Bratislava

Map

May 22–23, 2009

Part of my journey lay through Austria. There are interesting signs here that explain what to do in foggy conditions. If the driver can only see two semi-circles on the road shoulder ahead, he should drive at 60 km/h, if he can only see one—at 40 km/h.

It’s an hour’s drive from Vienna to Bratislava. There’s no border, Slovakia is part of Europe now.

Let the reader think of Bratislava every time he hears the adjective “European” from now on.

European standards.

European technologies.

European renovations.

Should the reader fail to be impressed by the European level of the suburbs, he’s invited to stop by a European-level store for European-quality products.

The little yellow man is a reminder that there’s a crosswalk immediately after the right turn.

The pedestrian here is wearing a hat, like in Prague. But he doesn’t have a child.

The children are by themselves. Very small children.

Behind our beloved digger is a pole from which trolleybus wires are suspended. You can see a crank handle on the right side of the pole.

This is a special mechanism for cutting power to the wires. A small padlock protects the system from random people on the street.

Power is supplied to the trolley wires in a fairly picturesque way—look at the www in the lower part of the picture.

An interesting local architectural feature: roller shutters that are integrated into the windows. Practically every building has them.

A post box.

Outdoor ads are installed around poles in a triangular formation.

A typical trash can.

There are also trash cans at trolley stops, for used tickets. The bus stop signs are all fastened to unpleasant-looking red metal mesh. It’s easier to attach route numbers to it.

Here, we have the siblings of the space-age lane divider signs that we first encountered last year in Saint Petersburg (where they quickly fell into total disrepair).