I don’t know about you, but I am not going to miss 2023, though to be honest, on a personal level, I had a good year. However, I certainly cannot say the same for the world around me. There is not a great deal to feel excited or upbeat about as we stumble into 2024, at least that is how things look from my corner of the world. I guess it is up to all of us to make the new year as happy and decent as we can. Let’s get to it!
It’s time to take a break from Europe and post a few recent images from home in Vietnam.
Planty Park? The Polish name seems to mean park of plants, or something to that effect. You’d think the city would have come up with something more evocative of Kraków’s distinguished past, but so be it. This marvelous urban green way is one of features that gives Kraków its captivating charm.
Like many ancient and medieval European cities, for many years, the historic urban core of Kraków was enclosed by a defensive wall and a moat. Eventually, as artillery that could fire explosive projectiles replaced catapults hurling stones, walls lost their defensive edge and cities began to remove them. In the 1800s, Kraków replaced its wall and moat with a green beltway that rings the city’s Old Town.
Today Planty Park is a beautiful common space with lengthy walkways shaded by stately trees. While it never felt crowded to me, the park was full of people, from locals going about their business to visitors with cameras. A place for strolling, quality thinking time, meeting friends, texting, or catching some morning rays.
Finally, when you have walked your fill or gotten where you are going, the city is never far away.
Maybe it’s just me, but if those were my little girls, I would think twice about letting them be surrounded by dozens and dozens of pigeons, which are not necessarily the nicest or the cleanest birds in the world.
Visitors to Prague Castle walk down the hill towards Lesser Town on a crisp autumn Sunday with a view of the Vtlava River in the distance.
I have a feeling these four are a regular weekend attraction for people walking the Charles Bridge on a Saturday, as I was. I am not sure how to characterize their sound – jazz of a sort I suppose. I enjoyed listening for a few minutes while I snapped a few photos, and before walking on, I put 100 Czech Koruna (a bit less than $5.00) in the guitar case. The clarinet player gave me a look as if to say, “Is that all?” Whatever, it was before noon, and it was clear the band would walk away with, at the very least, enough geld for a good dinner and several pints of fine Czech beer later in the day.
The Charles Bridge spans the Vtlava River, connecting Prague’s Old Town on the east bank of the river with Lesser Town and Prague Castle on the west bank. Construction of the bridge began in 1357 and was completed in 1402; the Charles replaced an older span that had been damaged by flooding. Wikipedia’s Charles Bridge entry is a relatively short, interesting piece about the the history of this Prague landmark.
My visit to the bridge began with an early morning walk along the banks of the Vltava River. The comfy budget hotel where I stayed on the Old Town side of the river was located on a street that nobody would label picturesque, but I was only about 150m from the Vltava. It was an overcast morning, and the weather forecast called for rain, gusty winds and falling temperatures beginning later in the morning. My plan was to walk along the river until the weather became threatening, at which point I would return to the hotel or seek shelter in a café.
Sure enough, a bit more than an hour into my walk, the wind began huffing and puffing, and I turned away from the river and headed into the Old Town where I could find someplace to sit if it started to rain. As I checked the map to get my bearings, I realized that my walk had brought fairly close to the entrance of the Charles Bridge. No more than 10 minutes from the bridge, I decided to take a chance with the weather and walk over. As I approached the Gothic Old Town Gate of the bridge (pictured here), the solid gray overcast gave way rather suddenly to puffy white clouds with rays of sunshine peeking through. Instead of blowing in a rainy day, the wind had carried the rain clouds away. Delighted with this happy turn of the wheel, I realized it was time to walk across the Charles Bridge, and that is exactly what I set out to do. (To be continued with more photos at a later date.)