Bratislava, the capital an hour down the Danube from Vienna

There is no other pair of European capitals quite like Vienna and Bratislava. They stand on the same river, about fifty-five kilometres apart as the crow flies, and the train between them takes about an hour. On a clear day you can see one country from the other. People commute between them, and cyclists ride from one to the other along the Danube in a morning.

And yet they feel entirely different. Vienna is an imperial capital that has kept its scale; Bratislava is a small, friendly city that became a national capital only in 1993, when Czechoslovakia divided peacefully into two. It has been many things in between, and it carries them all lightly.

The coronation city

For much of its history Bratislava was not called Bratislava at all. To German speakers it was Pressburg, and to Hungarians Pozsony, and from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth it was the most important city in the Kingdom of Hungary. After the Ottomans took Buda in the sixteenth century, the Hungarian crown and parliament moved here, and the city became the place where the kings of Hungary were crowned.

The coronations took place in St Martin's Cathedral, a tall Gothic church at the edge of the old town. Between 1563 and 1830, eleven kings and queens and eight of their consorts were crowned here, among them Maria Theresa, the only woman to rule the Habsburg lands in her own right. The tower of the cathedral is topped not by a cross but by a gilded replica of the Crown of St Stephen, the Hungarian crown, put there in 1847.

Each coronation ended in a procession through the streets, and the route is still marked in the paving by small brass crowns set into the stones. Following them is a good way to see the old town: narrow streets, baroque palaces of the Hungarian nobility, the old town hall with its tower, and Michael's Gate, a tower from the medieval town walls.

The castle and the bridge

Above the old town, on a hill by the river, stands Bratislava Castle, a big, square, white building with a tower at each corner, which locals have long compared to an upturned table. It has been rebuilt more than once, and what you see is largely a reconstruction of the twentieth century, but the view from its terraces is the best in the city: the Danube, the old town, and across the river, the tower blocks of Petržalka, the vast housing estate of the socialist era, with Austria beyond.

Below the castle, the Most SNP, the Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising, crosses the Danube on a single tall pylon, with a saucer-shaped restaurant on top that everyone calls the UFO. It was built in the early 1970s, and to build its approach a large part of the old Jewish quarter below the castle was cleared, along with the synagogue. It is a reminder that the socialist city was laid over the old one with little ceremony. The view from the top is worth the lift, and the bridge is worth understanding.

Seeing it

Bratislava is small enough to see in a day, and many visitors do just that, as a stop between Vienna and Budapest. All three holidays here treat it that way.

Explore's seven-night Budapest to Prague Adventure goes from Budapest to Bratislava and Vienna, then to the wine town of Mikulov and the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape in Moravia before ending in Prague. It runs from May to October.

Travelsphere's seven-night Imperial Capitals - Budapest, Vienna & Prague goes from Budapest to Bratislava and Vienna, then to Český Krumlov and Prague.

Just You's seven-night Cruising the Danube, for solo travellers, travels by river, with Passau, Steyr, Linz, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Melk and Munich in its list. On a river cruise, Bratislava has the advantage that the ship ties up close to the old town, and you can walk straight in.

Making the most of a day

Start at the castle, early, for the view while the light is soft. Walk down the steps into the old town and follow the crowns from the cathedral to the main square. Have lunch somewhere with bryndzové halušky, the national dish of small potato dumplings with sheep's cheese and bacon, which is heavier than it sounds and better than it looks. In the afternoon, cross the river to look back at the old town, or take the lift up the bridge.

If you have longer, stay the night. Bratislava empties when the day visitors go, and the old town in the evening, with its cafés and wine bars full of locals, is a different place: smaller, quieter and more itself.