Tours · Bratislava · Castle
Bratislava Castle
Crowning a rocky hill some eighty metres above the Danube, this gleaming white fortress with a tower on each corner is so neatly square that locals fondly call it the upturned table. From its terrace the whole city, the river and three countries open out beneath you.
About this place
Bratislava Castle is the great white landmark that watches over the Slovak capital, a massive rectangular palace with a stout tower at each of its four corners, set on a rock that has been fortified since the days of Great Moravia in the ninth century. Celts, Romans, Slavs and the kings of Hungary all valued this commanding bluff above the Danube, and over the centuries the stronghold grew from a timber rampart into a Gothic royal seat and finally into the Baroque residence we see today. Its silhouette has been famous for so long that the people of Bratislava nicknamed it the upturned table, its four towers standing in for the legs. Disaster struck on the twenty eighth of May 1811, when a fire started carelessly by garrison soldiers gutted the palace and left it a roofless ruin for roughly a hundred and fifty years. Systematic archaeological work began in 1953 and a long reconstruction started in 1957, raising the castle once more to its Baroque silhouette while carefully preserving the older Gothic and Renaissance traces buried in its walls. Today the rebuilt palace houses part of the Slovak National Museum, and its panoramic terrace offers one of the finest views in Central Europe.
Key facts
- 80 metres — The approximate height of the castle hill above the surface of the Danube
- 1811 year — The year a fire started by careless garrison soldiers gutted the castle and left it a ruin
- 4 towers — One tower stands at each corner, giving the castle its upturned table nickname
📍 Zámocká 862/2, 811 01, Bratislava