The journeys of Captain Oddsocks

Where the Czech...? #121

2009-12-04T12:29:00.000+01:00

This town has been on Where the Czech before. Do you recognise or remember it?

Tábor

2009-11-30T14:00:00.002+01:00

Tábor is one of the most attractive and unusual historic towns in Bohemia. Most Bohemian settlements of Tábor's age were founded either as a stop on a trade route or as a seat of aristocratic wealth and power. Usually they had wide straight streets laid out on a grid to facilitate the comings and goings of horsedrawn wagons to their central marketplace squares. Medieval Tábor however was founded by a religious group of people and its primary function was defense.

The Hussites were followers of Jan Hus, an early reformist preacher who was burned at the stake in 1415 for his outspoken opposition to established practices of the catholic church. Three years later, the tension following Hus' execution erupted into armed conflict between his followers and Catholic forces. By 1420, the core of the Hussite movement had gathered at Tábor and the most interesting facets of the town's current appearance survive from this time.

Tábor has an open marketplace square that served also as an assembly place for citizens and the Hussite armies. The streets leading off the square to the different corners of the old town were laid out to deliberately zigzag between sharply protruding corners to hamper and confuse the attack of any aggressors. Some end in tight t-intersections, others begin deceptively wide but narrow so sharply that no wagon or a cannon could pass and any invading army would be reduced to single file.

Many of the dozen or so streets, alleys or laneways forking away from the square to different corners of the old town are so difficult to see that you don't notice them until you're almost on top of them. Some are spanned by arches and others lead right through the houses facing the square, including the town hall.

On the upper edge of the square at the highest point of the old town stands the church of the Lord's Transfiguration on Mount Tábor. Originally a Gothic structure from the late 1400's, the church was modified by the addition of renaissance gables, and inside the minor altars are all textbook baroque from the late 1600's. The roof above the main altar is supported by rare lierne arches (the ones that look like gigantic works of origami) and the 64 metre high tower can be climbed for the best views over the old town, lake Jordan and the countryside beyond.

The old town hall is the other really outstanding building on the main square. It dates originally from the 1400's and was remodelled and restored in 1878. The clock tower and three steep gables make the town hall the most recognisable of Tábor's historic buildings. Inside are the tourist information office, the Hussite museum and the entrance to the system of catacombs that run beneath the square.

The catacombs are accessible on a guided tour that lasts about 30 minutes. All participants have to wear hard-hats and the tour progresses through damp cellars and dark tunnels that were used for food storage, beer fermentation, as a prison (beneath the town hall) and for shelter in times of strife. The tour ends across the square behind house no 7 and the route is marked in the pavement in front of the Skoch house beside the town hall.

Inside the town hall are ten rooms of artworks and historic artefacts connected with the Hussites. The history of Hussitism is explained in detail and there are original and replica weapons including an authentic 15th century shirt of chain mail shirt. Prints, paintings and statues depict all the important figures of the Hussite movement and their reformist colleagues across Europe, but the overwhelming majority honour either Jan Hus or the movement's most revered military commander, Jan Žižka.

Around the edge of the old town the stone fortifications are well preserved and from atop the western walls there's a view over Lake Jordan, which is the oldest man-made lake in Central Europe. The busy road curving away to the north towards Prague runs along the top of the dam wall and beneath it is an 18metre high waterfall that drops down to the original height of the stream below.

High above the valley on this side of old Tábor, the stone walls and bastions are surrounded now by a forest of ash, birch and linden, but smooth trails wind up the hillside to the base of the walls. The trails are punctuated by descriptive signboards in significant places and particularly the crudely pentagonal Soukenická bastion is a good example of Hussite defensive architecture.

At a glance it might look just like an oddly angled part of the wall, but on closer inspection the Soukenická bastion is very similar in design to the fortifications of Terezín, Josefov, Hradec Králové and Olomouc. Those four places were all important fortresses in the Hapsburg era and their red brick walls and bastions were considered the pinnacle of military defensive architecture when they were built. Tábor's Soukenicka bastion is 300 years older and cruder but the unmistakable similarities demonstrate just how far the innovative Žižka and his followers were ahead of their time.

For a hundred years or so following the Hussite wars, Tábor was one of the most prosperous towns in Bohemia but its fortune failed in the 16th century. It suffered fires in 1532 and 1559 and was heavily punished for refusing to support Emperor Ferdinand I in his fight against the non-catholic estates. Heavy fines and confiscation of town property left Tábor with mountainous debt and along with their difficult political position, the economy and architectural development stagnated. The Baroque architecture of the 17and 18th centuries passed Tábor by, and the historic core has survived largely unchanged since the 16th century. In 1961 Tábor was among the first Czech towns to be officially declared an urban preservation zone.

Despite its historic value and architectural beauty, one of the great pleasures of visiting Tábor is simply wandering through the unpredictable maze of cobblestoned lanes, some of which are barely wider than Jan Žižka's shoulders, if his statue on the square is a reliable guide. Of course that's a good thing to do in most historic towns, but in few places is it as fascinating, enjoyable and surprising as in Tábor.

Contact Tábor tourist information office
Find bus and train connections to Tábor
Compare prices of Tábor hotels

Related posts: Who was Jan Žižka?

Where the Czech...? #120

2009-11-27T09:28:00.000+01:00

Does anybody know where in the Czech Republic this castle is?

Jan Žižka from Trocnov

2009-11-23T09:36:00.002+01:00

Just outside Trocnov in South Bohemia, an unpaved but smooth trail leads through thick forest to a gently sloping clearing about the size and shape of three football fields. Near the upper end stands a colossal broad shouldered statue of Czech history's most colossal warrior, Jan Žižka.

Jan Žižka was born at Trocnov around 1360 and despite the youthful loss of his left eye, went on to become the most feared and respected military leader and tactician in Czech history. Žižka's guerrilla-like military skills emerged from his struggles as a small landowner against the powerful South Bohemian aristocracy of the Rožmberk dynasty and developed further while fighting on the side of the Polish King at the battle of Grunwald in 1410.

While serving at the king's court in Prague from 1411-12, Žižka became a follower of the reformist preacher Jan Hus who was lured to Constance, betrayed and executed by a religious council in 1415. Jan Žižka was a committed follower of Hus' teachings and became a prominent leader within the Hussite movement, becoming governor of Tábor in 1423.

