I see the sign and am enticed to walk down the long corridor.
There’s no turning back now.
I enter a cobblestone courtyard filled with tables, chairs, plants, and works of art.
Jazz music plays and at the centre of the courtyard is a fountain containing floating silver balls, surrounded by large-leafed plants.
There is an adjacent room filled with works of art, Bohemian crystal primarily.
The server is a young woman, friendly, and with a sense of humour.
For cake, she invites me to go one way around a wall while she goes around the other way, “and then we’ll meet in the middle”, she says with a little laugh.
I am enchanted by her joie de vivre.
She tells me one of the cakes is made with a traditional Czech Christmas recipe and she says she loves it.
I ask her which of the cakes is her favorite but she doesn’t commit.
“I love them all”, she says with a sweeping hand.
“Depending on my mood,” she adds flirtatiously.
I give this young woman top marks for sellership.
I select a blueberry cheesecake with a flaky chocolate topping and a latte.
There is a friendly English-speaking group of three at a nearby table and they are well into a series of beers by shortly after 1100.
One woman says to her friends, “Alcohol helps the day along a lot.”
I chuckle. It sure can.
They finish their beers and have decided to head up to the Prague Castle.
Each of the three is late middle-aged and quite out of shape.
I wonder if they know they must climb 208 steps to get to the castle.
I have the courtyard to myself and look around at the buildings.
My server tells me that on two sides are apartments for locals.
Wow. I imagine myself living here, opening my window onto the cafe courtyard each day, letting the soft jazz seep into my apartment.
Paradise.
My server invites me to explore the room to my left, where I discover a room filled with artwork, several tables and chairs, a floor made of beach sand, and stations where one can experiment with the instruments of art.
Incredible.
Behind me is the art studio of the cafe’s owner.
She is in there while I eat my cake, arranging a sale with a customer who has a prominent tattoo of a feather on her neck.
As I get ready to leave, a random dachshund sidles up to me for a scratch behind the ear before wandering back to his human, who takes him up a metal staircase to her apartment.
I ask my server to add a tip to my bill, since it isn’t given as an option when paying with a card.
She has trouble with the math, so I help her out.
She gives me a joie de vivre laugh and says, “I’m studying art in school; I can sing and I can dance, but I need a calculator to do mathematics.”
She laughs again and I’m grateful for the joy this young woman brings into the world.
