A Prague Seven Stroll

The thing about Prague is that you can stroll out your front door every day for a year and still find yourself in a new crevice of the city each time. After 3.5 years of living here, I'm gobsmacked by the newness of it all, in a place that is so old and storied.

Last weekend, what started out as a trip to a clothing sale at a retro cinema in Prague 7 turned into an afternoon wander to a somber WWII landmark, a children's theatre and an eco-fashion market. 

"All walking is a discovery. On foot we take time to see things whole."

- Hal Borland

Bio Oko is one of my favorite places - an independent movie theater that allows dogs, has beach chairs and schedules special matinees for parents with babies/small children. Pal Scotswoman and I met there for a vintage clothing market that ended up being more like 3-year-old H&M stuff, but it was fun.

From biooko.cz

From there we strolled East and Scotswoman suggested we stop by Prague's dilapidated Bubny station. You'd never know it, but this is where tens of thousands of Prague's Jews were deported to Nazi camps. Scotswoman has been in close contact with an organisation called Memorial Shoah Praha o.p.s. who is set to reconstruct the station into the "Bubny Memorial of Silence." I'm incredulous that I've lived so close to this place and only recently found out about it's significance; I'm looking forward to seeing the memorial evolve.

We continued East to the colorful Holešovice outdoor marketplace, where you can buy anything from knock-off purses to nunchucks. Housed in one of its warehouses is the Mint Design and Fashion Market; we popped in for a browse.

From mintmarket.cz

Parched from our perusing, we found Jatka 78 nearby for a beverage and rest. It's a multifunctional theater and cafe space that specializes in circus and alternative performance. That day, there was a children's show on. We didn't see it, but we did see the hordes of littles taking laps around the cafe before it started.

Our final stop was due North a touch, at the cafe-cum-threads store Vnitroblock. It was hosting a sustainable fashion event  and it was packed, but Scotswoman found a pair of boots she's been talking about buying every since.

And then it was back home to a big dinner party that BW had been cooking for friends. Vegan Mexican was on the menu and it was the perfect antidote for tired gams after a perfect Prague 7 day.

From Scotswoman

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A flat fiasco, now fine

BW and I ended up in our current flat on a fluke; we never planned to be here. We loved our last place and had no intention of moving - but we got displaced when our landlady decided to relocate back to Prague. It was a pain because...

1) We had to find another flat during the busiest part of the school year
2) We were confined to Prague 6 because our adoption paperwork was in the pipeline and switching districts meant re-starting the paperwork process, and
3) Prague 6 is not an inexpensive place to live; we had to find something within our budget that had room for a new child.

We visited a number of flats, many of which had various stains, chips, black mold and/or seedy agents/owners. And then we found this, our ideal sanctuary:

It was exactly what we'd hoped for!

But when we went to sign the papers, the man who'd promised it to us sheepishly told us that his mother (who owns the building) had promised it to someone else - an elderly woman. Deflated, we started the hunt again.

And then a week later, we got a phone call - the flat was available again. Say what?

Sadly, the elderly woman who'd leased it had passed away. I absolutely did NOT want to get the flat under those circumstances (and I promise I did not slip cyanide into anyone's tea). But we were still without a place to live and of course we said we'd take it.

Turns out she'd had the beautiful, airy white walls painted in shades of turquoise and salmon. So we asked for them to be returned to white, took a trip to Ikea, and moved in.

BW misses the central busyness of our first flat in Prague, but I'm enamored with our new 'hood - it's green, quiet and full of kids and dogs. And a good wine bar. Here's a trip around the block, on a grey February evening:

We're lucky to be right next to a tram stop and a bus stop, just around the corner. It's 10 to 15 minutes into the city centre, depending on whether you change to a metro or not.

This wine bar, which translates to "the green monk," is a quirky, cozy spot where we nab glasses of Czech wine for 25kc ($1) and a wide selection of cured meats and cheeses.

 Just across the street is a tasty Czech restaurant that also does a killer fish and chips. There are old Czech film posters on the walls.

Continuing on, I like how this statue of Ivan Konev waves hello to passersby. He was a highly decorated Soviet military commander who was front and center in the liberation of Prague from the Nazis.

On Konev's square is a funny little wooden playground and - although it looks brown now - loads of grass for our pup to run through.

According to this sign on the edge of our block, our street was named in honor of the village of Terron in Northern France; a Czechoslovak brigade fought there against German troops and "occupied the German position," it says.

 Across the street from our building, there's a lovely primary school with a campus full of birdhouses, a running track, a gazebo and more. Sometimes they'll hang kid art on the surrounding fence when it's warm out.

 Here are some Google Maps screenshots of the area in Springtime. Spring can't come soon enough!

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Valley of the dog

A post by Jayda. Woof.

I love not having a proper job and just being able to nap all day, but things can get a touch monotonous for my furry taste. So when ma and pa had a day off work, I yipped and yowled about going into the wilds so I could chase birds and get some sun.

Acquiescing to my demands, ma and pa took me to Prokopské údolí (Prokop Valley), a nature reserve located in the southwest corner of Prague full of flora, fauna and limestone. It was our first time there, and we kicked ourselves for not coming sooner because, man, was it grrrrgeous!

