vienna Hauptbahnhof to the main train station in the center of Bratislava, the former little sister of the larger metropolis 60 km further west on the Danube. Bratislava used to be called Pressburg and was a favorite of the Habsburg rulers of Austro-Hungary. Nineteen royal coronations were held in St. Martin’s Cathedral, which sits directly below the castle overlooking the mighty river. Bratislava is a wonderful example of the complexity that the former Empire entailed. Today the city is the capital of Slovakia, but was part of Czechoslovakia after WWI after the break up of the Empire, and before that it was the capital of Hungary, during the time the Turks controlled Budapest and for a while after that, from about 1536 - 1783. Until the beginning of the 20th C, hardly anyone spoke Slovakian, but rather German and Hungarian. Surprisingly, today I found more people speaking English than German, in spite of the proximity to Austria.
There is archeological evidence of people living and trading in the area by the castle since the Celts in the 1st C BCE. The hill where the castle stands overlooking the plains and river has seen various structures, from Magyars, Hungarian tribes, houses to Moravian fortresses to Empress Maria Theresa’s (r.1740-1780) renovations turning the ruined the fortress into a palace for her daughter and son-in-law. When her son, Joseph II, moved the Hungarian capital back to Buda, the Duke took his extensive art collection, that he built for the castle, with him to Vienna where it now forms the basis of the collection at the Albertina Museum. The building was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1811 and wasn’t touched until 1953. Today the renovations are on-going; the main part of the palace has been tastefully redone as it was in its Rococo heyday under the Habsburgs, but the former garden is still filled with cranes, backhoes and trucks as the work continues within the castle walls.
Down the hill and across from the castle are the old very tall and very thick city walls. There is a short path along them that is now open for visitors and a gate in the walls that leads down into the old city and to St. Martin’s Cathedral, which was consecrated in 1452. Mass was being celebrated while I was there, so I wasn’t able to get any photographs of the church itself, but it is impressive with its mix of Gothic and Baroque elements. Emmerich Eszterhazy, Archbishop of Esztergom, ordered a complete renovation of the church in 1725 and brought in renowned artists to accomplish the numerous tasks involved. One of the key people was the famous sculptor from Salzburg Georg Raphael Donner, who built the new altar with St. Martin on horseback and a beggar lying on the ground almost under the levading horse. The statue has since been moved and is now in a corner.
The Cathedral is perhaps most famous for its role as a coronation site, and this heritage lives on in annual pageants that mimic the former ceremonies take place the last Saturday in June. For those who miss the festivities, as I did, there is a walking tour listed in the guidebooks that leads one through the labyrinthian old town streets on the path the former royals took. It leads one through the major highlights of the Old Town, including the Old City Hall that now houses the city museum, the Primate’s Palace, St. Michael’s Gate and streets lined with cafes and ice cream shops.
Walking through Bratislava Old Town one gets a sense of the living past, with modern buildings next to fairly recently renovated structures that are many hundreds of years old, next to those that haven’t been touched in perhaps as long. The Danube is lined with restaurants, so one can eat while contemplating the people, ideas, and trade that this stop along the river imbibed.
The trip back to Vienna is either by boat cruising along the river or by train, as the two-way train ride is only E16 that is the route I took.
