My Talented Neighbour

Jitka lives in the large farmhouse across the road from us. As you enter the house you are surrounded by art and craftsmanship. Both she and her partner are extremely talented artists, although both would say that they are not artists but craftsmen. I would beg to differ - in both their cases I believe the boundary between craft and art is very much blurred.

Jitka can turn her hands to many things, but she certainly excels in those very Czech arts/crafts of painted eggs and puppets. To be sure you can buy painted eggs in the shops of Cesky Krumlov, but none will be as individual and delicate as Jitka's. Each takes her at least an hour to paint. Each stroke has to be applied individually as the wax dries too quickly to allow you to do more than one. I have tried to decorate a very basic egg and I cannot tell you how difficult it is. To produce eggs like this requires years of practice and talent.

Jitka has been selling her work at crafts markets and says she found herself sitting next to a woman, who is considered the mistress of Czech egg painting. To Jitka's delight and surprise the woman recognized Jitka's talent and was delighted to see the craft passing to the next generation. Sadly, although you will find dyes for egg-decorating in the local supermarket, few people will have the patience, skill or time to practice the old art as it should be done.

Changes on Prague Metro

As of today Prague has four new metro stations. The Green A line has been extended to Nemocnice Motel in the east of the city. As the Green line is the main line taken by travellers going to and from the airport, it is likely initially to cause confusion. For starters all those tourist books about Prague are suddenly out-of-date.You can download a map of the Metro and Bus stops at http://www.dpp.cz/en/transport-around-prague/transit-schematics/, however the changes are shown in the picture above (click to see a larger version).

Travellers coming from the airport will still catch the 119 bus, but it now terminates at the Nadrazi Veleslavin Metro Station and not Dejvicka. There are a number of changes to the bus services in that area and the number 2 tram has been cancelled, but these are hardly likely to impact on visitors or indeed many Prague residents.

Getting Around Prague

I've been asked to write some posts about practical issues, such as how do I get around, when the only car I can use at the moment is a hire one. The answer is the excellent public transport system here, Let's start with Prague.

The first thing to say is that it makes no sense to have a car in Prague, unless possibly if you live in the outskirts. The public transport system is really good and cheap.

First there is the metro system - the equivalent if London's tube but with only three colour-coded lines - red, yellow and green. Then there are the trams - there are more of these and they have the added advantage of taking you past a load of interesting sights. I am, as you will have gathered, a fan of Prague's trams. And finally there are buses, which you tend to see in Prague suburbs. If you are a visitor to the city you may only use a bus going to the airport or Prague Zoo.

I plan to talk about each of these modes of transport in dedicated blog posts, so for this post let us focus on getting around generally on the Prague Public Transport System. The first thing to say is the system is integrated - you buy one ticket for all forms of transport. The  basic ticket currently costs 32kc and allows you up to 90 minutes travel, during which you can jump on and off trams, metro trains and buses and combinations thereof. If you only want to make a short (max 30 minute) journey you can opt for a 24kc ticket.

The key thing to note is that the timer starts when you validate your ticket at the beginning of the journey. You will find yellow validation machines as you enter the metro station or train. On one end of the ticket you will find a blank space with arrows, slide this end into the machine face up until you hear the machine stamp the ticket. You must do this or face being fined. There are plenty of ticket inspectors working Prague's public transport and they don't care that you aren't a local, quite the opposite.

So where do you buy tickets? You will find ticket vending machines in metro stations and at the main tram stops (but not all of the latter). You need coins for the machines. To buy more than one ticket press the button as many times as you want tickets. You can also buy tickets in some newsagents and at various information centres, including the one in the arrivals lounge at the airport. It is a good idea to buy multiple tickets from these centres, as you will not make yourself popular with Prague commuters if you spend ages fumbling coins into the automatic machines.

If you don't see your fellow passengers validating tickets, it is because they very sensibly have bought a season ticket. There are tourist tickets available for 24 hrs and 72 hrs (110kc and 310kc). The next ticket up is the monthly season, but at 550kc if you are staying for a week it is still worth getting.

