Letná Park

Top - H&M / Skirt - J. Crew

My favorite place in Prague to watch the sun set was Letna Park. The park is situated on a hill high above the Vltava River - to the right one can see bridge after bridge as the river curves towards Petrin Hill, with the illuminated lookout tower on top. If you stand in front of the giant metronome that sits in the center, you can look down Paris Street and see the lights in Old Town Square.

We happened to be in Prague during an unprecedented heat wave and I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't prepared. I picked up this blouse at H&M within the first few days and ended up wearing it about twice a week. This skirt suffered the same fate and I just recently got around to fixing part of the hem that had come undone. When you're restricted to the confines of two small suitcases for two and a half months, you're bound to suffer some casualties.

The first time I visited the park was after us students were sent on a scavenger hunt that took us all over the city and sent us in search of well-known landmarks and some hidden locations. Our last stop was Letna Park, where a giant statue of Joseph Stalin used to stand until it was destroyed following the fall of the communist regime that had governed Czechoslovakia. The metronome was donated to the city as a public work of art in the early nineties and is meant to symbolize a positive future.The park is always full of activity, with a beer garden in one corner, an art nouveau villa in the other, and this central platform is either occupied by break dancers, skateboarders, or sometimes both.