Wednesday 6 April 2016

Cesky Krumlov Travel Guide


At last! My travel guide to Cesky Krumlov is now available on Amazon. It has been a year in the making, but I think the hard work has all been worth while. This is the first in a series of travel guides to the Czech Republic that I am planning.

You can buy it here:
For UK purchasers:   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Insiders-Travel-Krumlov-Republic-Guides-ebook/dp/B01DQ20A12
For US puchasers:  http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Travel-Krumlov-Republic-Guides-ebook/dp/B01DQ20A12

It is also available on the Canadian, Australian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Dutch, Japanese, Brazilian and Mexican Amazon stores

If you do buy a copy and enjoy it, please leave a review on Amazon.

Subjects covered in the book: 
  • How to get to Cesky Krumlov from Prague and other locations
  • How to get around on public transport (trains and coaches) and private trips
  • Take a tour of the Cesky Krumlov's Castle (the Czech Republic's second largest castle)
  • Take a guided walk around the historic streets of the ancient town
  • When to come to Cesky Krumlov (weather, festivals, when to avoid the crowds)
  • Secret Krumlov – how to find the Krumlov most travellers never see
  • Children's Krumlov – how to have a great Krumlov holiday with kids
  • How to explore the lovely countryside surrounding Cesky Krumlov, including the Sumava National Park
  • How to see some of the castles, abbeys and historic villages near the town
  • How to shop for essentials and souvenirs
  • What and where to eat in Cesky Krumlov
  • How to find and choose your holiday accommodation
  • Useful Czech words and phrases
  • Useful information and websites

Sunday 13 March 2016

Drowning Morana - the End of Winter


I always spend March in England, for a number of reasons including being with my mother on Mothering Sunday. For this reason I have never seen the Czech traditional ceremony that marks the end of winter. But my friend Hannah has and she gave me this photo of the ceremony taking place in a small village a few miles from my home.

Morana was the Slavic goddess of winter and so her ritual destruction towards the end of March every year marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The girls of the village create an effigy of Morana out of straw and branches, dress her in old clothes and drape a necklace of eggs around her neck. On the day of the drowning, she is processed through the village to the river, to the accompaniment of songs and music. There she is set on fire and hurled into the river.

It is obvious that this ceremony predates the arrival of Christianity to the Slavic lands and may at one time have involved a human sacrifice. In this country, in which winter can be very harsh and where we do not have the early wildflowers that act as harbingers of spring in England, a sacrifice might well be thought needed to secure the death of winter. Nowadays of course no other reason is needed than the excuse to have a party.

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Creating an e-guidebook to Cesky Krumlov.


I am currently working on my guidebook to Cesky Krumlov, ready for publication at the end of the month (I hope). The text is written and edited, so nearly everything is done. The cover has been mocked up (see above). But I have a dilemma and I would welcome your feedback.

The book is designed as an ebook. I have observed that a lot of visitors to the town come with ipads and other electronic readers and so thought that there was a need for a downloadable guidebook.

This choice of book format offers opportunities and problems.
The opportunities are that:
  • with an ebook I can incorporate active web-links in the book, allowing the reader direct access maps, bus timetables and other resources
  • I can update the book easily
  • it does not take up space in people's luggage
  • the book is easily searchable.
The problems are that:
  • ereaders reformat the page to fit the screen, so there is an issue about the look of the page and in particular the position and size of images
  • the size and quality of images have to be limited 
  • Czech characters such as in Český do not convert easily into an ebook format.
To resolve the first two problems I will create a gallery of photos that readers can access if they want to see more images of Cesky Krumlov.

The third problem is the one I would welcome your thoughts on. It is possible to code the book to feature Czech characters using HTML, but I am not sure I am capable of doing it and more importantly I am not sure that I should. My readers will be English-speakers, readers and writers, using devices with a standard English keyboard. By using Czech characters I will probably be reducing their capacity to interact with the book. So what should I do?

