No misbehaving in Bratislava Old Town Hall
Written: Dec 21 '06 (Updated Dec 21 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wonderful building, some interesting exhibits
Cons: Quite a lot of uninteresting displays, poor facilities
The Bottom Line: If you like exploring old buildings and picking up the history of Bratislava then a visit to the old town hall will be for you.
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| cr01's Full Review: Bratislava Old Town Hall, Slovakia |
Although it was still quite early in the morning, constantly weaving a path through the endless tour groups began to grate.
In the middle of Bratislava’s stunning old town, I paused for a minute and looked around. I could spot various lines of depressed looking older people meekly following an over exuberant leader. I could identify each leader through their habit of flailing their arms around while carrying either a large umbrella or a flower. Pictures and descriptions of this strange phenomenon will no doubt puzzle and excite the sociologist of tomorrow.
We had just wandered through Bratislava’s most picturesque square, the Hlavne namestie. A parade of Plane trees gently yellowed in the early autumn sunlight. Appropriately enough, here in the heart of the old town, the old town hall (the Stara Radnica) stands.
Like a flow of water passing round a pebble, tour groups stuttered and paused to look at the bright pattern of tiles on the roof of the old two-storey building. At the corner stood an old town hall clock on the top of a short tower.
While I pondered and enjoyed my respite from weaving my route around those snakes of unadventurous people, I realised that not one tour group had troubled the entrance of the history museum inside the old town hall.
In desperate need of a breather from the maddening crowds, we gratefully paid the 50 Slovak Crown (£1, $2) entrance fee. We knew we would enjoy a grand architectural feast of the buildings interior irrespective of the actual exhibits.
At the entrance, a bored and elderly woman met our stare while her doughy arms remained pressed firmly onto the entrance desk. Although she spoke no English, and we no Slovakian, she quickly directed us to the start of the exhibits with a smile and a wave.
As is common of the old Eastern European countries, an army of elderly locals staffed the museum; all are trained to believe that their visitor’s only motive is to run off with the exhibits. It took me a while to get used to the curators following me around the room about a pace or two behind. Each room has an individual curator to keep an eagle eye, so just at the point I congratulated myself for not being tripped up by the slow feet of a heavily stocking clad septuagenarian, another took up the challenge as we wandered from room to room.
To be truthful, there wasn’t too much in the museum that would have even tempted me to pop something into my beloved’s handbag, even if I were a dishonest sort. In time-honoured tradition, the museum displays began with a display of flint arrowheads, before moving onto broken shards of dull looking pot. Bratislava was at the edge of the old Roman Empire and there were some interesting foil thickness coins from around this era on display. All displays have some explanation in English.
While the displays did not inspire in the initial part of the museum, the actual architecture of the building certainly did. We loved the original wooden features, the grand windows facing out to the square, and the delicate arched ceilings.
As our self led tour progressed through the middle ages and into comparatively recent history, I found the displays much more interesting. In the beautiful old chapel in the corner of the old town hall, the museum displayed religious images and some beautiful old heavy furniture. In the following room intricately painted gun targets, dating from the 1800s, fascinated me. The targets must have taken an age to paint, and covered a variety of local scenes. Holes from the guns of the local nobility dotted each painting on the target.
Next along stood a room crammed full of old traditional and intricate shop signs. Rather than confuse the illiterate population by using writing, brass and iron signs displayed the profession of the shop owner. The care and attention placed onto this most basic of marketing tools puts our modern day clumsy plastic signage and gaudy neon lighting to shame.
Entrance to the museum also offered us the chance to climb up the clock tower. A series of whitewashed steps via a circular staircase allowed us access. The walking is quite straightforward, although I would have appreciated it more had the rope handrails been a little tauter to enable a more secure handhold. The view from the top of the tower across the old city, to Bratislava castle on the nearby hill is certainly worth the walk. I enjoyed the visual impact of the sheer steepness of the old red tiled roofs surrounding the old town hall. They were obviously built that way so that heavy snow could not collect in the winter.
Before we could exit the museum, we found two more treasures to explore. First, a short series of rooms devoted to displaying what life was like in a Bratislava apartment just after the war. The old copper water boilers, lino on the floor and huge radiograms certainly reminded me of photos of my parents life as newly-weds in the UK in the late 1950’s.
I enjoyed the display on Slovakian clothing and furniture fashion. Furniture became more lightweight to be able to be used practically in the new post war apartments that had sprung up all over the city.
The communist leaders felt that people should largely dress the same but recognised the impact of style on satisfaction levels. To try to get the best of both worlds, designers devised a limited range of clothing for local use, influenced by clothing styles in the west. Just as in the West in the late 60’s easy-care fabrics were the order of the day. This enabled women in particular, to spend longer in the factory rather than spending more time than necessary caring for her family at home.
The final display harked back to an early use for the old town hall as a jail and torture chamber.
I was particularly perturbed by sight of a contemporaneous image of a man tied upside down to a wooden bar with his legs forced apart, while a couple of jolly fellows used a two-man saw to cut the man in half from his gonads down to his neck. The display of gruesome iron facemasks and the reconstructed cells paled in comparison.
As one might expect from a building dating back to the 1400’s facilities for the disabled are almost non-existent, and the washrooms are just outside the front door in a separate annexe. The toilets are spotlessly clean, but staffed by an elderly but fearsome Eastern European toilet dragon. She expects (in fact, demands) a small payment in return for cleaning and maintaining the facilities.
Make sure you stock up on small change or you could end up in a similar position to the poor chap in the image in the torture chamber!
Likewise, there is no shop, although there is a lovely coffee shop in a room built into the walls of the old town hall near the entrance. I liked the 6-foot thick walls and the arched windows of its interior.
Summing up
While the initial part of the museum hardly had that wow factor, a chance to wander through the old building is definitely worth the entrance fee. The break from the maddening crowd outside is also welcome.
As the museum has such a broad collection of strange exhibits, you can be sure to find something to fascinate you.
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cr01 asserts his right to be associated as the author of this review -2006-
Recommended:
Yes
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cr01
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Member: Chris
Location: Yorkshire, England
Reviews written: 434
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About Me:
Away in Whitby for the weekend - the SAP catch up continues on Sunday...
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