Train Station
Town Square. March 2019
almost, but not quite
Bratislava is in the extreme western corner of Slovakia which means that travel in two directions quickly crosses the border into Austria or the Czech Republic. That made basing myself for day-trips from there a challenge due to limited directions I could travel. Train journeys were even more limited (without making a lot of very inconvenient connections). On the old main line from Bratislava (and before that Vienna or Prague) heading east, the farthest I could reasonably travel on a day trip was Žilina. Another destination that was more or less a point on the map, I thought it would be a place to get a glimpse of the Tatra Mountains.
Riding Slovak Railways was always confusing. The reserved and unreserved seats were all mixed together. Basically, "unreserved" meant if no one else came along, a passenger could stay in the seat. If the reservation-holder came, then one had to vacate unless, of course, the reservation holder decided they didn't care and sat in another seat. It felt like some seating memory game of who was supposed to be sitting where and long trips became a game of musical chairs at each station stop. I bought a seat reservation once only to have someone beg me not to claim it.
The last part of the journey was along the Váh River and quite scenic. The high Tatras were just becoming visible. Then the train entered a post-industrial wasteland - we had arrived in Žilina. The station was a classic Communist era structure with great tile work depicting happy workers. Not put off by the very political station artwork, the rusted factories, and vast railyard, I knew this was an old European city and it had to have a nice city center. I walked out of the station in search of it. Slovakia had not let me down....yet.
The main street shortly took me to the old city square - a big church on a small rise and a modern fountain below it. A few other old buildings were scattered around, but that was it. The rest of the city was unremarkably modern. I had noticed a castle on the opposite bank of the river, but it was difficult to walk there since the only bridge over the river and massive rail yard was a highway. Basically, Žilina was a total bust. Even the Wikipedia page for the city was unremarkable. I actually felt shocked and cheated because every Slovak city I had visited to that point possessed an amazing historic center.
Sometimes exploring a "point on a map" was a dismal failure. To make matters worse, from Žilina the Tatra mountains were not that far off glistening in the distance, but just a little too far to make a day trip from Bratislava. I did manage to have a nice lunch in town and the visit spurred me to go back to Slovakia and stay somewhere closer to the Tatras so I could easily explore that region. The trip, unfortunately, was a rare case (in Europe no less) - a point on a map after a two hour train ride that turned out to be a big fat zero. It was not really the wasted money, it was the wasted time. Then again, I had seen the Tatras and confirmed I would like to return.
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