Cool Buildings Around Bratislava

Eventually came out of the sanctuary of the hostel to have a look around Bratislava. What hit me was some really cool architecture (or after spending a month looking at Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical architecture, anything that wasn't it would be a great change and a log cabin would look like a masterpiece right about now).

First up was this bridge. It is only supported from one side (ie there is no pilon on the other side) and the way it leans back has a great sense of movement about it. The top is an actual restaurant and when I tried to go up it, looks like it is well and truly closed for the winter.



Today I went for a walk around town and up to Bratislava Castle where our friend George W will be staying. A security guard freaked out when I tried to ask him how to get inside. So I walked around to the other side and found an open gate and walked in (a few other joggers and things were inside so I thought I would try it). I was able to walk all around the outter castle grounds and I would imagine some time in the next couple of days the whole place with go into a lock down mode.



A lot of the time it seems like I've only really been circulating around the old parts of cities. Thus it has a tourist feel to it with everything happy and swimming along. Most of the time once I get on a train to head to the next city and pass through the outter suburbs, you begin to get a sense that it is all a sham and there is a lot of poverty about.

When I was talking with my translator friend yesterday, he mentioned that just outside of the city were these shoe box like apartment buildings. When I was up at the castle and looked across the river, I could see them. You should be able to make out the box like building structures in this photo below. Around to the left a couple of kilometres are massive industry and smoke stacks - interesting how the new and the old co-exist.