If you focus on the compact historic centre, you’ll see cobblestoned roads, pedestrian plazas, pastel 18th-century rococo buildings and street cafe’s galore. Expand your gaze and you can’t miss the institutional housing blocks and bizarre communist construction beyond. An age-old castle shares the skyline with a 1970s UFO-like bridge. And that’s Bratislava: a mix of new, old and older. All of which is worth a look.

As post-EU-membership investment pours in, the whir of construction equipment …