Tag Archives: flowers

Jul22

Letenska Park in Prague

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Wednesday, 26-June-2024


On Wednesday, I headed up to the North of my apartment, aiming for the art museum that lay perched up on the hill above town. To get to it, though, I’d have to cross a river and scale the hill… And, most excitingly, take a walk through Letenska Park! I mean, okay. Full honesty – I hadn’t heard of the park before, and I’m not aware of anything that really makes it stand out in the grand scheme of things. But it’s a park, and I enjoy getting to walk underneath trees and around flowers, so… You know what? I’ll get excited about parks regardless of how widely known they happen to be.

After the Museum, I actually came back through the park to finish my exploration – I’d had a good time wandering through originally, and since my route home would take me around it anyways… It was a really nice diversion from the cityscape and the depths of the salt mines that I’d been growing accustomed to. Nice breezes, swaying trees, and countless citizens of Prague enjoying the summer warmth. There were swimming areas, tennis courts, playgrounds…

Something I’ve really enjoyed about Europe, if my readers will accommodate my diversion from the park itself, is that people seem to go out more often. I don’t mean to bars or restaurants, though that may well be the case. I mean to parks, to beaches, to meeting spots. This may just be my experience in Oregon, but I hadn’t found that people really “got together” that much anymore… yet here I see people sitting in the parks, watching the World Cup, or just playing lawn games together. It’s neat, and I’m excited to see how similarly Dubliners act.

Back to the park – it was beautiful, had a cool (yet creepy) playground with strangely-threatening quadrupeds, lots of flowers and open spaces, and some simply lovely views. 10/10, would stroll around again.

Jul14

The Warsaw University library gardens

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Thursday, 20-June-2024


I adore post-apocalyptic citycapes.

I mean, I adore landscapes in general. And even some contemporary cityscapes. But cityscapes of crumbling infrastructure, with plants reclaiming the world of iron, glass, and cement… Now that’s just a special kind of beautiful.

That’s actually the look that I aim for with my gardens, interestingly enough. “Plants reclaiming civilization” is the goal – that’s why I love rusted wrought iron, shattered ceramics, and crawling vines so much.



As I was exploring Warsaw, just wandering about and appreciating the calm and opportunity to walk without a goal, I saw a garden in the distance. A glass dome, specifically, with vines crawling up around it. It called to me, and I answered by curving my path and heading into the garden surrounding it.

I couldn’t have imagined just how amazing this garden would be… nor that it was actually part of the University of Warsaw!


It turns out – I first saw the University Library a bit earlier on my walk – the front facade is… well, it’s hard to describe, except that I feel like this is what the Library of Alexandria should have looked like. I’ll let my camera do the talking, here. You know what? I’ll just step back and let the camera paint you, my dear readers, a picture of the entire landscape:

Jul7

The parks of Riga, and the flowers of Latvia

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Various days, from Monday, 10-June-2024, through Saturday, 15-June-2024


I adored the riverfront parks in Riga.

And, as June kicked into gear, the flowers seemed to love them too – so many flowers adding color to so many beautifully solid sculptures… I don’t know exactly what style of art these sculptures are (Soviet realism? Brutalist? Modern Classical?), but I know that they’re solid, and that they look really cool when contrasted with bright flowers and beautiful growing things.

I took these photos over the course of my wanderings around Riga – I didn’t set out to see any specific pieces, and simply found them as I explored and meandered my way around the city. It seemed like everywhere I turned there was another cool statue of sculpture to see, and they definitely helped me add more than a few miles to my sneakers.