Adventures in the Czech Republic

Thursday 14 October 2010

Empties (Vratne Lahve)

As a follow-up to my previous post about recycling beer bottles in the Czech Republic, I thought I might share with you a video clip from one of my favourite Czech films - Vratne Lahve. Its English title is Empties and is a story of a 65 year old man, who having given up a job teaching literature to annoying school children, ends up in a supermarket recycling beer bottles. It is set at a time when automatic bottle machines were just appearing in Czech supermarkets, instead you handed your bottles to a man on the other side of the hatch, who would give you a receipt.

The film comes the father and son team, Zdenek and Jan Sverak, which also gave us the Oscar-winning Kolya. Zdenek wrote and starred in the film, whilst son Jan directed. The film is a gentle comedy about a man, who has problems facing the approach of old age. It is full of wonderful characters including the man's long suffering wife and the many denizens of the supermarket. In the hands of Hollywood this film and this subject matter could be mawkish and certainly would be quicker paced, but instead it is lovely and forgiving (Zdenek's character is no angel), funny and sad, and ultimately life-affirming.

Thursday 7 October 2010

Bottles

One of the things that surprised my friends on their visit to the Budweiser Budvar Brewery was the spectacle of old beer bottles being cleaned and recycled.

When I was a child in 1960's Britain we used to pay a deposit on lemonade bottles. I remember the delight of handing the empty bottle over to Mrs Evans in our local cornershop and getting back a nice coin, which if allowed I used to buy some sweets. We Brits stopped recycling bottles sometime in my childhood - a mistake I think.

But the Czechs sensibly have retained the system of paying a deposit on beer bottles. You save your empty bottles and crate (if you paid a deposit on that too) until you decide to return them to the supermarket. There you will find a machine - with a hole into which you feed individual bottles and another for crates. The machine weighs the bottle (checking you're not trying to fiddle the system) and then a converyor takes the bottle and drops it with a clink somewhere on the other side. When you have finished, you press a button and the machine gives you a receipt, which you hand in to the checkout. It is amazing (and pleasant) how much money you get back. You certainly are motivated to recycle every beer bottle.

Friday 1 October 2010

When the Circus Came to Town.

A week ago my husband and I were walking into Cesky Krumlov, when we found ourselves behind two men who were wearing strange multi-coloured wigs and riding on kiddies scooters.

"What is that all about?" asked my husband.

Later we got our answer when I pulled a flyer advertising the arrival of a circus from under our windscreen wiper. The day after we were passed by a van announcing the circus' arrival through a tannoy and towing a trailer on which was a life-size model of a crocodile.

Going to the circus seems to be a common activity in the Czech Republic, more so than in England. The circus has been to Cesky Krumlov at least twice this year already. It is set up on a piece of ground in front of the blocks of flats near to the Lidl supermarket. This is a traditional circus with animals - there are stalls for the various animals - zebras, etc. which the locals can wander round. And there are the traditional caravans, such as the one shown here.

Traditional circuses in England have been in decline, hit by popular opposition to exploiting wild animals and increasingly replaced by non-animal based circus. Although there's a ban in the Czech Republic on the use of certain wild animals, or maybe because of it, the circus seems to be going strong here. The circus website shows performing elephants, camels, bears and zebras. As you can see we didn't go to the circus, despite the publicity.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Silver Anniversary

The reason why my blogging has been so intermittent recently is that for the last three weeks my husband and I have been celebrating our silver wedding anniversary by making a long-planned trip across Northern Europe and back. We've had a lovely time in various German and Belgian cities, but chose to spend the big day itself in the Czech Republic - well, I can't think of anywhere more romantic.

After a lazy morning we drove to the lake district around Trebon via the lovely countryside around Novy Hrady. At Trebon we sat at a table in front of a fish restaurant on the town square and enjoyed a meal of fried carp. Carp has such a bad reputation with the Brits, who consider it at best tasteless and at worst muddy, but the Czechs love it. And cooked well, by a restaurant which knows what it is doing, it is delicious. We then walked away from the square and around the corner to a cafe, which serves some of the best Czech cakes I have ever tasted.

