Ondrejsky cemetery

- darkometer rating: 2 -

A relatively small, no longer in use cemetery near the centre of Slovakia's capital Bratislava. It functions more like park these days, and the graves are no longer tended much, but you can spot a plethora of intriguing details of darkly Gothic beauty and aesthetic decay.

>What there is to see

>Location

>Access and costs

>Time required

>Combinations with other dark destinations

>Combinations with non-dark destinations

>Photos

What there is to see: If you stumbled into this little green oasis in the middle of Bratislava without realizing it was a cemetery you'd be forgiven. It does indeed look more like a regular park at first.

But then you realize all those stone monuments and crosses. Most of the graves are these days only marked by such isolated stones/crosses, only a few still have their full rectangular grave shape.

Almost all the graves have clearly not been tended in a long time. Many have disappeared altogether, so that there are empty areas punctuated by just a few isolated monuments/headstones. You can guess why the cemetery is in the state it is by checking the names on the tombstones: many are German or Hungarian and date back to times when Bratislava was dominated by Germany/Austria and/or Hungary. Since those days ended a long time ago and the descendants of the German and Hungarian deceased have long since departed (or were kicked out after WWII), there is probably no one left with much of an interest in caring for these graves.

A few graves and tombstones are still in situ but are positively crumbling. One I found cordoned off and its headstone feebly propped up by a wooden pole to stop it collapsing altogether. Intriguingly, there was one of the cemetery's cats sitting timidly by this grave and when I got nearer it quickly vanished into (!!) the grave. I presume there's a hollow that the feral cats living here have made their “home”, i.e. adopted it as a convenient shelter.

Other decay is more subtle, and in a number of cases invites various forms of misinterpreting meanings … and it's a fine playing field for photography too. This really is another case of images saying more than words – so you could just as well go straight to the photo gallery below …

Location: a short distance (no more than a mile/1.5 km) from the Old Town centre of Bratislava; the main entrance is at No. 7 on 29 August Street.

Google maps locator: [48.148, 17.122]

Access and costs: quite easy to get to, free

Details: The cemetery is only a 10-15 minute walk from the heart of the city centre of Bratislava; from SNP Square (Namestie SNP) on the eastern edge of the Old Town walk down to Dunajska Street and head north-east to the street's far end and turn left into 29 Augusta; the main entrance to the cemetery (and the chapel marking it) is on your right just a hundred yards or so north. There's another entrance to the cemetery on the pedestrian street Polna that marks the northern perimeter of the cemetery ground.

There's also a (trolley-)bus stop (Cintorinska, lines 206, 208) at the main entrance, but connections to the Old Town are not very convenient. But if you are coming from elsewhere it might work – check on imhd.sk.

Opening times: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (8 p.m. in summer); free

Time required: between just 15-20 minutes for a cursory look to well over an hour if your really want to explore every corner.

Combinations with other dark destinations: See under Bratislava.

Combinations with non-dark destinations: See under Bratislava.