Friday, 19-Sept-2025
I absolutely adore botanical gardens… I think it comes from growing up around my Aunt, who’s an avid gardener, and always wanting to visit her greenhouses. The fact that she had the absolute best carrots didn’t hurt, to be very clear, and I still remember the kumquats, fresh from the tree…
Right, anyways.
Botanical gardens. Glasgow. Super pretty, with that amazing greenhouse smell… Simply magical.
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.
Friday, 21-June-2024
On my way back into the city after visiting the CD Projekt RED studio, I noticed a gate with a garden behind it.
The gate was open.
I mean… how could I not walk through? That would just be rude, right? Right.
I may have watched “the secret garden” one too many times as a kid. I admit to nothing.
Now, to be clear, this wasn’t just some random small garden that a family owns. I mean, okay, it was a garden that a family owned at one point, if you want to be technical. But that family was the family of Casimir the Great, in the 1300s, who happened to be the king of Poland. So… kind of public access these days.
Anyways.
It was a garden, it was lovely, and I enjoyed taking a few moments to wander around and appreciate the cool air filtering between the trees. The fountains, the shade, the quiet greens… A very lovely escape from an otherwise quite warm day.
