You'll find her is the Castle Gardens.

In the summer of 2021, I found myself thousands of miles away from where I anticipated I would be. On July 1 I set out on an adventure all the way across the world to spend a month in Prague, Czech Republic. My journey was long and involved many adventures and mishaps which I will likely write more about in future blogs, but suffice it to say that when I arrived at the bed-and-breakfast after 36 hours of traveling I knew I was spent.

My mind was heavy with sleep, but my body needed to spread wide and inhabit more space than the small airplane seat had allotted me.

The man who ran the bed-and-breakfast either observed or intuited that I needed to stretch my legs because as soon as he set my bags down he suggested that I "go for a stroll in the castle gardens."

I pause when he said that because it sounded like such a crazy romantic notion, exactly like the beginning of some romantic comedy… a girl in a new city halfway across the world from her home goes for a walk in the castle gardens, she meets the crowned prince, and they live happily ever after This silly little thought gave me enough energy to go for a stroll.

––––––––––––––––––––

With a notebook in hand, I immediately began my search for the castle gardens. I took a right and then a left. I went around the church with the grass roof and proceeded straight past the fountains. I crossed the train tracks and then I saw it, the summer palace with its green roof and the massive expanse of greenery that was the garden. I walked under the arch of the entranceway and felt like I had been transported to a magical forest.

Nature has an uncanny way of being at once both otherworldly and intimately familiar. Alone, in an unknown city, surrounded by people speaking a language I had no hint of knowing, on a continent I had never set foot on before, walking in that park, I still felt at peace and familiar with the space around me.