The Prague Transport System has an excellent website - the English version is here: http://www.dpp.cz/en/

The website offers maps and other information, up-to-date news of any works and diversions and an online journey planner.
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The Palava Hills

I first saw the Palava Hills from the road that runs from Brno to Vienna. The sun was shining and it caught the white cliffs that run along the ten-kilometre spine of the hills. The hills appeared to flash against the clear blue Moravian sky.

This is an ancient landscape. Human beings have been walking and hunting on these hills since approximately 27,000 BC. We know this because the camps, belongings and graves of these mammoth hunters have been and continue to be discovered on the Palava's slopes. A visit to the museum of the mammoth hunters at Dolni Vestonice is highly recommended and gives you a real understanding of life here millennia ago. Looking up at the hills it is not hard to imagine our forebears driving wild horses over the cliffs or trapping them in the hills' limestone folds. Later humans also left their mark on the hills in the form of three castles, now picturesque ruins . 

Several footpaths wend along and across the hills, giving excellent views and taking you through a series of nature reserves. The hills are famous for the wildflowers (if you are coming to see these, it is best to visit in Spring), the rarest of these being the Palava Lumnitzer carnation and the Spring Adonis flower. Eagle owls nest in the old quarries, while the Palava's caves are home to rare bats. To aid the visitor there are a number of trails with interpretation boards explaining the history, nature and geology of the hills. 

Given my love of walking, history and nature, you will not be surprised that the Palava is a place I love.

Czech Castles - Zvíkov

Let us start my occasional series of posts on Czech castles with the castle often referred to as the "king of Czech castles" - Zvíkov. I first went there with a tour by an archaeological society on our way up from the Šumava to Prague Airport. It was a perfect point for breaking the journey.

Few castles can have such a naturally defensible position: Zvíkov stands on a rocky promontory at the junction of the Vltava and Otava rivers accessible only along a narrow strip of land (see photo above). Also in the photograph you can see the tower which has atear-shaped footprint designed to deflect artillery. The castle's defences were so impenetrable that the Hussites were unable to take it after four months of siege. 

As you enter the castle's courtyards you discover that Zvíkov is not just an impressive fortification. The castle was a royal residence and the two-storey arcaded palace is lovely. Inside the palace you will find an absolute gem - The Chapel of St Wenceslas. Here restorers found under a coat of whitewash a series of late 15th century wall paintings. There are further paintings on the walls of the arcade and in the Wedding Hall. 

Zvíkov is less known and less visited by foreign tourists, although plenty of Czechs enjoy the castle's treasures. One reason for this is the absence of easy public transport links or tourist minibus routes. However there is a beautiful way to arrive at the castle: take the boat from Týn nad Vltavou or Orlík dam.

Spotting Czech Castles

The Czechs proudly boast that their country has more castles per square mile than any other country. Of course that is partly explained by the Czech Republic's rather violent history - there are so many castles because they were needed. 

As you drive around the country, you will frequently see signs to a hrad (castle),  or zamek (manor house or palace) or occasionally to a tvrz (translated in my dictionary as stronghold but more often in my experience it is a fortified manor). And if you follow those signs you may come to just a pile of rubble barely recognizable as a castle or you may come to a hugely impressive structure heaving with visitors. Either way this is a country for castle spotters. 

It is even a country for castle collectors, as the authorities sometimes offer dilapidated castles at cut-down prices. However such deals come with lots of strings attached - you have to get certain repairs done within a specified timescale or forfeit your ownership. One hears of poor castle owners hardly managing to get the necessary permissions before their time runs out and their castle reverts to the former owner. 

But back to castle spotting. Given the sheer number of castles in the country it is surprising that so few are visited by tourists. There are certain castles that are on the tourist's radar: Prague of course, Český Krumlov, Karlštejn, Hluboka Nad Vltavou, and Křivoklát: all castles that are visitable on a day trip from Prague. But there are hundreds more. Some of these are equally impressive, all will be less touristy, and many will give you an insight into the history of the country.

