Poppyseed

One of the delights of Czech cuisine are the many recipes made using poppyseeds. To feed the Czech appetite for "mak" you will find the Czech countryside covered with fields filled with poppies. They make a stunning show too, but alas a time-limited one. Unlike the sometimes equally remarkable display of wild poppies we have in England which can turn a field bright red, the Czech version is a pale lilac colour.

The reason is that these are opium poppies. In the old days Czechs would harvest some of the green poppy heads and set them aside for medicinal uses. I heard on Prague radio the other day that even eating too many Czech poppyseed cakes for breakfast can result in your blood testing positive for the narcotic. But don't let that stop you trying them, you have to eat at least six before it does so, and six is too much for even the most avid cake eater.

Swimming with the Fishes.

With the temperatures in the 90s the Czechs are taking to the rivers and lakes. Cesky Krumlov and the Vltava River, that flows through it, are thronged with people making the journey downriver by canoe or raft. It is very much a communal thing - with the river looking like a motorway on a bank holiday. As the rafters sail past they shout ahoy to the onlookers lining the bridges.

But I prefer the more solitary pleasure of swimming in a local lake. This is a pleasure I have only recently discovered, having been invited by fellow blogger Salamander to swim in Lake Olsina (above). At Olsina (a shallow carp lake) the water is warm but pleasantly cooler than the air temperature. There is usually no one there but us and the occasional fisherman or a passing cyclist (or even once four nuns) . I am no great swimmer but you don't need to be, the water is shallow. So I just lie back in the water, float and look up at the mountains. You are at one with nature. Crested grebes call to one another and large carp rise to the surface. Complete bliss - and I can walk there from my house.

Celebration 2 - Golden Path

A week after Cesky Krumlov had its Five-Petaled Rose festival , I went to a similar festival in Prachatice. This was a celebration of 1000 years of the old salt way - the Golden Path.

The Golden Path was one of those old trade routes which have crossed Europe for centuries. Along it salt was brought from the mines in the Alps (via Passau), over the Sumava to Bohemia. Salt, as the historians among you will know, was extremely valuable * - allowing people to preserve meat when there were no fridges and hence the path came to be known as the Golden Path. Prachatice grew up rich on this trade and the Golden Path.

The festival bore several similarities to the Five-Petaled Rose Celebration - historical processions, performances on the square and in the Parkan gardens, and a large (larger than in Krumlov) market. Prachatice clearly has ambitions as a tourist town, something it is very suited to. However this was above all a local community celebration, everyone was out enjoying themselves, including the local gypsy population which seemed to have set up camp in the middle of the square and were holding a celebration all of their own.

One of the highlights of the day was the arrival of a packhorse caravan, which I believe had traveled all the way from Passau. Another procession featured parties from other salt route towns, including ones in Austria and Germany, and other local Czech towns, which showed a certain generosity on the part of Prachatice.

I like Prachatice. The Tourist Information Centre was very helpful to me when I was organising the recent tour. Unlike the Cesky Krumlov TIC the Prachatice one is full of leaflets from attractions in the surrounding area and even further afield. I like the way Prachatice centre still feels like a real town, rather than a centre devoted to visitors, with the locals pushed out to the edge. I like the town's dynamism. And Prachatice is set in divine countryside - on the edge of the Sumava Forest. So, yes, it should be much better known as tourist destination. Cesky Krumlov watch out, there's a new kid on the block!


* The english word salary is derived from the latin from salt.

Celebration 1 - The 5 Petaled Rose

I devoted several posts last year to Cesky Krumlov's annual jolly The Celebrations of the Five-Petaled Rose, but this year it will have to do with one. For three days the town is full of people wandering round in historical dress (you do get in free if you are in costume) and everywhere you turn, there is entertainment. Last year I was wowed by it, this year, I think because of a combination of less fortunate weather and the beginning of a migraine, less so. People's jollity all seemed a little bit forced, not surprising in the rain. Nevertheless my husband, who was seeing for the first time, enjoyed it.

One of the fun things about the event was watching for anachronisms - renaissance children with modern knapsacks as above. Men in doublet and hose answering their mobile phones - you get the idea.


My favourite site for entertainment is always the castle courtyard - this is where you get small local community groups performing as well as more professional entertainers. It was here that I caught the local gypsy dance group. A fat little man, whom I have seen regularly strutting around the streets of the town, fiddled with a large tape deck and a group of girls of all ages, dressed in their traditional costumes, danced on the grass in front of an appreciative audience.