After lunch we decided to walk off some of the calories with a visit to the nature reserve at Cerveny Blato. A wooden boardwalk takes you for four kilometres through a forested peat bog. The place is just incredible - it's like stepping back in time to an age before Man cleared the forests and drained the swamps. You half expect to see giant dragonflies and dinosaurs appear out of the bog pine forest. You certainly get to see some rare plants, fungi, butterflies and birds. A black woodpecker twice shot up from bushes as we passed, its red head standing out against the rest of its dark plummage. We were stopping so much to ooh and ahh and take photos, that the four kilometres took two hours to complete.

After our work we returned home, where we finished our special day eating chanterelle mushrooms and Czech chocolates, washed down by Czech bubbly. Just the two of us, plus our lovely old house, and the crickets serenading us in the garden.

Thursday 23 September 2010

Butterflies

The last butterflies are enjoying the warm sun of late September. As I was scything the grass and weeds in the orchard, peacock and tortoiseshell were flying over the orchard weeds. As always I left patches of nettles, which are a favourite foodstuff for caterpillars. Of course this has nothing to do with how hard scything is. In the woods when I was mushrooming, there were brimstones and dappled brown butterflies flittering in the strands of light descending through the leaves. But the nights are getting cold, soon the butterflies will be arriving in the cellar and barn looking for a place to overwinter.

My favourite is the little blue (above), which in the summer collected in huge shimmering crowds on the sand by the swimming pond. It is very special for all my family, in that when a beloved aunt died over ten years ago we noticed the little blue everywhere. It was and is forever her butterfly. Strangely enough when we moved into her house, we found that it clearly was a favourite of hers before she died, because there were pictures of it around the house.

Friday 17 September 2010

More on Wayside Advertising

In my last post I wrote about the political posters on the sides of our roads. As two comments have pointed out, there are local and senate elections coming up that in some way account for this. But nevertheless there do seem to be a number of posters that have remained unchanged from the general election. Why is this? Are they being recycled for some reason? Or is it that nothing has replaced them?

I wrote my last post in haste - I was feeling guilty that I had not put anything for over a week. Since then I have had more time to consider my feelings on the subject and I am surprised by how strong they are. Something in my British sensibilities is reacting adversely to Czech roadside advertising. For starters I am shocked by the amount, location and size of it all – from huge posters to poles chocked full of fingerposts pointing the way to different banks, supermarkets and hotels. Signs hanging off roadbridges tell the driver that s/he is only x kilometres from their nearest Tescos/Obi/etc. Scantily clad young women advertise everything from non-stop clubs to machinery. On every side the marketing clamour presses in, even in towns as spectacularly beautiful as Cesky Krumlov. I know from my previous career in England, that in the UK this simply would not be allowed. The planning process regulates the amount and position of advertising. The local civic societies are keen to prevent visual clutter from damaging the appearance of towns and the Police and Highways Authorities will oppose signage which could confuse or distract the driver.

I think my dislike of the Czech roadside adverts is rather deeper than that. I feel the current adverts let the side down. As you will have realised from reading this blog, I have a great love and regard for the Czech graphics tradition and this extends to advertising and indeed signs. When I first visited this country I spent quite a lot of time photographing Czech signs, which I considered delightful and infinitely superior to those of my British home. I certainly wouldn’t do that now. These current signs are typical of those we see all over Europe, part of a lowest denominator mass communication.

These political posters are some of the worst culprits. There is one which for some time really disturbed me and I could not think why – it was just some man talking to an audience. And then today I realised – it was the hand gesture. To be precise it was the Tony Blair hand gesture, which is no doubt taught in "politician school" the world over. The hand is open with palm revealed and thumb up, as if he is about to shake your hand. Don't make a fist he has been told, an open palm is non-threatening, consider you body language. Only somehow it doesn't work, he looks false.