Open conflict between the Hussites and Catholic forces had broken out in 1418 and Žižka's inspired and innovative use of limited resources against well equipped opponents won the Hussites repeated victories including the improbable defense of Prague by 9000 men against Pope Martin V's 30,000 crusaders under the command of Sigismund of Hapsburg. Despite losing his remaining eye in the siege of Rábí castle, Žižka led Hussite forces until his death in 1424.

Prague tour guides are fond of pointing out that the 9 metre high, 16 tonne horseback statue of the Hussite leader on Prague's Vítkov hill is one of the largest equestrian statues in the world (the largest are the Genghis Khan statue at Zonjin Boldog in Mongolia and the Minas statue in Uruguay). But Josef Malejovský's 1958 statue of Žižka near the old family farm outside Trocnov reaches 12 metres in height and dominates its surroundings.

Half a mile away near the bottom of the clearing is a small meadow where low stone walls mark the size and layout of the two roomed house in which Jan, son of Gregory and Johanna Žižka, spent his childhood. The description is only in Czech but explains that the lowest part of the meadow was once a pond and that the area between it and the house was a paved courtyard. Nearby a more recent farmhouse serves as a museum and sells refreshments.

As a fighter against catholicism, Žižka was a popular figure even during the communist years. He is remembered by statues and places names across Bohemia including the Prague suburb of Žižkov, Tábor's Žižkovo namesti, and Žižkovo Pole-the field near Přibyslav where he met his death in 1424.

Bus and train connections to Trocnov
České Budějovice accommodation

Where the Czech...? #119

2009-11-20T07:51:00.000+01:00

Who knows where this is?

Where the Czech...? #118

2009-11-13T02:46:00.000+01:00

Does anybody know who this is and where this particular statue stands?

A peek at Písek

2009-11-09T08:48:00.003+01:00

Písek is a pleasant riverside town of 30,000 people not far from where the waters of the Otava River join the mighty Vltava below Zvíkov castle. It's far from being Bohemia's most intact historic town, but Písek does have some outstanding individual pieces of medieval architecture and many of the modern buildings that interrupt the streetscapes are interesting and attractive in their own right.

Písek is the Czech word for sand and the name refers to the gold-bearing flat-bottomed river that was the main source of the town's wealth. Thanks to finds of ceramic utensils, archaeologists believe gold was panned at Písek as far back as the bronze age, but the earliest written record is from 1336 in the time of King John of Luxembourg.

Predictably for South Bohemia it was John of Luxembourg's father-in-law, King Přemysl Otakar II, who was responsible for the founding of Písek. His builders constructed a castle, a defensive system of stone walls, a church, a monastery and a bridge across the Otava around the same time as they were fortifying Zvíkov, 18 km to the north.

Not all of their hard work survived the centuries, but the stone bridge has weathered seven centuries of wars and floods to remain modern Písek's most valuable and beautiful piece of historic architecture. Pre-dating Prague's Charles Bridge by a hundred years, Písek's simply named Stone Bridge (Kamenný most) is the oldest in the Czech lands and one of the oldest in Central Europe. It became a graphic symbol of the catastrophic floods of 2002 when it disappeared completely underwater.

The 2002 floods damaged historic cities and towns from Český Krumlov to Litoměřice and there were serious fears for Písek's stone bridge. When the bridge resurfaced most of the retaining walls had been washed away and the paving had been ruined but the core of the structure was largely intact.

When the flood waters receded, an underwater investigation showed angels, saints and most of the rock from the bridge walls lying on the river bed. Cranes were brought in to lift the historic stone to the bank where it could dry properly and be prepared for re-installation. The missing sections of the walls were replaced with the granite that most closely matched the original. The ceremonial reopening of the bridge was in May 2003, less than 12 months after the destructive floods.

Písek's other outstanding piece of medieval architecture, the Church of the Birth of the Virgin Mary, was far too high to be affected by the floods but it has also been recently reconstructed and its forecourt is now a lovely open space with interesting but unobtrusive sculptures, a preserved medieval well and the glass covered remains of a Celtic Oppidum from the 6th century.

The church tower has dominated the skyline of Písek since it was completed in 1489, but the bulbous baroque tip of the bell tower was built only at the beginning of the 19th century after the original was destroyed by a lightning strike. The clean white core of the church was built in the 1200's, modified in later centuries and returned to its original Gothic appearance in the 1880s.

The most interesting details of the church exterior are the stone carvings around the entrance, depicting the earthly Jagiellon kings and the city coat of arms beneath portraits of Matthew, John, Luke, Paul, Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and a Latin inscription mentioning the builder of the tower and entreating “Defend we who love you Jesus, from our enemies”.

Backing up the Son of God in defence of the town were a system of stone walls and moats that encircled the old town. The staircases from the small plaza in front of the church lead down through the old stone walls and from there, Piseckeho Ul leads along the old walls to the semicircular bastions of the old Putim gate and the river, where a path follows the base of the stone fortifications along the river to the old bridge.

The white building that towers over the city walls just before the bridge is what is left of the castle. Extensively damaged by fire in 1510, the castle stood in ruins for years until gradually being replaced by new structures. The east wing was replaced by the baroque town hall in the mid 1700s and the north wing was turned into a brewery around the same time. The west wing is the best preserved part of the castle and now houses the award winning city museum. Even without looking at any of the exhibits (the gold panning one is especially good) it's worth the nominal price of entry into the museum just to see the old halls of the castle itself.

Further along the riverside path stands one of the interesting modern structures in Písek; Křižíkova elektrárna (Křižík's powerplant). He'd previously illuminated streets in other places, but when Engineer Křižík flipped the switch of his trial system on 23rd June 1887, Písek became the first town to be completely illuminated by electric lighting.

The dynamos of the original system were powered by a steam engine, but when Písek approved a permanent system they converted the waterwheels of an old mill and followed up their streetlighting milestone by creating the country's first hydroelectric power station.

František Křižík is often associated with Prague, and in the suburb Karlín where he had his workshops a major street and metro station both bear his name. Písek however is an appropriate location for his landmark achievement because he was born in South Bohemia (near Klatovy in 1847) and retained a strong connection with the region until passing away near Tábor in 1941.

The hydroelectric plant was converted to alternating current in 1926 and produced power for the town until 1986 when it had to be closed after falling into disrepair. It was refurbished and opened to the public in 1994, and a top-hatted Křižík still keeps an eye on things from high in the rafters.

Check bus and train connections to Písek
Contact Písek tourist information
Compare Písek hotel prices

Where the Czech...? #117

2009-11-06T15:41:00.000+01:00

Does anyone know where this is?

