The Rest Of Stromovka

◊ Even though it has been raining every day this week here, I managed to use a few dry hours to see the rest of Stromovka. As I have said before, this park is quite huge. I decided to begin on the far side from where I had entered previously. On that corner of the park there is some kind of recreational plaza. There were many different facilities and because I cannot read Czech. I saw what I think is a concert arena or maybe a theatre. There was something that might have been some kind of museum, and also a planetarium. I get the feeling that this is not a place that many tourists come to because I did not see a single thing written in English, so I decided not to nose around. I may have learned much of their grammer, but I probably only know fifty words or so.
◊ As for the park, I found it to be an odd mixture of beauty and poor maintinence. In the more remote parts of the park I had explored earlier, the abundance of undergrowth and natural grasses just seemed correct for such a quiet, almost empty, hunting park. This area was another story alltogether. There were people everywhere, and I have never seen so many people on rollerblades. I passed a place renting them out entering the park. In Manhattan, I always get a kick when I see skaters fall down, but here I was greatly dissapointed because not a single person fell down even once. There were people out in the grassy areas and around the ponds. The place had the feeling of a massive city park, but there were problems I kept noticing. There grases there looked only half cared for, because they were full of dandilions and other weeds as were the flower beds. One of the things this place is know for is it's English garden. These ponds looked like someone had been trying to clean them up but was fighting a loosing battle. The pond was scummy and the islands were so overgrown it was hard to even see the flowers. The fancy scrollwork railings looked like they were horribly rusted and were just painted over.
◊ All of this I noticed but didn't think very much about untill I saw and area near the middle that was very well cared for. The grasses were mowed, the flowers weeded and in patterns, and the hedges trimmed. It was quite a sight; what a shame that less than 10% of the place to to be cared for that well. Perhaps because it is so early in the season the rest just has not been done yet. However, to me there seemed to be a history of neglect that was only now being worked on. This, of course, is the impressions I have gotten of most of the formerly communist countries. But in this case I wonder, was the neglect on the part of the communist party or was it in the ensuing 15 years?

Some pictures from one of the nicer places.