Czech Folk Dance

The sisters and I decided to go to Ceske Budejovice yesterday. The main purpose of the visit was to look for presents for my nieces, brother-in-law and parents, and as I have said in a previous post I prefer Ceske Budejovice for shopping to its more touristy neighbour Cesky Krumlov. Another purpose was to share with my sisters some of the architectural discoveries I have made in Budejovice. This is a town that bears exploration, it can offer everything from medieval to art deco and nearly everything in between - more perhaps of that in another blog.


Towards the end of our visit I took my guests to the Church of the Sacrifice of Our Lady. Outside on the square all was activity - market stalls were being erected, people scurried around with boxes of craft goods for sale. In front of the church a large stage was in the process of rising, whilst in front of it men were setting up trestle tables and benches. Interested to see what was going on, we sat down at a table of the pizzeria on the Square and watched, whilst very slowly eating our lunch and drinking several drinks. After a short while the square started to fill with children dressed in traditional dress, doting mothers taking snapshots and dance teachers also in costume. It was becoming apparent that we had stumbled into a folk dance festival.


More and more dancers arrived. Some were adult teams, and as would be the case with any British morris side they set about buying beers from the Budwar tent. There were men in black, with black boots and ornately worked leather belts and older women in their thick gathered skirts. Musicians arrived with a range of traditional instruments, some beautifully carved. Eventually after much faffing around with the sound system and the children becoming bored and disappearing off, the dance teachers gathered their teams and processed in to the square. A master of ceremonies announced the first troupe from his clipboard - a group of small children sidled on to the stage - and the festival began in earnest.

I was interested to see the different dance forms - most of which seemed pretty tame to me after my interest in the pagan roots of English morris (for more on this do visit the Independent's excellent article on the subject ) But equally this was not the rather embarrassing folkdance that I learnt at school - the guy with the Mohican haircut showed no self consciousness - there was a degree of national pride in it. There seemed to be several influences at play in the dance and music. One I assumed to be a more lyrical Czech one, and another more in the German Austrian oompah style, (it even had calf slapping.) But then what was this? Here was something I recognised - a hobby horse was working its way through the crowds. This was part of the English tradition or is it that Celtic tradition that both the Czechs and Brits lay claim to?

We spent most of the afternoon watching the dance and browsing the craft stalls for unusual presents. We seemed to be the only foreigners there - this festival was for the locals and not sited where tourists would find it. The benches were full of beer-drinking Czechs clapping enthusiastically, children ran around in the sunshine and proud grandparents beamed.

Sisters

My two sisters are staying with me in my Czech home. For one of them this is her first time in the Czech Republic, indeed her first time on continental Europe. When asked by my Czech friend what she thought of Cesky Krumlov her comment was typical; "Mmmm, well, it's different. It's not like a holiday in England."

Indeed it is different - she is constantly commenting on the driving (including when I am negotiating a winding road with Czech logging lorries bearing down on me). She comments on the food, which she is gamely trying and liking some of it (such as honey cake) and pulling wonderful faces at others (pickled fish did not go down well). She comments on the houses and the Czech approach to architecture - they have windows like cuckoo clocks apparently. It is very interesting to see this country through the eyes of someone whose world has been so limited.

My other sister has been here twice before, each time with her family. So this time she has taken advantage of their absence to go on walks in the country. I love this, I love exploring the countryside with someone who like me is prone to stopping abruptly when she sees an unusual flower or a great view. At such a point all three of us will produce our cameras and take photos of what excites us. These photos have several uses - I can use them to identify the flower from my book of European flowers back at the house, the sisters have something to show their families and I have some photos to use in this blog some time. In fact I feel a series of posts about Czech flora and fauna coming on. Also coming is more on my sisters' visit.

Mystery car

I came across the old car mouldering in a timber yard on the edge of Horni Plana. It looked so neglected, so forlorn and yet you could see that it once had been a fine car. I showed this photo to my husband - who as a boy had swallowed the Observer Book of Automobiles whole and usually can still tell the make of car from a distance. At first he thought it was a Citroen, but then thought better and suggested it was a 1930's Tatra.

I appeal to anyone who knows to let us know one way or another. But, as this is a blog about the Czech Republic, the former Czechoslovakia and all things Czech, I shall assume it is a Tatra - as it allows me to blog about this fascinating car manufacturer. Its story is in some ways a mirror of the history of the Czech people. In the first part of the last century the Czechs were at the forefront of design and engineering. The Tatra is the world's third oldest car manufacturer and its car design and engineering were ahead of their time. The T77 launched in 1934 was the first production aerodynamic car with its dorsal rear fin and rear-mounted engine. It was to be very influential - Ferdinand Porsche used some of its design features in the more famous Volkswagen Beetle.

As with the wider history of the Czech Republic, this flowering of innovation came to an end under the German occupation. Whilst German officers enjoyed the car's speed, the company's
activity was restricted and its designs plundered in favour of German car companies. After the war the company was nationalised under the communists. Even under the communists the Czech company still managed to produce some fine cars; these were not for the proletariat but for the senior officials and Party elite. More recently the company has abandoned car production and focused exclusively on lorries. Despite all the problems of its past, Tatra has survived and is being rebuilt - rather like the country that spawned it.