Where the Czech...? #116

2009-10-30T11:02:00.000+01:00

Does anybody know where in the Czech Republic this photo was taken?

SEFO - Return of the Blob?

2009-10-12T12:37:00.017+02:00

The planned Central European Forum is intended to be a modern art gallery and museum of world class, so an innovative, memorable and striking work of modern architecture is ideal. But does such a thing belong in the centre of the second largest, second most valuable historic preservation zone in the Czech lands?

The purpose of the Forum is to provide a space for Central European art as an entity. The project documentation points out that fine art in the “neighboring countries has many similar features...yet..no one has ever attempted to cover and present it systematically in its entirety”. And that “Forum is a much wider term than museum or gallery. Apart from its essential activities, various discussions, lectures symposiums and other events will be organised”.

The planned buildings of Central European Forum (Středoevropské Forum or SEFO) will be an extension of the Olomouc Museum of Modern Art on Denisova ulice where five historic houses were demolished in 1969. The site is currently vacant but if funding is obtained for the project it should be completed and opened to the public by 2014. The first proposed designs for the Central European Forum were presented to the public last week and have provoked enthusiastic debate.

The modern design is for buildings of poured concrete mimicking the height and shape of the residential houses along the street, but with a smooth finish devoid of any decorative detail. In addition to exhibition halls, the forum will include a library, bookstore, performance space, garden amphitheatre, cafe, and multimedia archives. Director of the Olomouc Art Museum, Pavel Zatloukal says "The new museum will not be a place where people whisper and walk on tiptoes. On the contrary, we want visitors to become active participants creatively and artistically" and therefore generous space will be reserved for artistic activities.

The plans for the forum are the subject of an exhibition in the Olomouc Museum of Modern Art lasting until next Sunday the 18th, or you can see photo galleries here and here and a virtual tour here or here.

Opponents to the design say that it looks like a air raid shelter and the style of architecture doesn't belong in the valuable historic centre of baroque Olomouc. The site is directly opposite the recently restored Stará Škola ( the oldest part of Moravia's oldest university) and the monumental baroque church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows.

Olomoucký Deník explains that priest Pavel Bačo will look across at the forum every day and quotes him as saying the design is “like a fist in the face. That style of architecture doesn't belong here and it would be better to build nothing at all than something like that. If there's a petition against the design, I'll support it”.

There's an impassioned discussion on t his website but like most internet discussions the commentators say more about themselves than they do about the subject. Between the pointless insults, the consensus among opponents to the design is that it doesn't suit its surroundings. Some compare it to a crate of milk bottles waiting to be collected, a mouthful of teeth with one missing or a row of recycling bins. Supporters say it's outstanding and original and compare it to the Kunsthaus in Graz, the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Eiffel tower.

One prominent supporter of the design is city mayor Martin Novotný who likes the suggestion of the five buildings that previously stood on the site and says that the design is memorable enough to become its own logo. Mayor Novotný was however careful to point out that his opinions don't represent an official reaction from city hall and that a vigorous public discussion can only be good. The National Historic Preservation Authority is yet to publicly comment.

For my part, I'm really not sure what to think. It's reassuring that the same architects are those responsible for the wonderful interiors of the Olomouc Archdiocese Museum, I'm a fan of Prague's dancing building and I'd be pleased to see architect Kaplicky's blob library go ahead. Any city would be proud to have a museum like Graz's Kunsthaus or Bilbao's Guggenheim.

The thing about daring projects though, is risk. Sometimes you get away with them and sometimes you don't. If this version of the SEFO project goes ahead successfully, Olomouc will reclaim its place among the cultural capitals of Central Europe. If it turns out looking like grain silos or an air raid shelter, it will spoil a prominent part of the historic centre and confirm the prejudices of smug Praguers who think that everything past the end of their Metro line is an overgrown village populated by mullet-wearing bumpkins.

While I'd like to think Olomouc has the pizzazz to bring this off, I'm not completely convinced. What do you think?

Where and what was the Sudetenland?

2009-05-05T09:33:00.007+02:00

The Sudetenland was a collective name for the regions of the Czech lands that had a majority German population when Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918.

The Sudetenland mostly consisted of Czech border regions, where German settlers and their descendants had lived since the 1300’s when they were invited by King Přemysl Otakar II to farm, mine and guard the wild mountainous edges of his kingdom.

The German settlers and their descendants flourished while dynasties of Bohemian kings came and went. In the 1600’s the Czech lands were absorbed into Austria and ruled by Habspurg emperors from Vienna. Under the Austrians, German was the language of government, education and culture, and Czech was gradually reduced to a spoken rural argot, in danger of dying out altogether until its revival in the 19th century.

At the end of World War One, when defeated Austria was carved into several countries (according to the principles of self determination) Germans and Czechs within the newly created Czechoslovakia found their roles suddenly reversed. The Germans became an ethnic minority and the Czechs were suddenly the power-wielding, law-making majority.

Many of the ethnic Germans were displeased with their new situation, and felt discriminated against. Through the 1920s and the difficult years of the Great Depression the idea of seceding from Czechoslovakia and joining neighbouring Germany and Austria became increasingly popular among Sudeten Germans and their political leaders.

Once Austria had been annexed to Germany in 1938, German leader Adolf Hitler began to enthusiastically support and encourage Sudeten German ideas of joining his Third Reich to escape perceived oppression by the ruling Czech majority. Support turned to demands; armed uprisings and invasions threatened, and in 1938 a meeting was called between Western European leaders to discuss “the Sudeten Question”.

In Munich, the leaders of England and France agreed that they would offer no military opposition to the Sudeten regions seceding and joining Germany. If Czechoslovakia wanted to resist Sudeten secession and German expansion, it would have to do so alone, despite a current military alliance with France.

In October 1938, the Sudetenland was annexed by Hitler’s Germany and the British and French leaders returned home as triumphant peacemakers. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to the meeting and not surprisingly it’s usually referred to by Czechs as the Munich Betrayal.

Hitler had promised at Munich that once the Sudeten question was solved, he had no further territorial ambitions in Europe. Six months later his troops occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia, and six months after that they marched into Poland and World War Two began.

In 1945, with the Czech lands liberated by Soviet forces from the east and Allied forces from the west, the Potsdam conference decreed that the German population of Czechoslovakia would be transferred to Germany or Austria, leaving the Czech lands to be occupied almost solely by Czechs.

