Day Trip to Komarno, Slovakia
Bilingual southern Slovak town on the Danube and Hungarian border
An interesting day trip from the Slovak capital of Bratislava takes you to the bilingual town of Komarno, a town lying on the Danube border with Hungary.
Bilingual towns can be so fascinating, so a trip from Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, to the border town of Komarno can be a great day out. Sharing a border with Hungary, two-thirds of those living in Komarno are in fact Hungarian, so it’s a Slovak town with a heavy Hungarian influence.
What To See in Komarno
The unique thing about Komarno is you’re sometimes not sure if you’re in Slovakia or Hungary. Most signs are bilingual and a lot of restaurants serve typical Hungarian foods. Try the Danube Museum (Podunajske muzeum), a history museum – it has a few interesting-looking exhibits, although nearly all the captions are in Slovak and Hungarian only. Several churches are worth seeing, including the St Rozalie, enroute back to the train station from the main town. You can’t miss its impressive red domed roof. There’s also the eighteenth century Serbian Orthodox church closer to the town center.
You might get a shock when you turn a corner and find Europe Place. It’s an interesting new development with buildings meant to reflect the many different styles of architecture across Europe! Some buildings are shops and restaurants so you can check out the inside, too. If you have the chance, try to visit Komarno in late April and early May when the Komarno Days festival takes place.
Getting to Komarno
Up to 10 trains a day head to Komarno from Bratislava, some of them faster than others – the slowest, all-stops version can take up to 2.5 hours. It’s interesting to see the Slovak countryside, still a mix of farmland, rural villages and a bit of leftover Soviet industrialisation; with Western industries starting to make an impact.
You can also make a stopover at Komarno on your way to the Hungarian capital, Budapest. If you’re on a real budget, tipsters say that you should buy a train ticket from Bratislava to Komarno, then walk over the border into the Hungarian twin town of Komarom and buy the next ticket to take you to Budapest – apparently you can save around $10. And walking over the border, which is of course a bridge over the gorgeous Danube River, is something a bit unique.