Politicians' body language, advertising signs, - all part of a homogenization of communication across the world in which true communication is lost.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

The Journey & Arrival

My apologies for the slight break in postings, this is because I have been travelling. Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary and my husband and I decided we had to do something to celebrate. We have long planned a trip across northern Europe, but my husband is self employed and so we never could quite find the time - it was always a case that he either had work or needed to be by the phone in case work came up. But at last, with our silver wedding as the spur, we have done it.

We left England on my birthday and made our way slowly across Germany, taking in various historic towns along the way - Trier, Worms and Regensburg. We at last arrived at our home in the Czech Republic with a car filled with books, various English foodstuffs (cheddar, biscuits, marmalade and marmite) and several paintings we were bringing over for a friend. We are now relaxing and playing at being tourists here. In about a week's time we will spend six days making the return journey, stopping in Belgium as well as Germany. This time the car will be filled with a crate of Czech dark beer (for our son) and other Czech goodies. After a fortnight I will be flying back.

One thing that struck me on our return was that the election posters still line roadsides. The elections were nearly four months ago and yet there are the politicians still gurning at the public at every turn. It's bad enough having to look at them during the run up to the elections, but now.... At least the British politicians have had the decency to remove their election posters, apart from the occasional errant banner hung in some Tory farmer's field alongside a tattered poster in support of foxhunting. It strikes me that this is a rather alarming indication of the state of the Czech economy, which like the British is bouncing a long at the bottom with only slight growth. Obviously marketing expenditure has been slashed, otherwise the advertising slots which the politicians occupy would have been taken.

Sunday 5 September 2010

Posts on Czech Culture and Customs

As the blog gets larger I thought I might help readers interested in certain topics by creating some pages which list the blog's content by theme. I promise to update the pages as new posts are added.

The themes are: Czech Nature, Czech Customs & Culture, Places to visit in South Bohemia, Buying and Restoring a Czech House, Czech History and Politics, Day to Day Life in the Czech Republic. This post covers Czech Customs and Culture, click on the links above for the others.

CZECH CUSTOMS AND CULTURE

Revised 22 August 2010

Zumberk

Zumberk is one of those well kept Czech secret places, so well kept that my Czech friend had not heard of it. She even corrected my pronunciation, thinking I was talking about somewhere else. And yet Zumberk was only forty minutes drive away.

I found a short reference to it in a guidebook and as I was passing I dropped in. I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was - a perfect fortified village with fairytale towers, standing above a still small lake. And there was more - in the manor house the South Bohemian Museum displayed a wonderful collection of South Bohemian painted furniture.

I have always coveted the examples of Czech painted furniture I have seen, but here was a treasure trove: the finest examples of the local styles. The exhibition highlighted the subtle and not so subtle differences between the folk art from different areas of South Bohemia. And the building was fascinating too.

Unfortunately Zumberk is not geared to the British visitor: it is where I was asked to translate by the guide, but then we were, we were told, the first English speaking group to visit. And they did have a folder of English translation they can give you as you walk round, which allows us to spend as much time as we want to gaze at the exhibits.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Vietnamese Shops

A few weeks ago I needed to buy some sandals - my old ones were rubbing. I went to my favourite Czech shoe shop - Bata - but I have wide feet and obviously Czech women don't. With a concert that evening, which merited dressing up (that for me means wearing a skirt rather than jeans), I needed to buy new sandals there and then. And so it was that I found myself in one of Cesky Krumlov's Vietnamese shops.

Everywhere in the Czech Republic you will find Vietnamese shops selling all sorts of cheap goods. If you want cheap clothes, shoes, pashminas, sunglasses, or handbags, these shops are where to go. Don't expect what you buy to be long-lasting. But these shops can be a god-send, when you are on holiday in the Czech Republic and you realise you left your raincoat in the overhead locker. The shops' owners are inclined to be over-zealous (to my British sensibilities) trying to sell you something, anything in the shop in fact. They call out to you if you walk too close in the street and if you do go in, be prepared to say "Ne, ne," very firmly.

