Vienna and Bratislava

Back in October, all the British Council English language assistants in Austria were invited to Vienna for a tea party at the British Embassy. I took advantage of this great opportunity to spend a few days in the city and also to take a day trip to Bratislava.

Vienna was really grand and magnificent with beautiful architecture and so many things to see. The highlight of my trip was the Belvedere Palace, where you can find numerous great works of art including "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt.

I also went to the Schönbrunn Palace, another grand palace in Vienna where the Austrian royal family used to live. Inside you can look around some of the rooms and listen to information about the members of the family.

Other amazing sights included Stephansdom...

...the Hofburg Palace...

...plus many other interesting places around the city.

Bratislava was also a great capital city to visit. It is worth mentioning that I have a bucket list goal to visit every single country in Europe as well as every continent in the world. As of today, I have been to 18 of the 47 European sovereign states (19 if you count going to Portugal inside my mum's tummy a few months before I was born!) and 2 of the 6 inhabitable continents (Europe obviously and North America). I hadn't been to Slovakia before so I was excited to find out that it was just an hour away from Vienna on the train. Bratislava was a very pretty city and it was cool to tick another country off my list!

In the centre of the old town, you can find Hlavné Námestie, a very picturesque square.

The other famous square in the city is Hviezdoslavovo Námestie, which contains the Slovak National Theatre.

My favourite part of Bratislava was definitely the castle, which is like something out of a fairytale. It is also up quite a steep hill, so you have great views over the city from up there.

I had an amazing time exploring both of these capital cities which happen to be so close. If you ever visit one of them, it's very much worth the while taking a trip to the other one!