I recently looked through my previous blogposts and was surprised that I had only written posts about Sloup Castle in Czech Switzerland, the massive castle at Jindřichův Hradec and Český Krumlov castle, even though I have visited many Czech castles over the years. Over the next year or so, I intend to rectify this and write a series of occasional posts about some of my favourite castles. Watch this space.

The Rock Towns of Czech Paradise

 Czech Paradise (Český ráj) is one of my favourite areas in the Czech Republic. Because I offer walking holidays there, I have the perfect excuse to visit every year - well, I have to check the walks don't I? And quite a few of those walks take me through some of the area's famous rock towns.

The rock towns are the reason Czech Paradise was included in the UNESCO list of European Geoparks. But what are they? They are collections of huge sandstone towers created by erosion by rain and ice over millenia. When I say huge, I mean the height of several storey buildings. Nothing can quite prepare you for the scale of them and no photo can really do them justice (although I have tried). In the photo below - the dark dot on the path is a man.

The most famous rock towns are the Prachovské Rocks (shown here) and the Hruba Skala Rocks, but there are several others. My husband and I first visited the Prachovské Rocks one early evening in September. The sun was low in the sky, turning the rocks a pinkish yellow and casting long shadows. Virtually alone, we followed the paths that wove through the area, climbing steep staircases, squeezing through cracks in the rocks, and standing on their summits to watch the setting sun.

It was a magical experience. No wonder that the rock towns are used by film production companies - for example for Disney's Narnia films and more recently for the BBC's Three Musketeers series. Nor is it a surprise that these natural labyrinths were once home to robbers.

Villa Primavesi, Olomouc

Olomouc is surprisingly absent from most tourists' must-see list. But then I suppose so are many wonderful places in the Czech Republic. Now that flights from the UK come into nearby Ostrava and Brno, let us hope that changes. For that matter, Olomouc is also relatively easy to get to from Prague.

I recently visited Olomouc as part of a holiday I had with my husband. We did it as a day trip from Brno, but next time we will stay there. As I have said before on this blog, my husband is a lover of architecture. He even has his own blog dedicated to English buildings. And so the historical centre of Olomouc with its stunning collection of historic buildings went down a storm. Whilst he wandered the streets and squares of the city, I headed off to check out a restaurant where I can take him as a surprise. The restaurant I was looking for is in a very different kind of historic building from the renaissance and baroque town houses Phil was photographing on the main square and surrounding streets.

The Primavesi Villa stands on the edge of the old town near the Italianate church of St Michal, overlooking one of the parks that circle the old town. The Villa was built by the Primavesi family, who were to be important sponsors of the Vienna Werkstätte. According to my old Rough Guide, it was in a parlous state – it is no longer. The Villa has been lovingly restored. Although the top floors are used as offices, it is possible to visit the architecturally important first floor where there is a gallery that is open Tuesdays-Saturdays; downstairs is a restaurant. The visitor can also wander through the garden, gazing up at this important secessionist building, admiring both its design and decoration.

The decoration is at its most intense in the mosaic-covered entrance porch. But as I looked around I saw decoration everywhere, from iron brackets curling like pea shoots to the curving dragon-back of the garden wall. The house was designed by the architects Franz von Krause and Josef Tokla and its interiors were designed and furnished by designer Josef Hoffmann, sculptor Anton Hanak and painter Gustav Klimt. The latter's portrait of Mäda Primavesi can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum. Sadly during the dereliction of the communist era most of the artwork and furniture was dispersed, although some non-moveable elements are still in situ. And it is possible to see furniture by Hoffmann in the Olomouc Museum of Art. 

I took a coffee at the restaurant and rejoined my husband in the town square.

Inside the Jan Hus Monument in Prague

Two weeks ago I met with Petr Husek, the organizer of the Festival which will commemorate the 600th anniversary of Jan Hus' death in July. We arranged to meet in the Cubist cafe in the House of the Black Madonna. I arrived slightly late, but he was not there. He arrived shortly after, breathless and brushing dust off his coat.

