Tours · Bratislava · City Gate & Tower
Michael's Gate
The last surviving medieval gate of Bratislava, crowned by a slender Baroque tower and a copper statue of Saint Michael slaying the dragon. Walk beneath its archway and you step through the only original entrance into the city's old town.
About this place
Michael's Gate, known in Slovak as Michalska brana, is the sole survivor of the four fortified gateways that once guarded medieval Bratislava, and it counts among the oldest buildings in the city. Its lower stonework dates from around the year 1300, while the elegant green tower you see today rose during a Baroque reconstruction between 1753 and 1758, when the figure of Saint Michael and the dragon was placed at its summit. Standing fifty one meters tall across seven floors, the tower once anchored an elaborate defensive system of double walls, two bastions, a barbican and a drawbridge spanning a water moat. Today it houses the Museum of Arms of the Bratislava City Museum, and visitors who climb its narrow stairs are rewarded with an open balcony offering one of the finest panoramas over the red roofs of the old town.
Key facts
- 51 meters — The height of the Baroque tower that crowns the medieval gate
- 1300 year — Approximate date the original gate was first built into the city walls
- 4 gates — Medieval city gates once guarded Bratislava, of which only this one survives
📍 Michalská 806/24, 811 03, Bratislava