Walking South in the City of Spires

I had agreed to play some doubles tennis this afternoon, and the guy organizing it asked if we could play at the Branik-Hamr club, as the other couple who would be playing with us was driving from 30 minutes away. This was not wholly satisfying, as Hamr takes me a good 45-minutes-plus to get to, and I'm not in my own car. Still, sure, I could accomodate. :-)

As it happened, anyway, I had nothing else to do before our 2 pm start, so I decided to make today worthwhile in an exercise sense — doubles tennis really not achieving that — by walking the almost two hours to the club on the Vltava river.

Kinda cardeo, I think.

There's not, actually, a whole lot to report — it wasn't too cold today (up to about 40 fahrenheit), and with a coat, and walking at a steady pace, it was quite comfortable. I ended up taking some photos today, remarkable only for how unremarkable they are — their banality impresses even me — but here they are.

The God of Beer?

I started by thinking I'd take a photo of the two empty Gambrinus beer cans, but decided to widen it to get the whole potraviny window. Not all of Prague is polished/pretty/Disneyland-for-adults.

That's just a facade, man.

This is something you see fairly often in European cities, actually. I enjoy seeing the difference between the newly-plastered-and-painted front-facing part of the building and the part of the building that, perhaps once-upon-a-time, was connected to a building next to it, and thus hidden from the street.

The Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul

My walk then took me right around Vysehrad, though not, this time, right through it. I got much closer than this photo suggests, in fact. By this point I was already walking away from it. According to Wikipedia: "Vyšehrad is a historic fort in Prague, Czech Republic, just over 3 km southeast of Prague Castle, on the east bank of the Vltava River. It was probably built in the 10th century. Inside the fort are the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul and the Vysehrad Cemetary, containing the remains of many famous Czechs, such as Antonin Dvořak, Bedřich Smetana, Karel Čapek, and Alphone Mucha."

One tenant is using her brain!

I just got a kick out of the banner of birds on one of these balconies. Worth a shot, though it makes you wonder what experiences led to it — and whether the owners of the other apartments just shrug and accept them.

Listening to an interview with Questlove on Fresh Air

Once down to the river, a left turn and the last half hour.

Are you? Am I?

Lots of graffiti on this walk through some of the more beaten-up parts of Prague. This phrase, though, caught my attention. "Jsi v pořadku" means "you're ok." Positivity in unexpected places.

The end of the road

Just outside Hamr I came across this old RV, which looked like it had been there for some 15 years. Maybe it has. You wonder a little bit about the circumstances of it ending up there. Was it purposefully abandoned? Did someone get arrested or leave for a short walk ... and never come back?

Once at Hamr, I met up with my friend Bobby (from Atlanta, has lived here 10 years), and two Czech friends he invited to join us, Richard and Šarka. Really nice people — Şarka was one of those Czechs who was a little perplexed that I would choose (multiple times!) to move to her country from the United States, but she politely pretended to accept my explanation. It was good and nice tennis — Richard was really talented, which was fun. But I escaped with my ego intact, which is always the primary goal.

Bobby gave me a ride home, at one point heading directly into the upcoming sunset and the Žižkov Television Tower (more on that another time), and that was it!

Too far away to see the babies on it.

Not an exciting Saturday by any stretch of the imagination, but — including an hour-long walk I took in the morning to stretch my legs and do some shopping — two long walks, and some tennis with new people, to be followed this evening by Michigan and then Kansas basketball games ... a pleasant one.