The Czech Vietnamese community is the equivalent of Indian shopkeepers in the UK. They work long hours in family businesses and provide a useful service. They are very enterprising, which is surprising. Why? Because they first came to the country when it was communist, from their homeland of communist North Vietnam. The Iron Curtain fell and these North Vietnamese immigrants stayed and embraced capitalism bigtime. Undoubtedly their link to the East gives them some advantages - cheap Chinese imports for example. My observation is that the Vietnamese are not well integrated into the wider Czech community; they keep themselves to themselves and probably do not have time for anything but work and family. Conversations with Czechs reveal some resentment towards them, probably partly due to jealousy but also to the communist past.

I managed to find some sandals that fitted my feet and matched my clothes. But I had to endure the shopkeeper shoving pair after pair of sandals in to my hands. "Gut, gut, sehr billig," he said, on the basis that as he couldn't speak English, German would do. Normally this behaviour would have me running for the door, but I was desperate. Looking at them now, I am glad I didn't run: the shoes cost me about £8.50 and are remarkably comfortable.

Sunday 22 August 2010

Some Thoughts

I have been rereading this blog. It is quite fascinating to revisit my early posts from over three years ago. Sometimes my feelings and views regarding the Czech Republic, my second country, have remained constant and indeed grown, and sometimes those early impressions have proved wrong or in some cases circumstances in the Czech Republic have changed and made my posts out-of-date. But then a blog is basically a journal that you broadcast on the internet and as with all diaries the changes are part of the interest. But I hope and believe that the one thing that has not changed is my love of this country and its people. Maybe I see things better now, understand more, but that has not reduced my affection.

I have always felt strangely at home in the Czech Republic. I think that is partly because, unlike many other expats I have chosen to live in the countryside rather than in the big cities of Brno and Prague. I am by nature and birth a country girl and the Czech countryside (as various posts attest) reminds me of the English countryside of my childhood. And in living here, I return to my childhood and some of that childish wonder, which I lost as I grew older.

What I didn't expect with creating a new home in Czecho was how it would impact on my feelings about England. I love England for all sorts of reasons and of course I am at home there too. But there is now a part of me that is, dare I say it, Czech. Not properly Czech of course, that would never happen, but part certainly. I am at home in both countries (in different ways perhaps), but it is also the case that I am not at home. When I am in England, after a while I find myself longing to get back to the Czech Republic. I long for the mists rising from the Czech forests, for the smell of mushrooms in firwoods, for the night-time silence surrounding my Czech home, for Czech sunlight, for being able to write again and for a thousand other wonders. And of course when I am in Czecho I miss England. I miss understanding the language, the banter, I miss the subtle pastel shades of the English landscape and of course the wind. Perhaps this means I appreciate both my countries more; I hope so. And whilst I can afford to retain a foot in both countries there is no problem and every advantage in my situation. I just dread the day when that is no longer the case, when I must choose.

Czech

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Hiking

I spoke a few posts ago about the kids clubs one sees on the little train, but there is another group which one can also observe on the train at this time of year - the hikers.

These are not the typical British hikers out for a nice walk in the country. These are seriously outdoor adventurers. They are young people of both sexes in their late teens and early twenties arriving with rucksacks for a few days in the country. The idea is to get back to nature, camp under the stars or the forest canopy, sing traditional songs (which their parents would have sung before them) around a campfire, eat sausages and drink beer, before climbing back on the train to travel back to modern life.

However these are considered wimps and diletantes by the serious Czech hiker. He (and it usually is a he) often sits on his own in the corner of the train carriage ignoring the others. He is dressed in ex-army camouflage, army boots, and a bandana round his neck. Around his waist is a large leather belt together with knife in a sheath and a kharki water bottle. He may not have even a rucksack and almost certainly won't have a tent or sleeping bag - he will be sleeping on the hard ground under the stars. You can almost hear him say "Rain, what's a little rain? That's nothing; when I did my military service..." He's off to the obscurer and wilder parts of the Sumava. But like the others, one suspects, he will be back to his ordinary life and job come Monday, having fed something important in his Czech soul.