This population transfer (or expulsion, depending on translation of the Czech word “Odsun”) remains a highly controversial subject and influences Czech-German political relations even to the present time. Its direct effect on the Sudeten regions was to leave them notably underpopulated, with many towns and villages completely deserted.

After the expulsion, the Sudeten areas were resettled by Czechoslovak citizens of other ethnicities, Czechs, Moravians, Slovaks, Gypsies (Roma), and Ruthenians (from the far eastern tip of Czechoslovakia that was ceded to the Soviet Union). Many villages and areas were never properly resettled and fell quickly into neglect, especially along the southern and western borders where the ‘Iron Curtain’ was descending. Away from prosperous tourist magnets like Český Krumlov and Karlovy Vary, attentive travellers will sense a difference between the former Sudeten regions and the rest of the country even today.

One last thing about the words Sudeten and Sudetenland, is to be careful using them, especially around anybody who might be old enough to remember the brutal Nazi occupation. In 1942, Czechoslovak president-in-exile Beneš wrote “the words Sudeten, Sudetenland and Sudete will forever in our Czech lands be connected with Nazi brutality toward we Czechs and toward democratic Germans before and after the fateful crisis of 1938”.

When in doubt, use “former” as a preface, or follow the example of Brigadier General George Taylor; signing a surrender agreement he crossed out the “Elbogen, Sudetenland” of his German counterpart, noted “does not exist” and replaced it with the town's pre-war name “Loket, Czechoslovakia” avoiding the S-word altogether.

Related posts:
Schindler’s Svitavy
All the famous Czechs were Germans
The Fateful Eights

A trip to Třeboň

2009-10-27T18:07:00.002+01:00

If you ask Czech people about visiting Třeboň often the first two things they will mention will be the local fishponds and that it's a spa town. The carp from the nearby ponds are certainly a local specialty worth trying but the spa is of no use to casual visitors. Treatments have to be booked weeks in advance, there's nothing interesting about the architecture and the spa patients add little if anything to the atmosphere and public life of the town.

Třeboň is as beautiful as any other small town in Bohemia and for foreign visitors the most attractive thing is not the fish or the spa, but the historic architecture of the compact old town. There's a lovely main square with a sprawling chateau complex at one end, a Neo-Gothic brewery complex that looks like a small castle and narrow cobblestoned back streets lined with colourfully painted two storey houses and the whole town is surrounded by either parkland or water.

At the highest point of the old town is a striking church with an unusual double nave. The church of St Giles was built in the late 1300's and became a popular model for churches in Bohemia and South Moravia for the cleanliness and simplicity of its architectural forms, clever lighting and high standard of craftsmanship. Three preserved altar panels painted by the otherwise unidentified Master of Třeboň similarly influenced the development of Central European painting.

Třeboň's main square is long and narrow; about four times as long as it is wide. At the eastern end a busy street swoops in from the side and leaves again through the old Gothic gate tower, but the rest of the square is a pedestrian zone. At the western end the buildings of the chateau hide behind two big trees and halfway along the southern side the 31metre high clock tower of the town hall dwarfs the two and three storey buildings around it. The other buildings around the edge of the square mostly house shops and other businesses and there at least half a dozen restaurants that set up outdoor seating areas in the warmer months.

The Třeboň chateau is a sprawling complex of connected and free-standing palaces separated by crunchy gravel courtyards. Originally a fortress and castle, the chateau was rebuilt by the lords of Rožmberk in the 16th century and added to by their successors, the Schwarzenbergs, in the 17th century.

The Rožmberks were a branch of the noble Vitkovice landowning dynasty, whose power and influence in South Bohemia rivalled or exceeded that of the Bohemian king, and in 1573 Vilem of Rožmberk was a candidate for the throne of Poland. After selling Český Krumlov to Emperor Rudolf II in 1601, the Rožmberks chose Třeboň as their main residential seat. Amongst other possessions they moved their family archive which, despite being partially looted by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War, remains one of the most extensive and valuable collections of documents from medieval Bohemia with documents dating back as far as 1184.

The last of the Rožmberks, Petr Vok, died heirless in 1611 and after the uncertainty following the Thirty Years War, the Schwarzenberg family emerged as owners of the Třeboň castle and estates, gaining thus their first possessions in the Czech lands. The chateau palaces are accessible to the public in two main parts; the renaissance palaces of the Rožmberks and the 19th century apartments of the Schwarzenbergs. Also within the chateau complex are two restaurants, a cafe and the grounds and parks are freely accessible for visitors to wander and explore at their own pace.

Just outside town and across the Svět pond is the other prominent historic site connected with the Schwarzenbergs. Their neo-Gothic family tomb was built in the 1870's to house the coffins of several generations of their ancestors. An essentially octagonal building surrounded by hedges, gravel paths and thick groves of mixed forest, the Schwarzenberg tomb is an impressive example of the precise 19th century neo-gothic style of architecture with its turrets, flourishes and decorative touches.

The upper floor is a chapel and beneath it down a short staircase is the crypt in which 26 coffins lie side by side. The walls and ceilings of both floors appear to be made of precisely fitted blocks of pale stone, but they're actually of fired brick covered with a decorative layer of carved and stamped plaster. The plaster used is a special cement-free mix that hasn't yet needed repair in the 130 years of its existence.

The detailed 40 minute guided tour of the Schwarzenberg tomb is something like a walk through the family's history, beginning with their roots in Bavaria, their arrival in Třeboň after the Thirty Years' War, and their long history of service at the Hapsburg imperial court in Vienna. The largest coffin in the crypt belongs to Felix Schwarzenberg, who was foreign minster of Austria-Hungary when he died in 1852. Apparently the size of the coffin has more to do with politics and prestige, because he was actually quite a small man.

In the 1940's the Schwarzenberg lands were confiscated by the Nazis and the family fled to exile in the United States. Shortly after returning to reclaim their ancestral lands, the Schwarzenbergs were dispossessed again, this time by the nationalisation policies of the new communist government. This time they went into exile in Austria, from where they actively supported Czechoslovakian political dissidents.

Some of their former possessions were returned to the family in the early 1990's after the fall of the communist regime, but the majority of it remained the property of the state. The Schwarzenberg tomb itself is Czech government property; only the coffins belong to the family. Like other major aristocratic landholdings, there are ongoing court cases involving the restitution of Schwarzenberg property and it seems likely that the tomb will be returned to the family eventually.

