Pruhonice

I spent a couple of hours this  morning arguing politics on  the internet, and I just spent a couple of hours now arguing politics on  the internet, but in between had quite  a relaxed, lovely day.
Sam had a football  game, but we didn’t  get there until about 5 minutes before the end.   The scoreboard  said 5-0 but we had no idea who was ahead.  They looked  pretty evenly matched  to me.  Sam’s team got a goal in the final seconds, we saw the score change to 5-1, and that was that.

Pruhonice, Today

Helena and I had planned a walk in the park, but Sam wanted to go hang out  with his friends.  That actually made things a lot easier.  The park is Pruhonice, in the town of Pruhonice, and we try to go there once a year, around this time.

They have a castle, which I suspect was just built as part of the park/botanical garden.  It’s a bit on the small side, as castles go, and a little bit too perfect.  Sort of like the Princess’ castle at Disneyland.  The park is a series of ponds and streams, with flowers galore.  The specialty is rhododendrons, and if you can catch it at the peak time, which we never seem to, it is spectacular.

As we entered, in the yard in front of the castle, they were in bloom and I said “Ah, this year we’ve hit it just right” but that did not prove to be the case.  Several of the bushes at higher elevations, along the crest of the  hill, were in bloom, but those at lower elevations, in the shadows, had not bloomed yet.  Indirect sunlight.
It was still very pretty.  We walked around for a bit over an hour, sat by a waterfall and drank from the stream.

Then we had lunch at an outdoor cafe just outside the park.  Fried cheese and french  fries for me, with a ginger flavored house lemonade.  Ginger  is one of those flavors that you have to get just  right.  Not too little, not too much.  They did a good job.  Helena had gnocchi  with chicken and a creamy spinach sauce.  I  rated it excellent, she wasn’t quite so impressed

Then we got a bit lost walking back to the  car, but that was O.K.  The local residents,it seems, take their town’s reputation as a city of  flowers seriously, and we saw some very nice gardens.

There’s no real point to any of this.  It was just a nice day.