Two weeks ago, my wife, Ann, and I completed our first trip to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Everywhere we went, our local guides proudly pointed out the progress that has been made since the fall of communism, and we could readily see for ourselves the affluence, elegance and style that are on display in the places that the tourists like to visit.
Once we declared here that we would visit Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, we expected people to say, \”How quaint! How interesting! What an unusual place to visit.\” Instead, we invariably heard, \”Why Bratislava?\” And in Prague, when we announced our next stop, the reaction was, \”Why do you want to go there?\” Amazingly, even in beautiful Bratislava itself, residents asked in wonder and bemusement, with no hint of being impolite: \”Why would you want to come here?\”
Folks in Bratislava are not used to tourists. It is not, as they say in the travel trade, a \”destination.\” No tourist buses crowd the streets like in Prague. No Israelis swarm here. And even if tourists come, we were told, they are ultra-Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Budapest who take a taxi to Bratislava for a quick visit to the tomb of the revered early 19th century sage Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chatam Sofer), and then scoot back to Budapest without so much as a backward glance.
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