Walking back from the tomb toward Třeboň the path leads along the top of the Svět pond levee bank past a frightful statue of the Rožmberks' local governor, Jakub Krčín. This southern road into the old town is spanned by two stone gate towers about 50 metres apart. Between the two gates on one side are the two best fish restaurants in town and on the other is the local brewery.

The brewery produces Regent beer and was founded when the Schwarzenberg counts reconstructed the old Rožmberk armoury at the beginning of the 18th century. Tours of the brewery are available for groups of five people or more and there's a good beer hall on the premises. A meal of local fish washed down by a glass or two of unfiltered yeast beer is one of the more appetising regional specialties in the Czech lands. Try the carp fillet chips.

In late October or November every year, the fishponds around Třeboň are drained and the fish transferred to tanks until just before Christmas. The fish harvests (výlovy rybníků) are a cultural tradition that dates back centuries and the weekend celebrations usually feature live music and dance, beer, wine and other specialties to go along with all the fresh fish.

Třeboň's rich calendar of cultural events also includes the mushroom celebrations in September and the Festival of Animated Film in May which is, along with the Festival of Children's Films in Zlin and PIFPAF Olomouc, one of the best opportunities to see why Czech animation is so highly regarded across the world.

Public transport to Třeboň
Třeboň tourist information
Compare Třeboň hotel prices

Where the Czech...? #115

2009-10-23T06:48:00.000+02:00

Does anybody recognise this pretty town square?

Biking around Břeclav

2009-10-19T14:46:00.003+02:00

For most travellers, Břeclav is one of those places like Kolín or Přerov that you pass through dozens of times without ever getting off the train. Simultaneously one of the oldest and youngest settlements in the Czech lands, there's plenty in and around Břeclav to reward any traveller who makes the effort to visit.

Just outside town near the Pohansko hunting lodge are the preserved foundations of buildings from the time of the Great Moravian empire, but most of Břeclav's current architecture is less than 100 years old, thanks mostly to the Allied bombs of 1944 that effectively destroyed the historic centre of town.

There are however a handful of historic buildings, the most impressive of which is the chateau. From the 14th Century Břeclav belonged to the noble Liechtenstein dynasty, but passed to the Žerotíns in the early 1500's. They had time to transform the old fortified castle into a renaissance palace before joining the losing side in the estates uprising and forfeiting their South Moravian lands back to the Liechtensteins. The Liechtensteins added three romantically pre-ruined towers to the castle which they owned until they had to leave the Czech lands in 1945. The chateau's communist era sufferings are slowly being repaired and a wine cellar, restaurant and guesthouse operate on the site.

The baroque church of St Wenceslas that was destroyed in 1944 was replaced in the early 1990's by a reinforced concrete church whose modern origami angles look like they belong somewhere in the new world. Just around the corner opposite the very friendly and helpful tourist information office is a former synagogue and in the outskirts of town is an old Jewish cemetery with gravestones from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Across the river in the suburb of Poštorna is the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The high octagonal roof of the red brick neo-Gothic church is visible for miles across the flat countryside and is as recognisable a Břeclav landmark as either the chateau or the spires of the new St Wenceslas' church.

Probably the best reason to visit Břeclav though is its proximity to the Lednice-Valtice area, which was added to the UNESCO world heritage list in 1996, because of the way it “succeeds in bringing together in harmony cultural monuments from successive periods and both indigenous and exotic natural elements to create an outstanding work of human creativity.”

The towns of Lednice and Valtice are each around ten kilometres (seven miles) from Břeclav and from each other and the triangular area in between is the core of the world heritage area. Covered in flood plain forest, vineyards, a 200 hectare landscaped park, and crisscrossed by smooth trails and quiet roads, it's the perfect place for a day or weekend of cycling and exploring. Břeclav tourist information has bicycles for hire from 300Kč per day for a single or 450Kč for a tandem.

I've cycled the area twice recently, once alone and once with friends and the only trouble we had was that there was too much to see and do in the time we'd allowed, which I guess is a good problem to have.

Find train connections to Břeclav
Contact Břeclav tourist information

Where the Czech...? #114

2009-10-16T16:56:00.000+02:00

Who knows what this building is?

All about Czech train tickets

2008-04-20T11:32:00.036+02:00

Every country has its own way of doing things, and this article is about what to expect when it comes time to organize your travels by train in the Czech Republic.

Routes and timetables
The online timetables are the first place you should visit when planning your train travel. It’s the best way to find out what time trains run to your destination, how long they will take, and whether you have to change trains during your journey.

It’s as simple as typing in your starting point, your destination and approximately when you intend to depart. Then just hit 'Search' and wait for the results. A typical timetable search result looks something like this:What this tells us is that a train departs from Prague’s Masaryk Station at 9.46 and arrives at Kutná Hora almost two hours later for a cost of 109Kč (unless you have the Z-card, which we’ll talk about under ‘discounts’). You might notice that at 9.47 a faster, more direct and cheaper train leaves from Prague’s main station (hl.n stands for hlavní nádraží = main station). I’d take that one.

The train at 10.38 involves changing trains at Kolin. The Hradišťan is an express that heads to the Moravské Slovacko region, home of the Ride of the Kings. To get to Kutná Hora, you’d need to alight at Kolín main station at 11.29, then jump on a local train five minutes later to cover the last few kilometres across to your destination.

Most of the symbols on the timetables are self explanatory, but if you’re using Internet Explorer, you can hover over them for a more detailed explanation.

How much will it cost?
The online timetables will give you more or less accurate prices for journeys within the Czech borders. For international tickets, however, it’s best to use jizdenka.cz.

Make sure you’ve selected International at the top, and then you should just be able to fill in your starting point, your destination and get an accurate price in both Euros and Crowns. This site works best if you choose your destinations from the list that pops up when you begin typing. This is how my search for an Olomouc-Krakow ticket turned out:

International tickets
Standard International tickets look like this. This one’s an Olomouc-Krakow return. You may be able to see that it’s valid for two months and costs much less than two one-way tickets. (We’ll talk more about that under ‘discounts’). The '01 Erwachsener' at the top means one adult and the class of carriage is indicated in the 'Tř/cl/kl' box below. The price is self explanatory and the rest of it you don’t need to worry about too much.

