Bratislava - Part 1 - Hospitality

In July this year, during my vacation I had the pleasure to visit Bratislava. It was for only one day unfortunately, so the schedule was tight, we had to make the most of it. It was my first time in Slovakia, I have never been there before.

I have mixed feelings about the city. I can't say about the whole country as we've only visited one city for one day, that is not enough to draw conclusions or form an opinion but since that's all I have, I have to have an opinion and that's not very good.

Hospitality

It was Sunday and July, a perfect day for a lot of tourists and not only. When we arrived in the city center, the first thing we did was to look for some affordable parking. There was an underground parking but the price was adjusted to the location and being in the old city center, you can guess how much they were asking for a day of parking. Then we found a free parking space nearby, where it said free parking during weekends so we parked the car and when we got out a young woman approached me and with a perfect American English asked me if we are foreigners. That was just to say something as she knew exactly we were not locals. Anyway, she told us there's no such thing as free parking in weekends for foreigners, only for locals. She said the fine is around €200, she wouldn't risk it. I asked where can we park for free and she indicated a place not far away. This was a nice gesture and she probably saved us from a lot of trouble. I won't forget this for sure.

The next thing we did was drive outside the city and park the car. We found a half empty parking lot and parked the car. There was a guy standing next to his car and I thought I'd ask him if the parking is free, just to be sure. I don't speak Slovakian, but according to Wikipedia, 8.2% of Slovakia's population is Hungarian. I am Hungarian, I speak the language but there were some pretty ugly ups and downs between the two, so I thought English would be better and safer. He said parking is free but he wasn't kind at all.

Next we went to visit the castle, which is famous and a must of you're visiting Bratislava. The castle is a whole story that requires its own post, so I'm not going to get into details now. Let me tell you just a few things that I've noticed because I was forced to.

Bratislava is the capital city of Slovakia. It has a population of 432,864, plus a lot of tourists. Slovakian is not an international language, far from it, so the smart thing if you want to attract tourist would be indicators and brochures in English, plus English speaking personnel at key points. This would be the ideal situation but it's not what you'll find if you visit the castle. Most of the indicators and banners were in Slovakian, which was disappointing an he personnel did not speak English, which is even more disappointing. I remember we went to the lady's room, there was a woman at the door, I said Hello and she just stood there without saying anything. It would have been nice to greet us but she didn't.

The next experience was at a supermarket, where we bought a few things. I paid cash and the cashier had to give me the change. It was an older woman who didn't say a word although I greeted her in English. Her only reaction was to throw the change on the counter so half of the coins ended up on the floor. I'm not exactly spring chicken, I've seen a thing or two in my life but I've never been treated so rudely in my life.

We wanted to taste some local cakes and chose a place in the old, historical city center called Kaffee Mayer. Read about it in my Tasteem post, here -> Kaffee Mayer In Bratislava And A Slice Of Eszterházi Cake. The waitress spoke English, she was actually ok, which was a relief after so many disappointing moments.

We had lunch at a traditional restaurant in the old historical city center. That is another story worth telling and deserves a whole post, so stay tuned, I'm going to post it soon, along with the conclusions.

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