The confluence
The Morava into the Danube, Austria opposite.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie, Militärgeographisches Institut — Public domain · Jan_Polák — CC BY 4.0 · Jan_Polák — CC BY 4.0
Bus 29 from the stop beneath Nový Most every half hour (25 minutes), or a summer river boat from the city quay taking an hour and turning the trip into an outing.
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Ruins on a rock where two rivers and two countries meet: Devín Castle stands ten kilometres west of Bratislava where the Morava joins the Danube, with Austria on the far bank — a site the Celts and Romans held (a Roman tower's remains still stand below) before it became a great Moravian stronghold in the ninth century. Napoleon's army blew it up in 1809, leaving romantic ruins — and in the nineteenth century it became a symbol of the Slovak national revival: the poet Ľudovít Štúr and his followers climbed here to revive the language and identity, and the castle has been on emblems and in anthems ever since. Under communism the site was the most heavily guarded point on the Iron Curtain: wire and watchtowers along the bank, where more than four hundred people were killed trying to swim across to Austria — the Gate of Freedom memorial at the confluence remembers them. The sight of the rock, the two rivers and the border from above is worth the trip alone.
The Morava into the Danube, Austria opposite.
A memorial to those killed on the Iron Curtain.
Remains of the Roman garrison below the rock.
Muránska, Devín, Bratislava