Saturday 14 August 2010

Kvinterna Again

Back in May fellow blogger Karen of the Empty Nest Blog (see Related Czech Links) came to stay and was much taken with the music of local group Kvinterna. She asked me to post about them again and so here it is. In July this year I enjoyed a concert by Kvinterna at the Minorite Monastery on Latran. I was sorry that Karen could not join me, she would have loved it.

The video above is my own creation of local frescos and the music is a song called Planka from Kvinterna's album Landscape of Sweet Sorrow - an album of Sephardi songs and Moravian folksongs (click on the arrow to play the video). The juxtaposition of the two music types works brilliantly and is typical of Kvinterna's style. In their own words they "have created the instrumental element in a highly individual way derived from the technique of Gothic painting". For more on this, visit their website . This has inspired my choice of images for the video. By the way Planka is a Moravian song about a crab apple tree.

Wednesday 11 August 2010

List of posts in Czech History and Politics

As the blog gets larger I thought I might help readers interested in certain topics by creating some pages which list the blog's content by theme. I promise to update the pages as new posts are added.

The themes are: Czech Nature, Czech Customs & Culture, Places to visit in South Bohemia, Buying and Restoring a Czech House, Czech History and Politics, Day to Day Life in the Czech Republic. This post covers Czech History and Politics, click on the links above for the others.

CZECH HISTORY AND POLITICS

Saturday 7 August 2010

Kids Clubs

Quite often at the moment I will be happily sitting in a relatively empty carriage on the the little train, when the train pulls into the station and lo I am surrounded by children and young people. The noise levels will rise dramatically as maybe twenty excited kids will occupy the carriage.

This is because many Czech children are sent on kids clubs by their parents. After the shock of their arrival, I spend the rest of my journey, or until the children disembark, observing the group, the behaviour and hierarchies. I have observed that girls are usually outnumbered in these clubs, as you can see in the photo above. There can be quite an age range in the group from quite young children to young teenagers, who often look rather embarrassed by being in the company of the little ones. There are often the cool ones (see the sunglass-wearing dude above), who ignore the others and keep to the hip set. The rest whoop and run around, flick bits of paper at each other and share sweets.

One thing that surprises me when I meet these groups, particularly ones which are obviously off to go camping in the Sumava, is the age and number of adults who are "in charge" of the groups. The leaders often seem to me hardly out of their teens, and there are far fewer than one would get in health and safety conscious Britain. But then Czech kids seem to have the sort of childhood that I remembered from my childhood, in which adults allowed us to take risks, and we ran relatively free in the countryside. Lucky them!

Thursday 5 August 2010

List of posts about Czech Nature

As the blog gets larger I thought I might help readers interested in certain topics by creating some pages which list the blog's content by theme. I promise to update the pages as new posts are added.
The themes are: Czech Nature, Czech Customs & Culture, Places to visit in South Bohemia, Buying and Restoring a Czech House, Czech History and Politics, Day to Day Life in the Czech Republic. This post covers Czech Nature, click on the links above for the others.

Czech Nature

Saturday 24 July 2010

Basket of Forest Fruits

I mentioned in my recent post on the Celebrations of the Five-petalled Rose that my husband bought me a small basket for picking forest fruits. I thought you might like to know that I very quickly made good use of it.

One day I arranged to meet Salamander at Olsina for supper and an evening swim in the lake, but I decided I would walk there. I left the house when the afternoon was still sweltering and headed up the hill and into the woods. I took with me two baskets - one for chanterelle mushrooms and one (this one) for wild strawberries and bilberries.

