Bratislava (by Ben)


Ben wrote this, aiming to use unusual vocabulary.

The part of the Danube that we cycled had three capital cities strung through it: Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. I’m going to be writing particularly about Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We had about 36 hours there and we stayed in a hotel-like place that was really just a re-purposed apartment block. One reason I liked Bratislava is that it was a nice size -similar to Halifax, or about 500,000- but retained some of the benefits of being a capital city.


When we arrived on our bikes in Bratislava we navigated the pedestrian-orientated city, trundling along the cobbled streets, cautiously avoiding staircases. Eventually we arrived at our temporary abode. After settling in we decided to attend a free walking tour of Bratislava. The excursion took two and a half hours and we returned fatigued. 

We leaned a lot on the tour about the history of the city. For example Napoleon attacked the city at one point (multiple points in fact) and houses were damaged. However the city didn’t have enough funds to repair them, so to prevent an approaching uprising the government said that anyone who was damaged by Napoleon didn’t have to pay taxes for two years. But then the citizens took cannonballs from the street and plunked them in their walls. “An early example of tax evasion,” our tour guide says.


I’m glad that we went through Slovakia and that we learned about the city. The next pictures are from later that week. 



Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 19, 2023 at 7:02 AM

    Thanks for this update, Ben. I love all the advanced vocabulary that you used! No matter where you go and for as long as we can remember, people have tried to evade paying taxes!! :) - Alice

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