The only way you can really get caught out with one of these tickets is if you accidentally get on a service that takes a roundabout route. For example the afternoon train from Olomouc to Krakow is direct and covers the 250km in 4 hrs 20mins, crossing the border at Zebrzydowice. However, the morning services go all the way up to Katowice, where you have to change to a local Polish train to get across to Krakow. This makes the trip longer by 36km. Because the prices are worked out by the kilometre, the conductor may ask you to top up your fare or even pay a small fine. See ‘seat reservations’ below for one possible way to avoid the chance of this happening.

Domestic tickets This is an ordinary domestic train ticket. Osob indicates the number of passengers, Třída is the class, and the group discount (see below) is indicated as Sleva pro skupiny. Jednoduchá means one way. If it was a return ticket, the word Zpateční would be printed instead. 231Kč each for 250km is pretty good value-cheaper even than the bus.

Seat reservations
Train tickets aren’t usually issued for a specific service. Notice that the tickets above have no train numbers or departure times printed on them. Domestic tickets are usually valid for any train on the day of purchase and the following day, and ordinary international tickets are valid for two months.

If you want to be assured of a seat on a specific train, you need to also purchase a místenka or seat reservation. There’s an extra fee for this but it guarantees you a specific seat in a specific carriage on a specific train. I usually don’t bother and just walk along until I find an empty seat. The cabins with reserved seats are often full and you have no choice whether to sit by the window or face forwards or backwards. In almost ten years of travelling without seat reservations on Czech trains, I’ve only had to stand in the aisle a couple of times, and even then not for the entire journey.

Reserving in advance online
If you really want a seat reservation, it’s usually enough to go in to the station a day or two before your journey and buy your ticket. If you’d like to plan even further ahead than that (maybe you’re travelling on the eve of a major public holiday?) you can even reserve online. The catch is that you need to then visit a Czech train station (it need not be the one you’re departing from) within a week, to pay for and pick up your seat reservation. Don’t forget to take along the printout with your reference number –it will look something like this:
Obviously visiting a Czech train station is not very convenient if you’re in, say, Chicago. Please believe me though that the trains are rarely full and it’s almost always enough to book, for example, your Wednesday ticket out of Plzeň when you arrive in town on the Monday.

Discounts
There are several ways to save money on Czech train tickets. The best are the 3-year 'In-Karta' (formerly Z-Karta) passes, which cost 600Kč. For the purposes of this article though, I’ll stick to those discounts that might be useful for short term visitors to the country.

The simplest is the group discount. When two or more people travel together, they’re entitled to a group discount which is 25% off the normal 2nd class ticket price. When three or four or more people travel together the discount is even higher. To get the group discount, just be sure to buy one ticket for two (or more) people, not two (or more) individual tickets. You should get the discount automatically but if you want to be certain, the name of the discount is Sleva pro skupiny (discount for groups). When you check your travel times on the online timetables, there are two prices listed; the first is the full price, the second is the Z-Card price, and is what you can expect to pay with a group discount. In the case of our Kutná Hora trip above, each person in your group would pay 82Kč on the first train and 72Kč on the second.

Return tickets are a good way to save money on a daytrip. And if you’re a small group, you’ll get the return discount, plus the group discount! Domestic return tickets are valid on the day of purchase and the day after. International return tickets are valid for 2 months.

The normal youth pass (for under 26 year olds) is valid for 3 years and costs 600Kč, so is not usually suitable for short term visitors to the country. Another version though is the Youth Summer pass. It costs just 100Kč, is valid from the 21st of June until the 20th of September, and entitles its holder to the same discount as if she were part of a group. If you’re not travelling alone, don’t bother buying the youth pass because you already qualify for the discount by being a small group.

The ‘SONE+’ weekend tickets can be good value in the right circumstances. There are two types of SONE+ ticket. The first is valid for slow ‘O’ or ‘Os’ trains only and costs 130Kč. It entitles two adults to ride the Os trains as far as they like on the day of purchase, which must be either a Saturday or a Sunday. The more expensive SONE+ goes for 390Kč but allows its holders to travel also on the express and intercity trains. SONE+ tickets also allow up to 3 children (up to 15 years of age) to travel along with the two adults at no extra cost. The ticket is also valid for some towns in the border regions of neighbouring countries. Probably the most useful of those for international travellers are the services to Dresden in Germany and Cieszyn in Poland.

At the station
At larger train stations domestic and international tickets are usually sold from different places. Vnitřostatní (Domestic) and Mezinárodní (International) are the words to look out for. You may find that the international tickets are sold from an office tucked away somewhere to the side of the station’s main hall. The same office might also issue travel passes and change foreign currency.

When checking the departures board to find out which platform your train leaves from, make sure you’re looking at the departures (odjezdy) board. Příjezdy are arrivals. The boards are fairly self explanatory, but if you’re getting off at a minor station, you’ll need to know the number or end destination of your train. For example, if want to catch the 10.38 express to get to Kutná Hora, the board will say 10.38 R707 HRADIŠŤAN Pardubice, Olomouc, Uherské Hradišťe, LUHAČOVICE. There will also be a number on the departures board under ‘Nást’, or nástupiště. That’s your platform. If there’s a number in the 'Zpoz' or zpozdění column, it means your train is delayed by that number of minutes.

On the train
If you reserved a seat, you'll find it most easily if you get on the correct carriage. Either in the station or on the platform, there will be a sign showing the arrangement of carriages on the express and Intercity trains. Once on board, it's just a matter of walking along the carriage, checking for your numbered seat. If you haven't reserved a seat, be aware of the slips of paper in the numbered racks outside each cabin. They're reservations and that lovely empty windowside seat may not be available after all.

So that's what I can tell you about train travel in the Czech lands. I decided to write this article because lots of people were stumbling across the blog by searching for this kind of information, and I thought that to collect it all together might be helpful. I'll be posting an article about bus travel in the coming weeks, but if you can think of anything I might have missed or not explained properly about trains, please let me know in the comments below. And please don't be afraid to comment if you're a first-time visitor to the blog. Everybody was a first-time traveller once and nobody will think your questions are silly.

All aboard...

The best daytrips from Prague

2009-06-01T13:53:00.005+02:00

The strategy of using a big city as a base for day trips into the surrounding countryside is a popular one, and there are plenty of interesting destinations within an hour or so of Prague.

Kutná Hora
Most travellers first hear of Kutná Hora in connection with the famous “bone church” in which the skeletal remains of up to 40,000 people have been arranged into decorative shapes such as urns, a coat of arms and a chandelier that contains at least one of every bone in the human body.