There's a good bank for strawberries along the path and I soon was picking. Further into the woods on the other side of the hill the bilberries were now ripe. The wild bilberry harvest this year has been patchy - there are whole areas which show no berries at all and others where berries are ripe and ready for picking. Picking these fruits (without one of those wood and wire berrypickers) takes forever, but they are worth it. They taste heavenly and only a few of the little fruits is enough to produce a lot of flavour, so unlike the watery cultivated varieties. My favourite recipe is simply to microwave them with some sugar for a minute or so and eat with either cream or yoghurt. Another recipe is to make some babovka mixture (the commercial babovka dry mix does nicely), pour into a baking tray, sprinkle with bilberries and cook in the oven 160 degrees for an hour or so.

It was hot work and took a couple of hours to pick this lot (and a load of chanterelles), so boy did I need that swim. But it was worth it - there were maybe five meals in this basket.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

World-class Concert Hall for Ceske Budejovice

It looks as though Ceske Budejovice is going to get a world-class concert hall. The hall, nicknamed the manta ray (reynok in Czech) because of its shape, was designed by the Czech architect Jan Kaplicky, who died in January. Kaplicky, who had lived in London for forty years, will be known to British readers for his media centre at Lords Cricket Ground and for the curvaceous Selfridges building in Birmingham. However in his home country Kaplicky had been less honoured. His remarkable plans for an octopus-shaped National Library, to be built in Prague, won an international architectural competition, but foundered on the prejudice of Czech politicians and, one suspects, the envy of other architects.

It is perhaps an indication of Ceske Budejovice's aspirations and forward-looking nature that the architect Prague rejected Budejovice welcomed. It is also an indication of the city's aspirations to be a major cultural centre. The Manta Ray will be the home of the South Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra, which currently has to make do with a converted church as its home. The Ray actually will be called the Antonin Dvorak Centre, but I prefer the Ray and so no doubt will my fellow South Bohemians. There will be two concert halls - one with 1000 seats and another with 400. A major feature of the design is the inclusion (unique as far as I know in concert halls) of a large window at the rear of the hall looking out onto the park in which the Ray will be built.

Ceske Budejovice deserves the Ray. Jan Kaplicky deserves at last, albeit too late, to receive proper recognition in his homeland. And I can't wait to step inside this weird and wonderful building and better still to sit in one of its auditoria and listen to a concert.

Saturday 17 July 2010

Dream Language

People regularly ask me, "So do you speak Czech, then?"

The answer is no, but it could increasingly be: "No, but sometimes I understand it." My attempts at learning the language have in many ways failed, but somehow (in a way I don't quite understand) it is creeping into my subconscious.

I now know this for a fact rather than a fancy, because a week ago I actually had a dream some of which was in Czech. Am I certain it was Czech? No, as I didn't entirely understand what was said in my dream, but I understood bits of it. Nevertheless I rather think that my brain has been processing Czech without me realising it.

I certainly can understand sometimes when a) it doesn't matter, b) the person speaks slowly and c) there are enough words that I do know and the context is such that I can probably guess a significant number of the rest.

But speaking Czech - that is another matter. However even here I am beginning to detect signs of progress. I was recently complemented on my pronunciation of the famous Czech soft r - which apparently I pronounced perfectly. There is a downside to this: in the museum at Zumberk, as I had asked for the tickets etc in Czech, I was expected to translate for the guide. And did I manage it - do I hear you ask? Yes, some of it anyway.

Yesterday I drove to England from the Czech Republic and I got linguistically extremely confused. Although German is officially my second language (I have an A level in it), I kept speaking in Czech both in Germany and France. Then on the ferry I actually managed to apologize to a Brit in Czech!

Ah well, all these signs seem to indicate that I am getting somewhere with this infernal language at last.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

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.

Saturday 10 July 2010

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.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

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.

Wednesday 30 June 2010

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.

Saturday 26 June 2010

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.

Sunday 6 June 2010

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!

Wednesday 2 June 2010

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?

Friday 21 May 2010

Moldavite

In the shops of South Bohemia you can buy jewellery made from the local gem moldavite. This bottle-green substance is to be found in a limited number of sites in the Czech Republic. It appears that moldavite was created when a meteor hit the earth - probably forming the Nordlinger Reis Crater. The resulting explosion led to a process of fusion which created the moldavite.