Sunday 14 February 2016

More Decorative Details from Prague's Obecni Dum

  

In a previous post I talked about my tour of Prague's Municipal House (Obecni Dum). And mostly I talked about the building in terms of Art Nouveau. Its architectural style is indeed Art Nouveau. And clearly that is also the case with the exterior decoration and much of the interior.



But it is a bit of a simplification. The building was at the forefront of architectural and decorative trends when it was built between 1905 and 1912. Indeed the Czechs often were breaking new ground in the first part of the twentieth century. As a result some of the decorative details are art deco and indeed cubist.


The decoration is everywhere. From the concert hall to the ticket office, from basement to the salons upstairs, from the lift (photograph above) to the lights (below).


As an introduction to the architecture of the early part of the 20th Century a visit to the Obecni Dum is an excellent idea.



Wednesday 10 February 2016

Masopust at the train station






Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday and so Masopust was celebrated in the Czech Republic. I have blogged about Masopust in previous posts and so I will simply share with you this photograph of two Masopusters waiting for the train to Horni Plana in the waiting room at Cesky Krumlov station.

You can see my video of Masopust in my nearest town here: http://czechproperty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/masopust.html

and my post about the Masopusters visit to my village here: http://czechproperty.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/masopust-in-horice-na-sumave.html

Monday 1 February 2016

Happy 1938


When you start collecting Czech ex libris, you will also be offered PFs. These are New Year cards and usually feature the letters PF (which stands for the French greeting pour feliciter) and the year and perhaps the name of the family sending the card. The Czechs refer to these cards as peefko. Sometimes families will make their own cards and sometimes they will commission artists to produce cards for them.

Some cards are humourous and many reveal the interests of the family sending the card, which is another reason (other than their artistic value) why they are fascinating to collect. This signed card in our collection is by the well-known artist Alois Moravec. As you can see it is a happy new year card for 1938, which was to be a far from a happy year for the Czechs. The choice of subject matter for this card would seem to be indicative of the impending Nazi invasion and Czech determination to resist.

This is a picture of Jan Zizka, the one-eyed military genius who successfully resisted a series of anti-Hussite crusader armies. These invading armies were for a large part made up of the Teutonic knights - the panzer divisions of their day - and on the face of it the Czech Hussites didn't stand a chance in the face of such military superiority. But the undefeated Zizka shattered the knights' reputation and in so doing entered into the Czech nationalist pantheon. No wonder he features on this 1938 PF.

Thursday 28 January 2016

Absinthe

 

The first Czech painting I ever saw in the Czech Republic was The Absinthe Drinker by Viktor Oliva. I had just arrived in a bitterly cold Prague and my friend took me to Cafe Slavia to warm up. The Cafe, which sits opposite the National Theatre on the bank of the Vltava, had always been a meeting place for artists, writers and intellectuals and it was still. As my friend debated the future of the post-Communist Czechoslovakia with her friends, my eyes were drawn to a large painting on the wall opposite. A man sits at a table, head in hands, conversing with the green fairy of absinthe.

Viktor Oliva was a Czech art nouveau painter and illustrator who discovered the green spirit when he lived in the Bohemian quarter of Paris. He died in Prague twenty seven years after painting the work and is buried in Olsany Cemetery.

I came across absinthe again this year. I was walking around Jindrichuv Hradec and came upon a distillery of liqueurs. In the shop window was this bottle of their own brand of absinthe. Jindrichuv Hradec is known for its liqueurs. Another local company, Fruko Schulz, is one of the largest producers of liqueurs and spirits in the Czech Republic. But Hills, the distillery I discovered on my walk, is more of a family affair and invites you in for a tour to learn about distilling and indeed a tasting. As I was driving, I took this photo and hurried on before being tempted in.

As a footnote to this post, I was in the Krumlov Tesco supermarket before Christmas and bought my son a pack of absinthe chocolate. There was also a bar of cannabis chocolate, but I didn't think I would get that through customs!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...