Busker saxophone, spinach dumplings. Prague through the autumn through the eyes of a Šumperk photographer
Sometimes I go to Prague just to take pictures, to the streets. I’ll hang the camera around my neck on the train. I walk through the magical Central Station, two girls in masks heading to a Halloween party.
I will head to Václavák through a park called Sherwood. I will have my beloved potato dumplings with spinach at Havelák, then in the direction of the Old Town Square, where I am greeted by the saxophone of a local busker.
I am scolded by a young man processing dough for langoustines in a stall for a photo shoot. I wonder what he says to hundreds of tourists from all over the world with cell phones constantly ready to take pictures.
I walk along Pařížská Street to the Art Nouveau bridge under Letná. I will be stopped by the bank of the Vltava with views of the opposite Prague Castle and the Office of the, perhaps soon new, government. An unexpected sculpture by Salvador Dali in the park near Rudolfinum as a trailer for his permanent exhibition in Opletalka.
I head to Karlín, walk under Negrelli’s railway viaduct, admire its just completed sensitive reconstruction.
Coincidence will take me to the community center Kasárna Karlín in the former barracks. During her studies in Prague, my roommates often visited her brother.
With the end of compulsory military service in our country at the beginning of the new millennium, the huge area gradually emptied. Today, the Kasárna Karlín community center operates here in a low, newer annex and in a large courtyard.
Tonight, the program is screening in the so-called summer cinema.
More about this center again next time.
Lenka Hoffmannová