It took about 40 minutes by tram and bus to get there, and the first thing we saw was this viaduct, which I promptly peed on. Ma searched it on the internet and found out it was built in 1872 to transport coal and wood to the city of Prague, but now it's mostly used in the Summer months for a tourist train line named "Prague Semmering" because its beauty is like that of the more famous Semmering railway in Austria. 

Next stop was Prokopské jezírko (pond), made in 1905 from limestone quarrying. Since it's not that far from Prague's Barrandov film studios, the mini-lake is shown in a number of films and TV show. I think I'm pretty enough to be in films, too, FYI.

Oooh - and then we happened upon my favorite, a spot that seemed to be a petting zoo of some sort. So I bade hello to my beastie friends-in-arms.

The nature trail through the valley was very pleasant, and I walked longer than I normally do before petering out and making dad carry me. We hit a cafe in the woods just in time, because my paws were getting tired. Several attempts at taking a family selfie were made but it didn't quite work because I kept swivelling my noggin to see everything.

After refreshment, we just wandered along. This area was mined for limestone, and a number of prehistoric fossils have been found here. I dug a little in one spot but didn't unearth anything special. 

Finally, just outside of the park, we sat down for some Czech food at Černý Kohout (The Black Rooster). I got a little nibble of pork here and there but really could have used my own plate and let ma and pa know that. 

We caught a tram and my shaggy self passed out in ma's lap as we journeyed back home. Zzzzzzzz.

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Time to settle the pedals

Prague's wet, chilly Autumn weather has caused us to hang our bikes up for the season. And by that I mean lean them against the wall in our abnormally large kitchen.

Every year we admonish ourselves for not riding more, though we did clock a fair amount of kilometers this Summer. Truth be told, we should be on our bikes a lot because 1) we enjoy cycling and 2) Prague has improved lightyears in infrastructure for bikes compared with a decade ago.

Bike trails and road paths have appeared around town, as well as signage to mark them.

The cycling webpage for the city of Prague has a lot of information, including maps. I also like to use the Prague Green map for city bike routes, though it's solely in Czech. Finally, I've been reading Grant's Prague Bike Blog for years. He's not posting as much as he used to, but there's still a wealth of information on places to cycle and see around greater Prague.

We like a leisurely spin around the city, with stops for refreshments now and then. This one is just north of the center of Prague, on the right side of the River Vltava.

 

Our pup rides in a bike bag with us, which can at times elicit surprised looks from motorists and pedestrians.

 

Once in a while, we'll catch a train out of town and cycle back, or vice versa. Tickets are very reasonable and never more than the equivalent of a couple of bucks.

We always see something interesting, like the Okoř Castle ruins on a recent jaunt. The area was full of road construction that day, so it was unusually quiet, but we were able to get there on our bikes.

So, ciao for now, bikes. It's on to snow boots and mittens! 

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Five-sense Saturday: New nephew edition

The shift from Spring to Summer was packed with enough things to knock our senses right out. Here are some of our oblíbené (favorites):

HEARD:

...Don Giovanni, Mozart's masterpiece, at the Estates Theatre. I'm not one to run the opera - and this one is 3 hours long - but I enjoyed it with girlfriends. The costumes and visuals were stunning; they very much complemented the music.

-from Narodni Divadlo

...a very charismatic (and very pregnant) gal belting out Edith Piaf at Prague's annual French Market. She had a simply incredible voice.

TASTED:

...a lavender crepe from the Dejvické farmers' market. It's laced with lavender syrup, sprinkled with crushed lavender and topped with lavender merengue. 

...the stellar steak tartar at Lokal Stromovka, a Czech chain perched on the edge of our favorite park. BW swears it's the best in Prague. Like all good Czechs, you eat it piled on a piece of fried bread that's been rubbed with a garlic bulb.

SMELLED:

...lots of musty vintage things on board the floating flea market parked at Naplavka on Saturday mornings. No purchases this time, but I did once score an epic leather fanny pack.

...the many bonfires of Čarodějnice, the holiday that burns the winter witches (i.e. piles of wood) to usher in Spring every April 30. On Kampa Island, the burnings were accompanied by fire-dancers.

TOUCHED:

...a generous helping of hail - I'm glad we don't have a car here in Prague, because I imagine dealing with car insurance would've been a nightmare.

...an awful lot of Prague pavement with the pup; we are usually back in the U.S. in the summertime, but not this year. This has given us the chance to play Magellan and explore many corners of the city we love.

SAW:

... The new Viggo Mortensen film "Captain Fantastic" at our favorite movie theatre, the retro Bio Oko - it allows dogs. And has beach chairs. And if you're lucky, you'll run into a block party outside, like the one below.

...our brand-new nephew! Ok, so it has been over FaceTime, but we are thankful for this mode of communication and have logged many sessions trying to get the little guy from Tacoma, WA, to smile. We are so thrilled about this little man and the health and happiness of his mom and dad, too. Definitely the best part of this year :) 

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