"I have been meeting a reporter inside the statue on the Old Town Square," he said.

As excuses go, that was an original one. The statue is a colosal one, which is a major feature in Prague's historical old town. It turns out that the memorial is being restored and Mr Husek was being interviewed about it and the Festival (he features at the end of the video above). The statue was erected in 1915 for the 500th anniversary. It was funded entirely by private donations. On July 6th, Jan Hus Day, it will be the centre of Prague's celebrations.

We talked about our mutual admiration for Hus's philosophy. It is interesting the way Hus has been adopted as a symbol by very different philosophies. When the statue was erected, it was a statement of national pride and suffering. This was only three years before the birth of the first Czechoslovakian Republic. Under the Communists the act of sitting under the statue was a quiet way of expressing opposition to the Communist government, but at the same time the Communists presented Hus and the Hussites as a proto socialists. Now Mr Husek and his friends want to use the festival to reclaim Hus as a spiritual (but not just a religious) inspiration for the Czech nation, offering the Czechs an alternative, more moral, way of living in contrast to the self-centred philosophy that followed the arrival of capitalism. I wish them every success. It seems to me that they are closer to the real man than their predecessors.

Alfons Mucha and the Slav Epic

When I was young there was quite a fad about the graphics of Alfons Mucha. It was the 1970s and his posters were blu-tacked to the bedroom walls of teenage girls all over the UK. I was no exception, but while my friends preferred his pensive and languid portrayals of women I went for his dynamic theatre poster of Sarah Bernhardt as Jeanne D'Arc. Had you asked me then about his nationality I would have confidently told you that Mucha was French. He wasn't - he was Czech and proud of it.

Born in Ivančice, a small town south of Brno, Mucha studied in Brno and Munich, before going to Paris. Despite his success in Paris most of Mucha's life was spent in his homeland. If you only know Mucha from his French graphics, you will be surprised by his work in the Czech Republic. You soon realize that Mucha was an artist with a much greater scope than you had imagined, interested in portraying complex subjects in a very original way.

Mucha considered his greatest work to be the Slav Epic. The piece is made up of twenty enormous panels, depicting key scenes in the history of the Czechs and other Slavic peoples. Mucha hoped that it would inspire his fellow countrymen, but not in a militarist way - there a strong strand of pacifism in the later paintings. Instead the paintings have a very spiritual aspect to them, celebrating the soul of the Slav peoples.

It took Mucha eighteen years to complete the sequence of paintings and when he had completed them he gave the paintings to the city of Prague. The Epic was very much a labour of love. Sadly the time it took Mucha to take the Epic from conception to completion meant that the work was out-dated almost as soon as the completed works went on display. When it was begun there was no independent state for the Czechs, by the time it was completed Czechoslovakia was already ten years old. Only ten years later the Nazis arrived in Prague and the Epic was hidden to avoid its destruction. Unfortunately the same was not true of its artist. Mucha was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo and, although eventually released, his health was broken. The artist died in July 1939 and was buried in Vyšehrad cemetery.

You can see the Slav Epic in its own room at the Czech National Gallery's Veletržní Palace in Holešovice. When I visited people were walking around in awe-filled silence. Nothing that I knew about Mucha's work could have prepared me for the paintings, not even photographs of them. They are altogether larger, darker (both literally and in terms of subject matter) and more complex than the works of other painters of his generation. If you are interested in art, then this exhibition is a must.

Brno

Spilberk castle, Brno

I am a great fan of the Czech Republic's second city. Indeed at times I think I prefer it to Prague. The two are very different in their feel. Prague to my mind feels like a Northern European city, whilst Brno has more of the Mediterranean about it. In Prague everyone seems to be going somewhere, whereas Brno has more of a relaxed cafe culture. It helps that the climate is milder there, and also that the historic centre is pedestrianized. As a result people sit at tables outside the city's many cafes and restaurants and chat to friends over coffee or maybe the local wine. 

