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Bratislava's Understated Charm Provides Welcome Respite
By Tom Kagy | 05 Jun, 2025
As the second stay of our 12-day Central Europe road trip, Slovakia's capital proved the ideal antidote to the tourist frenzy we had just left behind in Prague.
As the highway left the metro area the speed limit increased from 80 kph (50 mph) to 100 kph (63 mph), then to 130 kph (81mph), the standard top limit for flat open areas between metro areas across the region except Germany which does away with speed limits altogether for significant stretches.
We pulled into a parking space of unconfirmed legitimacy on the south side of Brno's Cabbage Square.
The divided intra-city highways provide two-lanes per direction, with the left lane reserved for passing. On some stretches long strings of trucks and slower cars forced us to stay in the left lane at 140 - 145 kph (88 - 91 mph). Observing the 130 kph speed limit often meant being tailgated by a few motorists who felt sufficient entitlement to an unobstructed passing lane to flash their high beams and occasionally even blare their horns.
Most of our drives were at pleasant speeds of 115 - 135 kph in light to moderate traffic on gratifyingly open roads. Unfortunately, Europe's highways are well equipped at regular intervals with automated camera speed traps. We're still dreading the possibility of emails from our car rental company notifying us that our credit card has been charged many hundreds of Euros for numerous speeding violations.
For us the countryside between destinations was like the enchanted silence between notes in a piece of beautiful music. The scenery gave us a measure of the agricultural bounty supporting the quality and quantity of what was served in local dishes and mugs. Being from parched Southern California our eyes and souls drank in deeply and gratefully the vistas of vibrant green fields and meadows. As we progressed from Prague toward Slovakia, the landscape went from rolling hills covered with bright yellow mustard flowers to mostly flat expanses of carefully tended, deep green crops.
This view from Bratislava Castle includes Michael's Gate to the right, a key landmark in the city's tourist district.
Brno, a city of about four hundred thousand people in southeastern Czechia, wasn't a destination, merely a town sufficiently near the halfway point of our drive from Prague down to Bratislava to serve as a convenient, and hopefully, charming lunch stop.
By this point of our trip jetlag and a nine-hour time change, not to mention our lingering breakfast buffets, had shifted our lunch time to mid-afternoon, about the time we rolled into what appeared to be the main square of Brno's Stare Mesto, Old Town. It greatly exceeded our modest expectations.
The possibly unsanctioned parking space we pulled into at the southern edge of the cobblestone square — humbly named Cabbage Market Square in reference to the farmer's market starting to pack up on that Saturday afternoon — happened to be hard by Efi Pivovar, Efi Brewery, a stylishly modern pub looking out across the square. The mushroom soup, salad, pork knuckles and fried potatoes were all well seasoned, properly cooked and very filling as we had come to expect of Czech restaurant fare.
After lunch we wandered across the big square to enjoy the various quirky fountains. The main one is Parnassus Fountain, Kašna Parnas. Built around 1690-1695, the fountain features a baroque limestone tower depicting Hercules and several mythical creatures meant to be allegorical depictions of Babylon, Greece and Persia, all leading up to the triumphal figure on top — Europa, representing the ultimate ascendance of the Holy Roman Empire and Christianity.
Observant visitors quickly spot scattered around the plaza bronze sewer-grill figurines of frogs, geckos and alligators. Our two days in Czechia had conditioned us not to be surprised by random sculptures and figurines in public spaces. They did raise our suspicion that the Czech soul is streaked with a deep love of whimsy.
Time was short if we were to get to our sleeping destination of Bratislava early enough to secure a good room at our four-star hotel. But first we had to fill up the gas tank. Google directed us to a station a couple miles outside the Brno city center. Our car required 95 octane which seemed standard but comparable to a grade between super-regular and premium in the States. The station attendant gestured for me to pump before coming inside to pay. What with cost counted in Czech korunas and volume measured in liters, the gas cost about $6.60 a gallon to my estimate. Pricier, certainly, than even California gas, but certainly lower than what we had experienced in other trips to the Old World.
Our two days in Czechia had conditioned us not to be surprised by random sculptures and figurines in public spaces. They did raise our suspicion that the Czech soul is streaked with a deep love of whimsy.
Cabbage Square is at the heart of Brno's Stare Mesto, Old Town.
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