पेट्रज़ल्का Audio Tours

Petrzalka is the most densely populated borough in Central Europe, a grid of communist-era panelak tower blocks housing 112,000 people on the Danube's right bank. For decades it carried the nickname 'the Bronx of Bratislava,' earned through underinvestment and the kind of neglect that followed when an ideology collapsed and left its architecture behind. A few kilometers to the west, the lights of Austria blink across the river.

What the towers never managed to crowd out is Sad Janka Krala, one of Europe's oldest public parks, founded in 1776 and still running along the Danube embankment in easy defiance of everything built around it.

Five bridges tie the district to the old city. FC Artmedia Bratislava, based here, once made it into the UEFA Champions League group stage, which tells you something about the pride this place carries quietly.