Czechness

I am in England. And it is wonderful here, but I feel the Czech Republic beginning to creep into my thoughts. Perhaps it is because I know I will going back on Tuesday and I am getting ready. But I doubt it. I rather think of Czecho as ringworm. It gets under my skin and keeps spreading, just like the alien in that Doctor Who episode which I watched from behind my parent's sofa. If that sounds unfair (and it is) of all the similes I could use for Czecho I think a fungus is most appropriate.

How does it get under my skin? Well I get the urge to read fairy stories and poetry and I dream about the house. I get the urge to walk in woods, to sniff the air and smell pine resin, leaf loam and that mushroomy smell. And so yesterday I went up into the woods and walked. In the morning I was British enjoying the May sunshine and the sea of bluebells, in late afternoon I returned together with basket. This I filled with St George's mushrooms, which were nearly as abundant as the bluebells and seemed to like the same conditions. Now, in Czecho I doubt I would ever go out in mushroom season (which is after all most of the year) without a basket and mushroom knife. I will be back to get my fix of Czechness very soon.

Tourist Information

In a previous blog I recommended that visitors to Cesky Krumlov avoid the Unios Information Centre in the castle and go instead to the town information centre on the Town Square. As regular readers of this blog will be aware I am concerned about the visitor management and the development of sustainable tourism in this lovely town and I would be loathe to suggest that the Town Square Information Centre is doing a brilliant job, it isn't.

My much loved and much missed Aunt Zoe used to run the tourist information centre in the small Cotswold town where we all lived. She like all her team were volunteers, who gave freely of their time to share with visitors the joys of the place and location. They were committed to promoting the town and supporting the local economy. The small information centre was packed with rack upon rack of leaflets about where to stay, where to eat, what to visit and do. A tourist visiting the centre would walk out of it with the itinerary for their visit (be it for a weekend or a fortnight) filled. The team behind the desk were knowledgeable about the area and were generally able to answer any question, and if on the rare occasion they couldn't they would get on the phone and find the answer.

Contrast this minor British tourist information centre with the ones you find here in the Czech Republic. You are hard pressed to find more than a couple of leaflets of relevance in the Cesky Krumlov Town Information Centre and the staff are often unable to help. My aunt knew that the way to sell her local town was not just to promote what was there, but what was nearby, thus encouraging the visitor to stay in the town for several nights rather than the one and use the town as a base to explore the wider Cotswolds. This lesson appears not have been learnt in Cesky Krumlov. Where are the leaflets on the Sumava National Park, on Ceske Budejovice and other nearby towns? Surely this is the way to encourage longer stays in the town to show that it is a perfect base for a longer holiday. It is as if the staff are afraid that the visitor will be tempted to leave rather than stay longer. Aunt Zoe would have soon put them right.

Olsina

When I was first looking for a place to buy, I looked at a derelict cottage on the edge of the lake at Olsina. The two storey ruin is still there, getting more and more derelict by the day. It turns out that the cottage is just in the militarised zone and so, as I suspected at the time, is very difficult to buy, even for a Czech. But the cottage's position is delightful – the lake laps the beach a few yards from the house and the natural amphitheatre of hills is reflected in the mirror of water. The place is so peaceful, there is no noise but the rustle of leaves and the occasional train passing. You can travel by train there, getting off at Hodnov.

The lake like so many around here is not a natural one. It is a result of the Czech love of carp flesh. Built in the 15^th Century to provide fish for the Zlata Koruna monastery, the lake then passed into the possession of the Rozmberk family. Every two years the lake is emptied of water in order to harvest the fish. The lake covers some 133 hectares and is accessible only at its south eastern end. Here you will find an interesting example of a large Renaissance house built to accommodate the man charged with looking after the lake. The building is in a sorry state with a large crack in one wall, but there are signs that at long last this may be about to be remedied. A fellow Brit has bought a smaller house closeby. For more on her experiences and efforts to restore the house visit http://krumlovbrit.blogspot.com.

Walking in The Czech Republic

I love walking - not serious yomping, but leisurely strolls with frequent stops to admire the view and diversions from the path to look at flowers and pick mushrooms. The Czech Republic is a brilliant country for walkers and the area around Cesky Krumlov and in the Sumava National Park is particularly good.

The main footpaths are well waymarked - with signposts in the towns and colour-coded signs painted on trees and gates along the paths themselves. These signs consist of a coloured bar against a white background. These colours for the walks are reflected on the walking maps you can buy in the tourist information shops and bookshops for about £3. It is therefore very easy to find your way.

I have already talked about one of my favourite spring time walks in this blog. But I have many others. And over the next few months I propose to blog occasionally about others. I will start with my nearest walk. Running through our village is a red route which runs up through the woods, where I pick my mushrooms, and then down to the lake at Olsina. In so doing the walker enters the restricted military zone of Boletice, which is only accessible at weekends. One of the joys of Boletice is that, like army reserves in the UK, its status has allowed nature to flourish. The villages one walks through tend to be pretty dire, the old houses run-down and the newer the usual army issue, but the forests and lakes are unspoilt by the incursions of tourists and new cabins.

I will talk about Olsina in my next blog, as it easily deserves a post all of its own. So let us pass by without comment and follow the walk as it rises again over the hills to Hodnov - another of those villages where there is a need for investment to restore the old buildings. Then it passes across forested hills and, if you are lucky, past masses of blue lupins and down in to Horni Plana. At various points along the way you will get views across Lake Lipno and over the Sumava and in the opposite direction back to the Klet Mountain. Once in Horni Plana you can have a well-earned pint or two and then take the little train back home.