I have visited the city many times over the years and each time I find something new to do. Brno's most famous building is Villa Tugendhat, and it certainly should be on any visitor's to-do list, but there is much more to see. The Villa isn't even the only major modernist building in the city. If you are interested in the architecture of previous periods, you will find Gothic and Baroque churches, Renaissance palaces, Art Deco villas and Art Nouveau apartment buildings and shops within easy walking distance of the city centre.

Called the "Moravian Manchester", Brno boomed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the back of a vibrant textile industry. As in Manchester the industrialists invested in the best architects and artists to create the buildings and institutions appropriate to their city's status. These included the Moravian Museum of Applied Arts. The permanent collection of this excellent museum has free entry and features some stunning examples not only of textiles but of furniture (including pieces designed by locally-born Josef Hoffmann), glass, graphics (Alfons Mucha was also a local) and other objects.There is currently a temporary exhibition on display at the museum entitled Brno - Moravian Manchester. 250 years of the capital of the textile industry. Frustratingly the exhibition closes a month before I bring a textiles tour to the city, but so it goes. My suspicion is that the exhibition is actually the one that will eventually be permanently installed in the Loew Beer Villa, which is due to open a month after the tour.

Hobbit holes

Many of the vineyards in Moravia are small family affairs, the vineyards small, the wine-making a part-time activity at best. Alongside roads and up lanes you will come across small cellars built into the hillside; they resemble nothing so much as hobbit holes. In season you may find them open and someone sitting outside ready to sell you a bottle or three.

There are of course major wine-producers in the region and they offer tours and wine-tastings, but I prefer the small family version. In Znojmo a group of Australian artists and I were given a personal guided tour of one such family cellar. The walls were covered with a blue mould, which gave the cellars in the area their name, Modré sklepy (the Blue Cellars). The jovial lady, whose family had been making wine there for generations, handed around glasses for us to try. And I was confident that the wine was lovely even before ten wine varieties we savoured started to have an effect. 

We voted for our favourite red and white wines and sat down at a long table in the front area of the cellar. Copious plates of open sandwiches and other Czech finger foods arrived along with jugs of wine. Both the plates and the jugs kept being refilled and we got merrier and merrier. The owner and her daughter joined us at the table and the evening passed most agreeably.

Pancake Day in the Czech Republic

Today I went again to the local primary school to talk to the children. I showed them a video of the Spitalfields Great Pancake Race and explained the traditions of Pancake Day to them. They learnt some useful English nouns - eggs, milk, pan, pancake, race, costume; some useful English verbs - go, run, drop, catch, throw, turn, as well as the adjective - silly. Then we had a pancake race, indoors because outside was Czech snow. Their English lesson ended with the consumption of pancakes in the English style - with the sugar and lemon. The children were surprised by the lemon.

The video is of the race I organized with my neighbours on the lane outside my house.

Fairy Reserve

I stumbled across the fairy reserve near my home last Autumn. I wanted a short walk and decided I would go into the hills above Horice Na Sumave. Originally it was my intention to just walk up to the open-air theatre which is home to the annual Horice Passion Play, but I saw signs to the fairy reserve and my interest was piqued. My other motivation was that the signs were pointing towards a wooded hill, and in Autumn Czech woods mean mushrooms.

At the edge of the wood was a red and white toll both, closed now, but the price list was still visible. Underneath was some graffiti in English: “I want to believe...” There were other signs in various parts of the wood. One read that it was forbidden to go under the mushrooms. A signpost's two arrows pointed “This way” and “There”. This was all that remained of a time in the summer holidays when the reserve had been full of children entertained by actors playing fairytale characters. Now I was alone to imagine their fun, or maybe the fairies just weren't showing themselves.

I wandered around the hill following in places a pilgrimage trail with its stations of the cross up to a ruined chapel and the top of a ski-slope. The chapel walls were destroyed by explosives in the 1960s. Grass grew between the stone paving stones and the winding head of the ski-lift stood rusty against the blue sky. Again here was a place that once thronged with people processing up from the small town, but now was empty.

