The Smurf Church – Greg and Mandy's Travels

Insider Tip #1
For all of those people who have always wanted to visit Prague. Don’t! Visit Bratislava instead.

Let me give you the reasons. Bratislava and Prague are the capitals of the two halves of old Czechoslovakia, and only 2 hours apart. They share the same WWII/Communist/Jewish/Velvet Revolution narrative, so you aren’t dipping out there. In Bratislava’s favour, the Danube is better than the Vltava. They use the Euro which is far more convenient. They were the capital of the Hungarian Empire for 247 years, and nineteen kings and queens have been crowned here, so they have the culture. Prague has Dvorak, but Bratislava has Liszt and Haydn. You can wave to your friends across the river in Austria. Neither team made the World Cup, so they are equally hopeless at sport, and most of the stag parties go to Prague.

But here’s the real kicker – there’s only a fraction of the tourists, so you can actually walk around and see things. While Prague gets 8.4 million overseas visitors a year, Bratislava gets less than 1 million.

So, this morning we wandered down to the Danube, chose a cake and a coffee, and sat in the shade of the large trees and watched the city wake up.

Went on the Be Free Tours free walking tour of the Old City and the New City with Andy, our enthusiastic guide, and didn’t get trampled in the process. Saw lots of things including the Presidential Palace, the old city wall and St Michael’s Gate, bridges, fountains and churches, including my favourite – the Blue Church (or Smurf Church).

Had a lovely dinner in an outdoor cafe around the corner for our last night in a lovely city and a lovely apartment.

The Big Mac index for Slovakia is AU$9.90 which is pretty on par.