URGENT: Bratislava 8 hours day trip for tomorrow (last minute change)

Since you have to go through Vienna anyway and since it’s raining today, why don’t you just come to Vienna and visit Bratislava as a day trip from Vienna. Your plan doesn’t make sense to me.

Also, take the bus from Vienna to Bratislava. It is cheaper and drops you off at the center, rather than the train stations which are a bit far out.

Emily.
Probwbly I didn't say clearly sorry
I an leaving tomorrow 11th march Monday not today and I checked it's good weather
And also check in does not open till late afternoon so that's why we opt for tomorrow and full day Vienna the day after
Hope that makes sense now

Still doesn’t make sense, but if you insist, then leave your bags at Vienna Hauptbahnhof in the lockers there.

I was in Bratislava last summer. There is a left luggage at the Bratislava train station but it's a manned desk, not lockers. The guy must have been on break or something cause I noticed no one was there when we walked by, someone was waiting to try to leave luggage. If you are changing trains in Vienna I would leave bags there rather than Bratislava (left luggage looked a little sketchy to me).

You could go to Devin and see the center of Bratislava in 8 hours but it would be pushing it. You take a bus (it leaves from under the large overpass area below the Bratislava castle). Once in Devin it's a 15 minute or so walk. The buses are fairly frequent but I think we had to wait at least 15-20 minutes for a bus in each direction, then the ride takes about half a hour or so (don't remember exactly). So even though seeing Devin castle itself doesn't take long once you add up all these little bits it will eat up several hours. In Bratislava itself the 'highlight' is just seeing the old city center itself.

The walk from the Bratislava train station to the old center is about 20 minutes.

I would start with exploring Bratislava itself, and then if you feel you have seen enough in a few hours go to Devin, you can always explore a bit more once you get back.

Have a look at my blog post which includes our 3 days in Bratislava and side trip to Devin. https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/11/bavaria-to-bratislava-and-back-in-three-weeks

I understand that you want to go to Bratislava first, then to Vienna. Why do you want to go to Bratislava via Vienna? It takes quite longer. Look at the map of railroads. Trains Prague Vienna and Prague Bratislava and Budapest follow the same train line until Breclav. From there train to Vienna goes directly south and to Bratislava and Budapest to southeast. So if you want to go to Bratislava first, go there directly and not via Vienna, you will save time and you would not have to change trains. Simply get on in Prague, get off in Bratislava.

Emily,

Not sure why you say it does not make sense and we will not leave our luggage in Vienna central station
Why? According to train timetable, from Prague to Vienna is 4 hours
Prague to Bratislava is also 4 hours train ride as well and if we drop off in Vienna, we have to take an extra hour to Bratislava again, so i rather drop off there and pick up when we finish the tour.

Ilja,

Thanks for the feedback. I think you probably misunderstood, we never intend to go to Vienna first, we will be going directly from Prague tomorrow to Bratislava like you stated, taking the 5:50am train and arrives at around 10am. What I meant is after the day trip, we will travel to Vienna probably around 6pm as we already booked 2 nights accommodation. Hope that makes sense.
isabel,

I am glad you enjoyed it last summer. We came here in winter and is hoping for a good weather and thank god, it will be tomorrow. And I saw your blog also has Hallstatt too which is good because we will be staying for a night in 3 days later. Unfortunately, I saw the weather forecast saying that it will be raining/snowing so therefore looks like we cannot do the activities like salt mine and 5 finger etc, so we would need to think what we need to do when we arrive for the day

There are two train lines going from Vienna to Bratislava, one to the main station on the left (northern) bank of the Danube and one to the Petrzalka station on the right bank. Be sure that you hop on the one you need. Also definitely do not use bus from Vienna. There is a major reconstruction ongoing in the eastern part of the city where the bus station is so you can expect big traffic jams when travelling by bus or car or city buses in that area.

So how was your day in Bratislava?

How did your trip go, I am going to Bratislava in July for 2 nights, is 2 nights enough?

We are in Vienna now and have decided to visit Bratislava tomorrow. Regarding the post about two train lines going in : which one should we take to get the closest to Old Town section? Or doesn't it matter?

I don't think it matters, whichever train station they stop at in Bratislava is a bus ride or walk to the old town center. The only way to get dropped off in or near old town is take the bus from Vienna.

Buy the BratisLover ticket at the station tomorrow and all public transportation in addition to the round trip train fare is included. You’ll definitely want to take public transportation from the train station to the center, especially the station in the south.