Turning back, I started to notice strange formations of small rocks and twigs among the trees. Leaving the path, I looked closer and found that they were miniature settlements, made by the children for the fairies. I looked up and saw horn of plenty mushrooms pushing through the leaf litter. I thanked the fairies and filled my basket, before walking home.

A few weeks ago I took some British visitors for a walk. I took them to the fairy reserve and the ruined chapel. I explained to them the very Czech love of fairy tales, of how television dramatizations of fairy tales made in the sixties and seventies are part of every family's Christmas TV viewing, of how adults would talk with a straight face about fairies and other spirits, and I told the story of the builder who put milk out to appease the threshold fairies. When I told them that I was thinking of writing an insider's guide to the Czech Republic, they urged me to do so, saying that you would never find anything about fairies or their reserves in a normal guide book.

The Museum of Romany Culture

Last year I took a friend and some Australian artists to Brno. Sometimes when you organise a visit serendipity takes a hand and things just happen. We had of course visited the Villa Tugendhat and members of the group decided it would divide up to explore the city on their own.

Some decided they would follow my advice and visit the Museum of Romany Culture. Meanwhile I stayed at the hotel. The phone rang. "Listen to this," said my friend Maggie. Gypsy music and the sound of fast dancing feet came down the phone. "There's an open-air festival here. All the gypsies are enjoying themselves." I left the hotel immediately and made my way to the museum.

The Museum is easy to get to - it's on several of the main tram routes and not far from the centre - but the area is a bit run-down, as is to be expected given that the gypsy population tends to live in the poorer areas. When I arrived the open-space outside the museum was milling with people, many in traditional brightly-coloured costumes, but the music had stopped temporarily. I looked around for my party and decided they must be inside.

The gentleman on the museum counter told me that, although the museum was officially closed for another hour because of the festival, my Australian friends had been allowed in. The museum staff had been so delighted that a group of Australians had come to visit their museum, they had opened up specially.

Inside the museum the members of the group were walking around the exhibition rooms listening to their English-speaking audio guides. The museum's story starts with the Romanies' departure from India, and then follows them as they arrive in Europe. It shows their traditional way of life on the road, their traditional crafts, customs and society. One room is devoted to the Holocaust, or the Devouring as the gypsies call it. They, like the Jews, were sent to the gas chambers, but we do not hear much about that. The last room in the museum is a celebration of contemporary gypsy culture and its influence on music, film and fashion. It is a fascinating museum offering an insight into a people and culture about which we non-Romanies know pitifully little.

When we left the museum, after over an hour's visit, the festival was still in full flow. Excited girls in their lovely red and gold dresses ran through the foyer. A Brno radio station was recording a performance by one of the local groups. We walked back to the city centre and the music faded behind us.

A few days later I went online to write a review on Tripadvisor and found that alongside the 5-star reviews, there were two 1-star ones. These were in Czech and were nothing more than expressions of the blind racism that the Romany Museum so eloquently counters. I wrote a response and I am glad to say that when I looked recently the 1-star reviews had been removed.

The Bear and the Mushrooms

 

This is one episode in a children's television series shown on British television in the mid 1980s. It uses that traditional Czech puppet form - black-light theatre and it has a very Czech theme. All of which is not surprising because it was written, directed and performed by my Czech friend Hannah (Susan) Kodicek.  Hannah was the person who taught me pretty much all I know about collecting mushrooms and also introduced me to the Czech Republic. My son had a picture book of this story and loved it.

The Alchemists' Laboratory

Unlike the rest of Prague's Jewish quarter number 1 Hastalska survived the demolition and the redevelopment of the 19th century. Prior to that it survived the great fire of 1689. The house at number 1 might be said to have a charmed life. And there are plenty of legends to support that assertion. A chariot pulled by fiery goats was said to exit the house. Smoke, strange sounds and foul smells rose from the ground. There was talk that tunnels ran from the house to The Old Town Hall, under the river to the Castle, and to the Barracks.