Moldavite mining has been a cottage industry in South Bohemia for decades, with local people going to collecting sites and searching the fields after heavy rain. Others dig shallow mines in the forest. Some, including one I know, have been so successful that they made a living from it. But it can be dangerous, the ground is sandy and pits have on occasion collapsed on the diggers.

The Czech Government is increasingly controlling the digging for moldavite. Now the pits can only be a metre deep and old pits are being monitored. For safety reasons this makes sense, but the Government also has a vested interest in protecting this rare (rarer than diamonds) and finite resource.

Moldavite comes in two grades - ordinary and museum. The latter is very expensive and very beautiful. But the fascination of moldavite isn't just about their value. With a typically Czech twist moldavite is highly prized in new age circles - considered to be the Grail stone, with healing powers. Just Google "moldavite" and you will find dozens of new age sites selling you it and its fantastic powers.

Monday 17 May 2010

Yummy Snails

My Czech friend keeps urging me to grow vegetables. I always resist. For one thing it sounds like hard work, and then my regular trips to the UK mean that I am not always around to water the plants when they need it. But there is another very good reason why I think it would not be worth attempting - our local population of snails. After a rainstorm you can hardly fail to step on one - crunch, crunch, crunch is the soundtrack to a walk in the garden.

There are snails of all sizes and colours including some very pretty yellow and brown striped ones. But easily the most impressive are the monsters like the one shown above. These are the edible snails or the french escargot - helix pomatia. They occur naturally in the Czech Republic, as in many other parts of continental Europe. In Britain however they are rare and a protected species. In England they are to be found only of chalk or limestone soil and usually near old Roman sites, as they were introduced by the Romans as a delicacy and, having got into the wild, have not made it very far in the two millennia since their escape.

A week ago I was walking with my Czech friend in the English countryside near Chedworth in Gloucestershire and had just put a basket half full of St George's mushrooms into the car, when we were hailed by the local landowner. "What have you there?"

I showed him the basket and he relaxed. He explained that they have been having trouble with gangs of Poles harvesting the Roman snails, which get good money in the London restaurants, and that the Poles were also stripping the woods of wild fungi and causing damage in doing so. Of course both fungi and snails are common in the Poles' homeland.

It is legal to collect fungi for personal use in the UK but not commercially. And it is illegal to harvest a protected species like helix pomatia. The farmer was quite within his rights to challenge, especially as, unlike in Central Europe, the woods around Chedworth are private and visitors must keep to the footpaths. The Poles hadn't helped their argument by turning up mob-handed and in cars and vans with London registration plates, nor did they help themselves by pretending to be unable to speak English when challenged. As a result the farmer was challenging anyone who appeared with a basket in their hand. After he had left, my Czech friend commented on how wonderful it was that British farmers saw themselves of guardians of the countryside, unlike Czech ones. "If only that were true of all British farmers," I thought, but did not say.

Friday 14 May 2010

Shopping With A Czech

One of my Czech friends is currently staying with us in England. It is fascinating to see my homeland through her eyes. Amongst other things it highlights the differences between our two countries.

On Wednesday we went to our local Morrison's supermarket, she wanted to buy some English foodstuffs to take home. She was awestruck by the variety on display there. "You have five different types of pear!" she exclaimed. The sheer variety and quality of fruit and vegetable were cause for comment. My experience of buying vegetables in Krumlov Tesco's is that you need to look hard at what you are buying - at least one potato in the pack will be going off.

Then we came to the fresh fish counter, this was a revelation for her. Of course the Czechs do not have access to fresh sea fish, being so far from any sea, and so most of the fish on the counter were new to her. We bought a bag of live mussels, which she had never tried before.

Then there was the aisle dedicated to tea and coffee - of course being British there were loads and the sheer size of many of the packs of tea (i.e. 240 teabags) caused comment. She added two packs to the trolley to pack in her suitcase - having realised that English tea is unlike (stronger and better) that sold in the Czech Republic, even those teas pretending to be 'English' tea. And so it went on... aisle after aisle packed with a much wider variety of goods than in the Czech supermarkets.