The daytrip from Prague is an easy one, with frequent train connections to Kutná Hora main station, from where it’s about 10minutes’ walk through the suburb of Sedlec to the bone church. Don’t make the mistake of turning around and going home once you’ve seen it though, because a short bus ride or 20 minute walk away is one of Bohemia’s most beautiful historic old towns.

St Barbara’s in the centre of Kutná Hora is probably the most spectacular cathedral in the country, the museum of al chemy is excellent and it’s possible to descend six floors down into Kutná Hora’s cold, dark underbelly on a hard-hatted, torchlit tour of the medieval silver mines. If you don’t have that much enthusiasm for sights and activities, the cobbled streets and squares of old Kutná Hora easily support an afternoon’s lazy wandering and there are some good cheap restaurants, bars and cafes serving local drinks and food.

Karlštejn castle
The second really popular daytrip from Prague is to Karlštejn castle, set above a village in the green valley of the Berounka river. Again the daytrip is simple, with dozens of direct trains between Prague and Karlštejn each day. Karlštejn castle was built in the 1300’s to house Charles IV’s collection of holy relics and the Bohemian crown jewels. At 330Kc for the complete tour, it’s not the cheapest daytrip from Prague and as visitor numbers to the upper palace are limited it may require some planning in advance.

Terezín
About an hour north of Prague, not far from the junction of the Ohře and Labe rivers lies an old red brick baroque fortress erected by the Austrians to help guard their lands against the Prussians in the 18th century.

The Austro-Prussian tensions were resolved elsewhere, but Terezín played a key role in a 20th century military conflict, when it was converted by the Nazis into their foremost Jewish ghetto and prison in the Czech lands. The Jewish and Christian cemeteries, former Gestapo prison, concentration camp and Jewish ghetto are all open to the public and their stories are well-told and fascinating, if not especially cheerful. Direct buses from Prague’s Florenc station take about an hour to reach Terezín.

Lidice
Much closer to Prague, but also connected with WWII are the memorial and museum at the former site of Lidice, which was the first village completely wiped from the map by Nazi machine guns, bulldozers and explosives in retaliation for the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich by the Czechoslovakian resistance in 1942. Halfway between Prague and Kladno, the memorial is open year round and is an eloquent commentary on the senseless brutality of the Nazi occupation.

Žatec
Czech beer is famous worldwide and Žatec makes an excellent daytrip from Prague for any connoisseur of the amber fluid. Better known abroad under its old German name Saaz, Žatec is the centre of one of the world’s premier hops-growing regions, and the town’s hops museum is a top-notch place to get the full story before you hit a pub to try the award winning local Žatec beer. Even if you’re not into beer, Žatec has a lovely historic old town centre filled with church spires, renaissance arcades and gothic gate towers. Get there before they make the UNESCO-world heritage list and everybody wants to go.

Mělník
Mělník is similar to Žatec in size, age and riverside location, but is the place to go for Bohemian wine. South Moravia is the Czech Republic’s main winemaking region but the one place in Bohemia with the right conditions is the Labe river valley near Mělník. The renaissance chateau or any of the local wine cellars offer wine-tasting but it’s also worth leaving time to explore the charming old town. The lookout tower and bone-crypt of the majestic clifftop church of Sts Peter and Paul, the tour of the catacombs and a visit to the teahouse in the old gothic gate tower are the highlights.

Related posts and resources:
Kutná Hora
Bone churches of Bohemia and Moravia
The Kutná Hora bone church
Free daytrip guide to Kutná Hora with maps
Getting to Kutná Hora
Karlštejn
Charles has left the building
Terezín
Bohemia’s saddest buildings
Getting to Terezín
Lidice
Lidice memorial and museum
Žatec
Žatec Hops museum
Mělník
Mělník
Getting to Mělník

Contact

2007-03-21T15:57:00.009+01:00

Email

Oddsocks@olomouc.cz

Where the Czech...? #113

2009-10-09T15:21:00.002+02:00

Who knows where and what this building is?

Wine harvest festivals

2009-09-22T00:31:00.005+02:00

Vinobraní is the name given to the traditional autumnal wine harvest festivals of the Czech lands, and the 2009 season is in full swing.

A traditional vinobraní in a small vineyard sees family members and friends travel from all ends of the country to help bring in the year's grapes and prepare the new wine. A small house or large weekend cottage near the vineyard is the focus of activity, and there seems to be as much or more eating, drinking, singing and laughing as there is fruitpicking or wine making, as well as catching up and sharing burčák with neighbours and friends not seen since the same time last year.

But there are also public vinobraní festivals that anyone can go along to and the biggest and best are held in South Moravia, the country's main wine growing region. Znojmo and Mikulov both had their festivals on the weekend of the 11th and 12th, Mělník and Bzenec were this weekend just gone and Velké Pavlovice's vinobraní was way back at the beginning of the month. But the season being in full swing means it's not over yet. On the 3rd of October the Valtice vinobraní will take place at the UNESCO-listed chateau and coming up on the 25th and 26th of September will be the Litoměřice vinobraní and the Valtice burčák festival.

Despite being little known abroad, burčák is a favourite and much anticipated drink in the Czech lands. A lightly alcoholic drink made from partially fermented white grape juice, burčák is only available for a short time each year and in South Moravia, they sometimes say there are four seasons; winter, spring, summer and burčák.

Good burčák should be golden and slightly cloudy and is best a few days after the beginning of the fermentation process. It's also possible to make burčák from red grapes, but because of the way red wine is left to steep and colour, it's difficult to find outside the wine growing regions themselves.

They say that burčák cleanses the blood and that to do its job properly, you need to consume as much burčák as you have blood. And at every vinobraní plenty of people gleefully set about doing just that, because it's sweet and easy to drink in great quantities. But take it easy the first time. Burčák contains living yeast cultures that continue to work in your body when consumed, and drinking too much too quickly might see you cleansing more than just your bloodstream.

That said, it's a natural product high in vitamin B, and when Mrs. Oddsocks was at the doctor last week, she was told “Burčák is healthy, drink as much as you like”.

Na zdraví!

A pilgrimage to Pelhřimov

2009-10-05T06:30:00.002+02:00

Pelhřimov is best known as being the city of world records and the home of Poutník beer, one of the best brews in the country. But its old town centre has a fine collection of historic architecture including churches, gate towers and some lovely residential buildings, particularly the ones facing the main square.