An investigation in the historical records reveals that the possible cause of these legends - the building had been a centre of alchemical activity. Here in the 16th century, supported by the Emperor Alchemist Rudolf II, alchemists from across Europe gathered in their efforts to turn base metal into gold, to find the philosopher's stone and the elixir of eternal life. The alchemists went their ways and the house was used for more mundane affairs.

In 2002 the house survived another natural disaster - the flooding of the River Vltava. But when the waters subsidized, a hole had appeared in the basement where a wall had collapsed. Once the rubble was cleared a maze of tunnels was revealed together with a series of workshops with some of the alchemical equipment still in place. Every part of the alchemical process took place there - from drying the herbs, to distillation, to even creating the glass vials in which the elixir was stored. Spiralling stoves allowed alembics to heat to different temperatures. Vents and chimneys carried the smoke, steam and fumes up to the surface where they alarmed passersby.

The owner set about restoring the workshops to the state they would have been in at the time when John Dee and his fellow alchemists were working in the house. It is now open as a museum and is well worth a visit. You can even buy some elixir in the shop. One is a potion for lovers, even though it was made by monks. 

A Tour of The Wallachian Open-Air Museum, Roznov Pod Radhostem

I sometimes take visitors to the Wallachian Open Air Museum in Roznov Pod Radhostem. It is quite unlike anything else you will see in the Czech Republic. That is because the Wallachians have a very distinctive culture, so much so it is argued by many historians that they originally migrated here from Romania. Wherever they came from, they settled in the beautiful Moravian-Silesian Beskydy Mountains, where they made a harsh living from farming sheep.

The Museum was the creation of the two Jaronek brothers, particularly the elder, Bohumír Jaronek who said We don´t want to build a dead store of buildings and objects, we want to build a living museum with the help of practical ethnology where the traditions, which have been inherited in Wallachia, the typical breeds and dwellings of the people are kept alive by means of work, customs, dances, songs and ceremonies. 

This concept was decades in advance of its time: the museum was opened in 1925. Over the years since many buildings and other objects have been added to the museum, but as Bohumir would have wished it remains very much a living museum. As you wander around the museum you will come across people in traditional costumes demonstrating traditional crafts and other activities. The Old Townlet, which forms the centre of the museum, is made up of original Wallachian wooden buildings. And some like the pubs and the post office are still in use. Last time I visited I came upon a a group of women and men in traditional costume singing and dancing.

The largest section of the Museum is given to Wallachian country life. The Wallachian Village, as this section is called, is spread over a hillside with groups of reconstructed houses forming small hamlets, as well as individual farms and shepherds. Look out for the delightful beehives which I featured in their own post a while back. My husband was fascinated by the building techniques on display. The dominant building material is wood, which is used for everything including the gutters and their brackets.

The newest section of the museum is the Water Mill Valley. Here in a series of buildings water, fed into a series of channels (made of wood of course) from a stream and ponds, drives all sorts of machinery. Of course this being Bohumir Jaronec's museum you can see the machinery being worked by a number of craftsmen. There's a smithy/hammer mill, a mill for hammering wool to make felt, a sawmill, oil crusher and I daresay others I have forgotten.

The Museum is enormous and to do it justice you should allow a day for your visit. If you cannot afford a day, book a tour of the Mill Valley and combine that with a visit to the Townlet.

Villa Tugendhat, Brno

A visit to this modernist masterpiece is always a highlight of a stay in Brno. I first went there with my husband, who is a lover of buildings and all things architectural, so we took the longer technical tour. A large grin never left his face during the 90 minute visit.

The Villa was commissioned by Grete Loew Beer and her new husband Fritz Tugendhat in 1928. Both came from Jewish families that had become rich as a result of the huge expansion of textiles and other industries in Moravia that had in turn paid for the architectural transformation of Brno. Grete had been impressed by the work of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe when she had visited a house designed by him in Berlin and so commissioned to design the couple's dream home. He was told that money was no object. Tell that to any architect and you will make his day, tell it to a genius like Mies and you will get a masterpiece.

