And sometimes they jump into large pots of boiling water. Crazy stupid.
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That’s the blue ones. Theyre hidding.
Some people might beg to differ 
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Wow. Nice scenery!!! Personally, I would be more interested in walking where ever whim takes me in that city (where is it?) rather than be locked into a narrow river channel in a kayak.
sing
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It’s Prague, the capital city of Czechia. My home Walking is also very pleasant here but if one wants to paddle a bit it’s doable. River Vltava is canalised and heavily regulated by a series of weirs and low head dams in the city so the flow is only gentle.
This is a nice video shot by an older paddling gentleman: Kajak 2022 - YouTube
The city part starts at about 6:20 and ends at 20:05. The commentary is in Czech only but the scenery is the same in all languages. And yes, no PFD but we just don’t argue with Mr. Aleš Polidor. He’s been paddling that way for longer than I’ve been walking this world…
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Thank you for giving us some global perspective Jabberwocky!
Even the title “Best urban kayaking spot in America” seems kinda arrogant or ignorant since it isn’t about America it’s just about the United States.
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Glad to be of assistance And I wasn’t offended by the word choice at all. It’s just a friendly poke that there are beautiful places all around us.
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I’ve never paddled there, but I nominate richmond virginia.
Thanks Jabberwocky! It’s nice to see Prague from the water. I visited in the early 90s, it looked like a great place to paddle. I particularly liked seeing the tunnels leading to the canal next to the island - I think the canal is called Certovka? Something like that. Anyway, I don’t recall there being much boat traffic back then, it had only been free from the Soviets for a year or two.
Mr. Polidor is seriously old-school - no pfd, 90-degree feather on the paddle, old style river kayak, but still powering through, it’s good to see.
In the city of Richmond itself the James River is all rocks and shallow rapids. Pretty much not navigable. The southern part of the city is heavy industrial. Once you get beyond that, however, it is a very nice river to paddle on. But I don’t think that the city itself would qualify as a great place to paddle.
We paddled the James near Petersburg in the late 70s. It was a nice paddle with a lot of wildlife. We had to ignore the chemical factories on the other side of the river in Hopewell.
We had our first canoe ,a Sawyer tandem.
Someone should do a best Canadian urban paddling spots list. I’m certain there are some great places around Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto (already mentioned above), Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax, to name a few but there must be others.
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Aqua Verde (if it’s still there) is an urban spot in Seattle.
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But very tasty. Love paddling the tidals on the Maine coast, no large crowds, no heavy currents, usually beautiful varied scenery as you work inland, salt marsh to forest, just a calming experience.
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On my Mac, these “replies” show up as separate entries, the geeks should fix that. The entry above was aimed at the paddler who mentioned dumb lobsters.
Quebec City though is a little scary… The tidal currents are so strong there.
carldelo: The canal’s name is indeed Čertovka but it’s located on the other side of the river. The tunnels in the video are on the Old Town side, just below the Charles Bridge. In fact, the smaller arches are remnants of an even older mediaeval bridge that was replaced by the bigger one in the 14th century.
As for Prague itself, some things haven’t changed much over the years and some have. The city has become a popular destination and the city centre tends to be rather crowded. This is also reflected by boat traffic as there are many tourist boats on the river. These are, however, limited to the actual centre, in other places the river is more or less empty.
The paddling experience depends on what you want to do. If you are ok with staying in one of the weir basins it’s fine as long as you watch out for bigger boats. If you want to go downstream (or upstream for that matter) it involves some trickier places around weirs or longish portaging. But once you get used to it and find the right spots it’s not difficult. And if you accept the compromises that come with inflatables you can shuttle very easily by public transport, which is awsome.
I’ve paddled around Vancouver Harbor (heading out from False Creek behind Granville Island, where Feathercraft folding kayaks used to have their HQ and shop) and it’s pretty cool – also just a short drive from downtown Vancouver up the inlet to Deep Cove harbor and marina where you can paddle up the steep fiord cliffs of Indian Arm where seals lounge on the docks and you can find First Nations petroglyphs on the cliff walls indicating good places to find crabs. Had planned to kayak around Victoria during our visit there in 2012 but fell hiking the second day of that trip and broke my arm, ruling out that activity. But it looked like a interesting place to explore that I also hope to revisit while I am still upright.
Ottawa has the cool Rideau Canal and Rideau River system which climbs via 46 locks over 126 miles up and over the intervening mountains to reach the Ste. Lawrence River near Kingston, ONT. Some of the older locks in the narrower channels are self-service. You climb out of your boat and open/close the gates to float your party to the next level. Some of the old lock keepers cottages are set up as historical museums with costumed docents. I did some miles of the southern end of it with my Kingston-based friend and paddling mentor, Dennis, some years ago and have wanted to get back at some point and do more of that route.
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that’s why it gets my vote, rocks and rapids right down town, certainly navigable with the right skill set, a lot of good ww paddlers come from Richmond, they can run some rapids during lunch break or after work, never done it myself but sometime I’ll check it out
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I guess I’m slow at getting going , but I can’t imagine unloading, paddling, racking and back to work during lunch…after work whatever unless ya work next to your boat storage and don’t have to do the transport stuff.