Kristen and Joes Travel Blog: August 20 & 21- Bratislava Slovakia

We spent just a short time in Bratislava Slovakia. One of the highlights was going on a free walking tour of Bratislava. The guide was named Timmy and he had a ton of history to tell us about Slovakia.

One of the most interesting stories was when Napoleon invaded in the early 1800´s. He tried to seige the Bratislava Castle, but was unsuccessful, so he shot a cannonball into a bell tower instead. The cannonball is there to this day.

What did the Slovakians do? They built a commemorative statue to Napoleon. No one knows why. A couple years later the castle caught fire from some Italians inside. Apparently, the castle survived a seige by Napoleon but does not survive an Italian dinner.

We also learned about the role Slovakia played in WW2. Before the war, Slovakia was Czecho-Slovakia, but Hitler put pressure on the Slovacks to become independent. Instead of being taken over by Germany, they agreed to be allies. When they realized how bad Hitler was, they switched sides. Ever since the end of the war, they have been trying to save their tarnished image brought about by siding with a monster.

We were there on a special day. Exactly 42 years before, Soviet Forces rolled into Bratislava. After WW2, Slovakia were taken over by Soviet Forces. A little while before that, Alexander Dubcek gained control of Czechoslovakia, but didn´t do what the Soviets thought he should. On the morning of August 21, the people of Bratislava were woken up by Soviet tanks driving through the city. A lot of people credit the events happening in Prague, but we stood on the same streets it happened.

After the tour, we had a nice lunch and saw a large group of people dressed as zombies and dancing to Michael Jackson´s "Thriller" in the town square. That was fun.