She came to the conclusion (as indeed had I) that English food is often cheaper than in the Czech Republic, especially food essentials, with the exception of alcohol and cigarettes. I then explained that in Britain food is not taxed, nor are books, children's clothes and medicines, but that the duty on alcohol and cigarettes is very high indeed and constantly rising. This was considered by my Czech friend to be very just and sensible. I am sure all those avid Czech beer drinkers would not agree with her, but I think I do. In fact I feel strongly that the British system of not taxing foodstuffs and discounting basic foods is very fair and I feel for all those Czechs struggling on much lower wages and facing above British prices.

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Golden Czech Hands

"Zlaté české ruce" (Czech golden hands) is a phrase you will hear in the Czech Republic. It refers to the national belief that the Czechs are great craftsmen and engineers. Whilst it is true that the Czechs do indeed have some very fine craftsmen, it is also true that many old skills are in decline.

More annoyingly it is often applied by Czech men to themselves regardless of skill level. As this is linked to the national identity a non-Czech needs to tread with care when challenging it. Under the Communist era a high level of DIY self help was required - if you wanted something, often the only way to get it was to make it with whatever materials you could get your hands on. This led to some fine examples of ingenuity and inventiveness, but it also led to some wonderful examples of Heath Robinson construction.

I came across a good example of this on the northern shores of Lake Lipno. Look closely at these fishing punts and you will see that some zlaté české ruce have nailed plastic garden chairs to the boats to create more comfortable seating. Another boat owner further along the shore had even used a swivelling office chair to afford 360 degree fishing.

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Music

On Witches' Night we experienced Czech music in all its infinite variety. First we attended the maypole erection in the Eggenberg Brewery Gardens (Cesky Krumlov). There we were treated to traditional folk music - with bagpipes, horns and violins, pleasant enough but rather oompahish (the German influence showing methinks) - and then to a rock band called sandvic (sandwich) , made up of some very serious local secondary school kids. The band was too much noise for my taste and so we fled.

Later we made our way to the Gypsy Tavern (Cikanska Jizba) where the local gypsy band was playing. The video above is of the same band in the same tavern - sadly not my creation it is from youtube, thanks to pashkapushka for uploading. Just click on the arrow to play the video. Here was wonderful music with rhythm and soul, so much so that it was hardly possible to stay still in one's seat. The Friday night gig at the Tavern is undoubtedly the best in town. I recommend it.

Sadly we had the late night bus to catch and so had to leave before the end of the set. In Horice Na Sumave the villagers were celebrating the night around the bonfire, having erected a maypole at least twice the size of Krumlov's. Music was playing - more oompah. Then as we walked up the unlit hill the music got totally surreal, as the local oompah band took on first the Birdy Song and then Zorba's Dance.

Monday 3 May 2010

Mayday

Although May 1st is the official bank holiday, the real day for celebrations in the Czech Republic is Witches Night the day before. This is the night when all over the Czech Republic villages raise their maypoles, when bonfires are lit, witches burnt (well images anyway) and women jump over the flames to improve their fertility. This is the celtic festival of Beltane in fact and so much more preferable to Mayday itself with all its communist connotations.

Here in Cesky Krumlov the maypole was erected in the Eggenberg Brewery Gardens. The maypole was a tall fir tree stripped of all but its topmost branches and decorated by paper streamers - added by local maidens in traditional clothes assisted by many small children. The final touch was, in true Czech style, a bottle of slivovice. This was very much a Czech and local occasion, hardly any tourists made their way to the site. The gardens were full of Czech families, enjoying local bands on the main stage, drinking beer, cooking sausages on the bonfire, and looking at the stalls set up by local community groups.

As I took the late bus home to Horice Na Sumave surrounded by happy Czechs, I could not help thinking what a good idea it was to have a state bank holiday on the day after Witches Night, we were all going to need a lie-in to recover from the festivities.