The suburban countryside

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Week 3 and the next location is my old neighbourhood of Bohnice, maybe it was just a coincidence that I decided to come to Bohnice but here we are and here is what we found. Doing this blog makes you look at things in a different way. When I lived here I didn't really have a good look around and see what it had to offer, apart from a small Czech Irish bar, a pizzeria and my local sudova vina shop. I didn't think that there was much to offer. So what did I find out? Well first of all and amusing to my Polish girlfriend is that all, well not all but a lot of the streets are named after Polish cities. What also makes it amusing in that respect, is that for me Bohnice is the home of the city's main psychiatric hospital and home of the famous Mezi Ploty art and music festival, which raises money for the hospital and is held within the hospital's grounds. Another interesting thing that I found out while digging around on the web was, that in Bohnice there was the Czech's or more correctly Czechoslovakian's first dynamite factory. Pretty explosive hey hey hey.

The least attractive part of this area are the large cluster of panelaks and 2 old run down shopping precincts, which is strange, especially when you see how many people are living in the vicinity. Was it changes in peoples shopping habits or the recession, I wonder? It brought back memories of my childhood in Brinnington, Stockport where my grandparents lived and my sister and I used to visit them every other weekend. Fond times were had and great fun running around the shopping precinct. The most attractive parts are the areas surrounding it, such as Troja les, which leads down to the botanical gardens and zoo and Bohnicke udoli, which heads down towards the river Vltava. These areas are very popular for cyclists and hikers alike.

Review no. 1

The first place we decided to stop at and I have to be honest, though this area is mainly residential and highly populated, there are surprisingly very few places of interest to report about, but after an extensive 4.5hr search we are pleased to announce that we have enough material to publish the blog. We were very thirsty and cold, not sure what the temperature was outside. Don't really need to know. The numbness in my nose and toes was enough of an indicator for me to guess that it was brass monkeys.

The first review and it would not normally be the sort of place that I would like to write about because it is a pizzeria and it is not because I am a bit of a snob, it is because I am looking for something unique and personal and pizzerias are normally much of a muchness. The place is called Trojsky Vrch and because it doesn't really have any competition in the area, it was no surprise to see that it was pretty full, though it was 12pm, so no surprises there. The menu was nothing new for a pizzeria but the staff were very friendly and spoke English. they also had an English menu. My SVG (sexy vigilant girlfriend) had the minestrone soup with parmesan and it hit the spot. So all in all it passed the grade and if we lived in the area, we would visit it, maybe on a regular basis, if we were too busy to head towards the centre.

www.trojsky-vrch.cz

Review no. 2

The next place of interest and again we were running low on fuel, well I was anyway, was Potrefena Husa and for the same reasons that I mentioned above, it is not usually a place I would visit because it is a chain, and a pretty successful chain, because they do offer an attractive menu with nice décor and professional staff but it is not what I am looking for although there was not much to choose from at all, which is really surprising for such a large demographic of potential customers. This time I did the eating and being a Brit I went for the blood sausage with boiled pots and washed it down with an 11 degree Staropramen, which was lovely, even more so because it was on special offer with the blood sausage for 12kc. The sausage was very nice though the boiled pots were pre boiled and microwaved, you always know with pots, they always have that, I've been left in cold water for too long taste. Again the service was good. They had an English menu though no English speaking staff were on duty, not to worry though because I had my SVG with me.