If you're in Bratislava, one of the places you must visit is the Castle. It can be visible from almost everywhere as it sits on the top of the hill. If you know history, you know almost all the castles and fortresses were built on the top of the highest mountain or hill for strategic reasons. This way the whole area could be supervised from up there and the enemy could be kept away in some cases.
It's a historical place that went through a lot but it is still standing. Before I started writing this post I read the history of the castle and believe me, there was no boring times for this castle. It went through a lot, it looks good not but I'm not sure what you see is real. But that's another story for my next post. Now I'd like to show you the road to the castle. Bear with me, it's interesting, I promise :)
This photograph was taken from the other side of the Danube river, from the lovely bridge that crosses the river and unites the two parts of the city. You could see a lot of cruise ships on the river, these are sailing up and down on the Danube, taking tourists on cruises. I'm going to write about this and show you more ships in an upcoming post.
It is called Most SNP (Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising) or the New Bridge or the UFO Bridge because of the UFO shape the pillar has on top. You can go up the the top by using the elevator. Up there there's a restaurant as well. The fee is € 7.40 but apparently you can avoid paying if you go to the restaurant, that's what I was reading about. Next time I'm going to visit the UFO tower and obviously take tons of photos :) Must be lovely to watch the city from there by night.
Looks like its the longest bridge in the world to have one pylon and one cable-stayed plane and the 7th largest hanging bridge. I don't know the others but I loved this.
The bridge has two levels, the lower level is for pedestrians and bikes, I've seen many people running, riding their bikes, while the upper level is for cars. It's 21 m (69 ft) wide and 430.8 m (1,413 ft).
The bridge takes you directly to the entrance old historical city and to the stairs that take you up to the castle. There's also this statue or a column featuring God leaning on a globe and looking at the Son, who crushes the devil with the cross, above is the sun with the Holy Ghost as a dove in the center.
This is the Holocaust Memorial monument, built on the place where the Neolog Synagogue was standing once. The synagogue unfortunately was demolished in 1969. The statue is to commemorate the 105,000 Slovakian Holocaust victims.
What you see on the glass wall is most likely the demolished synagogue's image.
This is the St Martin's Cathedral, known for being the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1563 and 1830.
If you have plenty of time to visit the city, you can take this red ... I don't know what to call it ... maybe vehicle, and you can take a tour. Maybe one day when I'll have plenty of time I'm going to try these out.
Old stairs made of stone.
Narrow streets, old stone stairs take you up to the castle. I love these old streets with houses preserved as they were hundreds of years ago.
A glance at the UFO Bridge from the other side of the Danube.
This is one of the four towers, don't ask me which one as I have no ides, unfortunately.
Bilingual map of the castle. Someone lacking education and morals thought it's a great idea to write on the map.
As you can see, the stone of the gate is a wonderful artwork. I'm glad restaurateurs decided to keep it, preserve it.
The defensive wall surrounding the castle is restored keeping the old stones and adding new bricks as it seems.
The road to the top is pretty steep, so you can have a rest here on one of these benches.
Looking down you can see the ruins of a tower I believe, maybe a checkpoint or something similar.
The view is absolutely fantastic from there. You can just rely on the wall and admire the Danube and the city.
A panorama photo. Would you rest for a minute admiring the view? I did :)
Part of the stone wall with some tiny windows. The castle has a lot of buildings inside, some built in the wall.
One of the entrances or exits, depending on where you are coming from.
This entrance went through some restoration probably, so I don't know if it's original or not but it's beautiful, a real artwork.
This is part of the door, which I believe it's a replica, can't be original.
This is the first part of my post, the second part is coming soon. There are too many photos and I don't want to bundle too much into one post. This is an important piece of European history, the castle went through a lot and deserves respect.
Read the first part of my journey here:
Kaffee Mayer In Bratislava And A Slice Of Eszterházi Cake
Bratislava - Part 1 - Hospitality
Bratislava - Part 2 - Where Not To Eat
[Bratislava - Part 3 - Multi Music Chopper](https://steemit.com/dtube/@erikah/e8563xfgzwt
