Thursday, September 18, 2014

Pozor! Part 4 - Yet more fun with Bratislava's pockmarked streets (with updates!)

Since my Pozor! posts have proven to be quite popular, I couldn't resist the temptation to do just one more. I should point out that a lot of the ankle-spraining potholes, divots, and cracks featured in my last Pozor! post (in my opinion the best of the series) have since been repaired, albeit some of them in a quick and dirty, band-aid kind of fashion. But like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, new holes spring up faster than the old ones can be filled in. So, here are some more gems spotted along our many walks through the streets of Bratislava.

This beauty is located on the curb of a bus stop on a very busy bus route in front of the Slovak National Gallery on Rázusovo nábrežie.



The streets in the posh neighborhoods in the hills are in no way exempt from the neglect and deterioration. In fact, some of them are in even worse shape than the streets downtown, as seen by this mess on Holubyho.



And here is one of my current favorites. This massive hole in a gutter on Hlboká has been left there for more than two months at the time of writing, right out in front of this big old sanitarium that was recently converted into super swanky upscale apartments. The sidewalk itself is in pretty dire shape, too.



Some of the older communist-era benches along the Danube promenade have certainly seen better days.



Here are some examples of the city's well-maintained bicycle paths. This rear hub-busting obstacle course is on the Danube promenade.



This one leads to the Danube promenade from the Old Town.



A two-block stretch of Štúrova, a major artery in the center of town, has been completely fenced off and under construction for what feels like 8 million years now (they're installing new tram tracks and replacing old sewage pipes). I love how they apparently didn't quite have enough fencing to make it all the way around the perimeter of the massive hole they dug, which ate up a big chunk of the crosswalk. This fence also seems to get knocked down every time a strong gust of wind blows through, which in this town is fairly often.



Beblavého just below the castle seems to be in a perpetual state of disrepair.



There are numerous "secret" pedestrian pathways that serve as shortcuts through the circuitous, winding streets of the neighborhoods in Bratislava's hills. These paths are fun to explore, but on some of them you almost need a machete to hack through the overgrown vegetation.



And some of the paths themselves are pretty worse for wear.


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