Yesterday was our last day in Vienna, Austria. We boarded a riverboat in the afternoon, and sometime last night, started heading south on the Danube river. Next stop: Bratislava.
When we woke up we were cruising down the Danube, somewhere between Vienna and Bratislava. I pulled back the window curtains this morning to see water and a green, forested riverbank passing by. I had no idea that we had been moving. The water was as smooth as glass.
It was still early when Bratislava came into view. I don’t know what time we pulled out last night, but between then and now we’d traveled fifty miles down river.
Good Morning Bratislava!
The first sign that we were approaching Bratislava was a white castle a hill. Then a large, modern bridge crossing the river came into view. And then, the reddish roofs of buildings in the old part of the city.
OK – Guess which country we’re in. It’s a trick question. The borders of three countries intersect at Bratislava: Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. But the real answer is Slovakia. When we disembark, we’ll be in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.
Slovakia has only been a country since 1993. Before 1993, it had been part of Czechoslovakia. In the grand scheme of things, Czechoslovakia hadn’t existed for long either.
Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 at the end of World War I, when the winners drew up all kinds of new boundary lines and created new countries as they saw fit.
At a big meeting outside of Paris, France, they divided up the Habsburg Empire and the rest of the Balkan Peninsula. They tried to base the new boundaries more or less along ethnic lines.
We’ll call it Czechoslovakia
They probably looked at the map and said, “Hmmmm… We’ve got these Slovakian people who are mostly here. And we have these Czech people who are mostly over here. Hey – since they’re right next to each other, let’s just combine ‘em. It’ll be easier for everyone. We’ll call it Czechoslovakia. Now… which countries shall we create next?”
They also tackled the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, but after wrestling around with the hodge-podge of ethnicities there, they gave up and said, “Enough already… Let’s just lump them all together and call it Yugoslavia.” Today you can only find Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in history books.
In 1993, a few years after breaking free of communist rule, Slovaks and Czechs mutually agreed to split Czechoslovakia into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Austria borders Slovakia to the west. Slovakia shares its eastern border with Ukraine. Bratislava is at Slovakia’s western edge.
Let’s Go See Bratislava
After our boat docked, those who wanted to explore Bratislava disembarked. We had two choices. We could get on a tour bus with a guide who would take us on a tour, or we could roam around town on our own. Since we didn’t know anything about Bratislava, we opted for the tour.
We boarded a big tour bus and headed out. Our guide was a history major at the local university. His English was excellent, and he had an accent that made him fun to listen to. He was full of energy. He seemed to be genuinely excited to tell us all about his country.
The bus climbed up the hill to our first stop, Bratislava Castle – the building on the hill we saw this morning as we approached the city. I bet this place has been witness to quite a bit of history, eh? We were about to find out.
To be continued…
At the top of this post, nice photo of Bratislava Castle Hill. Credit: RobsonPL/istockphotos
