A major highlight of my first trip to Europe in 2018 were the public parks and the beer gardens. I was incredibly lucky to have been in Europe during the biggest event of the year — the 2018 FIFA Worldcup. Yes, yes so go ahead and feel envious, I know I would have.
I remember during one of the matches we saw in Prague, we went to Riegrovy Sady.
Riegrovy Sady has a beer garden eponymously named the Riegrovy Sady beer garden.The ambience on the day of the match was electric — Trees and benches, a big screen & greasy food and hoardes and hoardes of screaming football fans. We were sharing our bench with a young polish couple from a small village in Poland. I took a video that day and you can see how thrilled we looked. It was the most fun that I had watching a football match.
On the last day of trip to Prague, we hiked up to this beer garden Letenske Skady. This place has sweeping views of the city. You must have a beer or two here and enjoy a panoramic view of Prague.
While Prague was quaint and beautiful with it’s beer gardens and pastel coloured buildings, the kind of impact that Amsterdam had on me was on a completely different plane. Last year, I travelled to the Netherlands and we spent most of our time exploring Amsterdam, Delft and Leiden. The biggest highlight of the trip was yet another public park — Vondelpark. This park is spread over a whopping 128 acres in the posh and chic borough of Amsterdam-Zuid. All we did that day was to lie under canopies of trees, reading and sleeping and watching dogs jump happily in ponds.
I think that day, as i lay under the blue skies, my views changed on what really made a city livable.
It’s not just public transport or big jobs that make a city great. When young and old women lounge in a park with abandon, that is the stuff that makes a city great.
Whenever I visit public spaces like beaches and parks in India, I crave to have that lack of inhibition which I experienced in Vondelpark that fateful day.
I hope that someday i can hit the beach in Bombay, with a book in my hand and nap happily under the open skies. Lazy. Happy. Safe.
Sonam loves to travel 