The town was apparently founded in 1225-26 by Bishop Pelegrin of Prague who passed through on a pilgrimage to Rome and was so taken by the beauty of the place that he founded a settlement. The symbol of Pelhřimov is a pilgrim at the gates of a fortified city and the town's name is derived from the name Pelegrin, so there seems to be substance to the legend even if no written records.

At its beginning Pelhřimov was a wooden town and the architectural highlights that survive today are all from later centuries. The preserved parts of the old town walls and the upper and lower gate towers are from the 14th century, as is the church of St Bartholomew. The valuable town houses range from the 16th century to a rare cubist reconstruction from the early 20th century. Just on the northern edge of the old town are St Vitus' church and a free-standing bell tower which were rebuilt for the Jesuits in the early 1700's.

St Bartholomew's church towers over the upper end of the main square but its entrance is from the western end that faces away from the square. The original Gothic torso of the church has been preserved but was covered with a striking pattern of deep red and white sgraffito when that became fashionable in the 1500's.

The main square is surrounded by attractive old houses representing architectural styles from early Gothic to the present. The beautifully crooked and asymmetrical house at number 17 is the oldest on the square and once belonged to the city burgrave. Renaissance arches and baroque scrolls decorate houses on all sides of the square, and the imposing facade of the Hotel Slavie was refurbished in the art nouveau style in the 1920's.

The most architecturally interesting building on the square though is the house at number 13, which was rebuilt in the Cubist style in 1914. Architect Pavel Janák redesigned balconies, windows, the gable and added subtle cubist relief work to the facade. The hard edges and acute angles of cubism might sound out of place amongst historic facades from the 16and 17th centuries, but it's a clever, subtle and original design that fits in surprisingly well. Along with the burgrave's house it was the highlight of the square for me. Unfortunately the style that might best be called Drab and Insensitive Post-revolution Commercialism is also present in building of the bank over on the corner where Palackého Ul enters the square.

Along Palackého is the lower gate tower and its five floors are home to the Museum of records and curiosities. Inside are displayed and explained the biggest, fastest, longest, oldest and smallest of everything from motorcycles to scarves to feats of strength and endurance. There are also quite a few huge items of clothing that seem to have been sewn by their companies purely for the purpose of getting into the museum, but the real curiosities like cross-country water skis(!!) were the most interesting part of the museum for me.

Pelhřimov is 105km from Prague, 50km from Tábor, 30km from Jihlava and direct buses travel to and from those towns several times each day.

Connections to Pelhřimov
Museum of Records and Curiosities
Accommodation

Where the Czech...? #112

2009-10-02T10:17:00.001+02:00

Does anybody know what and where this building is?

Temelin nuclear power plant

2009-09-28T03:43:00.001+02:00

The Temelín nuclear power plant between Protivín and Týn nad Vltavou in South Bohemia is probably the most controversial modern structure in the Czech lands, and with recent developments it seems like it will be in the news for some time yet.

The second of the Czech Republic's nuclear power plants, the construction of Temelín began in 1987. In the uncertainty of the early 1990's the government scaled back and built only the first two of the four planned production blocks. Temelín's current owners, ČEZ (the Czech Energy Company) now want to expand to the original four blocks, and have called for tenders for the project which it hopes to complete by the year 2020.

The expansion of the plant has raised concerns in neighbourin g Austria, where a vocal section of the community has long voiced their disapproval of what they see as dangerously antiquated Soviet technology uncomfortably close to their northern border. From time to time the more fervent activists get so worked up as to block the border crossings at Dolní Dvořište and Železná Ruda or to picket the Czech embassy in Vienna. It's hard to take Austrian complaints seriously though while they continue to voluntary purchase surplus Czech electricity, a substantial portion of which (at least theoretically) comes from Temelín.

Temelín and ČEZ have been in the Czech news because of a controversial and overpriced contract awarded to a shady company whose former director was recently jailed for planning the violent abduction of his replacement. The understandable Czech wariness of Russian influence is also a large factor in the public debate about the expansion. Supporters of the project say that an expanded Temelin will reduce future reliance on fossil fuels from the east, but opponents worry that the involvement of Russian companies in the project could have the opposite effect. The recent expulsion of two Russian diplomats for spying on sensitive Czech Republic energy concerns seems to indicate that there's at least some substance to their fears.

From 1991 onwards, the construction of Temelín underwent dozens of inspections by experts from the International Agency for Atomic Energy and their recommendations prompted further modifications to the design. The replacement of the control and warning system with a new digital version and a complete upgrade to inflammable cables were the greatest changes and Temelín became the only nuclear power plant in the world to use only inflammable cables. The new systems were supplied and installed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and on the recommendation of IAAE inspectors, Westinghouse was also chosen as the supplier of the fuel, but that contract ended several years ago and the Russian company Tvel will supply Temelín's nuclear fuel for at least the next ten years.

Somehow I'd gained the impression that it would be possible to tour parts of the power station when a group of more than five people gathered, but I apparently misunderstood. Tours of the site are available but only to school groups or groups with some kind of professional interest. Even then, the identities of the visitors are thoroughly checked weeks in advance. As the receptionist pointed out 'touring a nuclear power plant is not an everyday thing'.

There is however an interesting and informative visitors' centre in the Vysoký Hrádek chateau near the eastern tip of the powerplant's four square kilometres. Control panel simulators, fuel rod casings and working models of various power sources are all on display but the two things I liked most were the 15 minute 3D film and the working tabletop model of a cloud chamber.

A cloud chamber is an instrument that creates the right conditions to show radiation, in this case the background alpha, beta and gamma rays that are in the atmosphere all around us all the time. It works by creating a mist of evaporated alcohol which condenses when hit by alpha, beta or gamma rays, something like the vapour trail that follows an aircraft wing in the right atmospheric conditions. The different types of radiation variously looked like wriggly worms of five to six centimetres had shed their skins or as if pellets from a toy gun had been shot through the cloud. The less frequent gamma rays were more like shots from a real gun. I found it quite fascinating and could have watched for hours.

If you're passing through South Bohemia and would like to take a peek for yourself, the Temelín visitors' centre is open year round, seven days a week from at least 9am to 4pm (longer hours in summer). Admission is free of charge.

Where the Czech...? #111

2009-09-25T10:01:00.001+02:00

With last week's challenge unsolved here are two photos for you this week; to solve it you need to identify both places...

Where the Czech...? #110

2009-09-18T07:00:00.000+02:00

Anybody recognise this old Czech town?