The villa is set on a hillside overlooking Brno. From the street it does not look as impressive or as large as it is, because you enter at the top floor. The two lower floors open on to the garden. When you enter the building you start to see why the building is so special and why it cost so much. Mies's famous motto of “Less is More” is exemplified by the lack of ornament and the emphasis on the materials used (steel, glass, marble) and the flow of walls and spaces. This extends to the fixtures and fittings, even the beautiful line of the door and window handles.

It is hard to imagine the impact this villa would have made in its day. We are used to white geometrical modernist buildings, but this was a time when most people were still thinking in terms of art deco. However, unlike in the UK where modernism took a long time getting going, the Czechs rapidly took modernism to their hearts. There are many more modernist gems to be found in Brno and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, but they deserve a separate post (or maybe more).

The story of the villa was not a happy one. The Tugendhats were able to enjoy their new home for only eight years, before they fled to Switzerland ahead of the German invasion. The villa became the property of the Nazis, used by the Gestapo, who removed the villa's fine semi-circular ebony wall which defines the dining room. And then the liberating Soviet troops treated the villa with such contempt that they used some of its living spaces as stabling for their horses. It wasn't until the 1980s that any attempt was made to restore the building. Now, thanks mostly to funds from the EU, the building is fully restored and open to visitors.

NB Entrance to the villa is restricted to groups of a maximum of 15 people and not all tours are in English. As a result it is advisable to book weeks if not months in advance. I recommend the shorter tour unless you have a particular interest. 

Desk Calendar

I just had to share with you my desk calendar for 2015. It was half price in an art and stationary shop in Cesky Krumlov. At less than a £1 and featuring a photograph of a different mushroom every week I just had to have it!

I do have a worry about it though. It's okay now when there are no mushrooms to be had, but come the beginning of the mushroom season I suspect I may have to hide it, so that I am not tempted to grab my basket and disappear into the forest, leaving my work undone.

Jan Palach Day

At a time when the issues of democracy and freedom of speech are very much in mind, it was appropriate that I took time last week to walk to the top of Wenceslas Square in Prague to view the memorial to Jan Palach, the student who set fire to himself as protest in 1969. His act is often seen as a protest against the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring, but he claimed to the doctor who treated him that instead "It was not so much in opposition to the Soviet occupation, but the demoralization which was setting in." In other words it was a protest against the absence of protest over the loss of democracy.

I know this is not the first time I have blogged on this subject. You can read more about Jan Palach in a previous post here.  But it is a subject that consistently moves me, asking as it does what I would do to defend democracy in England. I am struck by how demoralized I sometimes feel about the state of British democracy and how much I feel that my voice is not heard. But how far would I go to defend it, I do not know. 

Being in the Czech Republic, with its recent history of political suppression, and speaking with Czechs who remember not only what it was to be unheard but also to know that speaking could cost them their liberty, makes me remember how lucky we English are to have had the concept of personal liberties enshrined in a charter exactly eight hundred years ago.

The Mark of Three

Wander around many Czech towns at this time of year and you might notice on lintels and doors the letters K, M and B written in chalk as above. Sometimes the letters come with the year and sometimes you will see several sets of letters dating back several years. You may wonder what these stand for. Perhaps it is a sign that the electricity meter has been read, you think, or some sort of building work. Perhaps it is a sign like those one used to see in English villages - a coded message from a tramp or hobo, gypsy or fellow inhabitant of the road, that this is a house where the inhabitants are generous.

In fact of those options you would be closer to the truth with the last - it is a sign that the inhabitants have been generous. But the visitors were not down-at-heel beggers, but three kings. Twelfth Night in the Czech Republic is known as Three Kings Day, because on that day children (and adults) dress up as the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (in Czech Kašpar, Melichar and Baltazar) and go around the streets asking for donations to charity. When the householder has put their donation in the tin, the "Kings" write the initials K M and B above the door. What do the initials stand for? I have heard different answers - one simply that they are the initials of the kings' names and another that it stands for the words: Christus mansionem benedicat (Christ, bless this house). Of course both answers could be true.