Around the courtyard was set the market selling crafts and some food. The festival provides three red-letter days in the calendar of local craftspeople, a time when they get to sell to an audience of many thousands. But this year the rain took its toll, last year by the third day the stalls were beginning to look bare, but this year they were almost as full as on the first. My husband did his bit, by buying me a little basket in which to collect wild strawberries from the woods (I have used it already). But I fear that at this time of recession the town's weather conspired against a good harvest for the craftspeople of Krumlov.

Englishman Swimming the Vltava River

Paul Whitaker is a keen sportsman, but (he says) by no means an elite athlete. Nevertheless, in October 2009 he set himself the daunting challenge of swimming from České Budějovice (leaves 28 June) to Prague (arrives 17 July). That's 175 kilometres, which is about 174.90 more kilometres more than I could manage. He plans to swim three hours a day, followed by back-up boat containing two Czechs and hopefully a barrel of beer.

Apart from the usual British "because it's there" motive, Paul is doing this to raise money for a Czech charity, Asistence, which supports people with disabilities. And I reckon we expats should be supporting his efforts. So come on dear reader put your hand in your pocket for Paul.

Donations from within the Czech Republic the bank details are bank account 235376432, bank sortcode 0300, from outside it is IBAN: CZ3103000000000235376432, BIC: CEKOCZPP, Bank: Československá obchodní banka, a.s., Radlická 333/150, 150 57 Praha 5, Czech Republic.

Paul has a website on http://www.vltava2010.cz/en/ if you want to know more, and includes a blog for Paul's diary.

Chicken of the Woods

For the first week of my return to the Czech Republic it hardly stopped raining (or it felt like it anyway). Now at last the sun is shining and I hope it stays that way.

But being British I managed to find a silver lining to the clouds: for the first time I have been picking one of my favourite fungi here, chicken of the woods. I was driving along and there it was growing on one of the oak trees that line the man-made lakes near Trebon. I stopped the car, quarter filled a carrier bag in a few minutes and went my way. One night I ate it schnitzel style with lemon juice and the night before I used my favourite chicken of the woods recipe – risotto. The rest is in the freezer, as this fungi freezes without loss of texture and flavour.

I was telling a Czech friend about it and she sighed. “We Czechs do not eat it,” she said. “You British are much more adventurous.” She couldn't be further from the truth – most Brits wouldn't dare pick any wild fungus, let alone eat it. I am an exception from that rule. But then I suppose having broken the British "don't eat any wild mushrooms" taboo, I don't have any of the Czech prejudices either, including the one against fungi that grow on trees. All the more for me then!

Elections

I apologise for the short pause between postings, but I have been driving back to the Czech Republic after my few weeks in England. I arrived in England on the day of the General Election and then managed to arrive back here just in time for the Czech election. I am clearly a glutton for punishment. I am not a fan of the hoohah that surrounds elections, the principle of elections yes, but I'd rather just put a cross in a box without having to endure the weeks prior.

It has however been interesting to observe the Czech election process. The first difference I noticed was the sheer number of election posters. Huge billboards with smiling or frowning politicians (usually male) line the roads, even in the country. Every telephone box and bus shelter is covered with them. And why, I ask myself, do they choose such awful photos, ones they should be ashamed to have even in a passport? Either that or politicians are particularly ugly. I was talking about one poster to some British friends. “You know the one,” I said. “The one who looks like a shocked weasel.” Sadly for the poor man, my friends all knew which one I meant.

The Social Democrats have had a particularly mawkish poster campaign in a shameless effort to portray itself as a protector of the family (or should that be “hard-working family”) against the cuts and austerity proposed by the right-wing parties. Here's one such poster – and yes they also had one of a baby being kissed. This campaign then was countered by a series of parodies - one poster showed Paroubek with the slogan "I promise the weekend will be five days longer."

Throughout the campaign it appeared that the Social Democrat approach was working, with opinion polls showing them apparently heading for "a great victory" (according to their leader the so-called bulldozer of Czech politics Jiri Paroubek). But it does not do to believe opinion polls, the Social Democrats did come first with 22%, but only 1.8% ahead of the next party the Civic Democrats. It was hardly a victory, the Czechs had swung to the right and the only viable coalition government is a right-wing one. The real victors in this election was TOP 09 a new party which ran its campaign on a ticket of welfare cuts and austerity. The unpopular Paroubek recognised the country's mood and stood down as leader. Meanwhile the talks to form a centre-right coalition began. Now doesn't this remind you of somewhere else?