• Places in Czech Republic

    Park of Blatná castle

    At the end of my post about the castle in Blatná I promised to take you to the castle’s park so here we go. The park is open to the public all year round, free of charge. At the beginning of 19th century, the front part of the park was remodelled from a deer-park into an English style park, the back part remained preserved in its original form. Today the park is not as large as it used to be but it seems to have retained its charm. There used to stand several buildings in the park but today there is only one, an Empire style house, where Hildprant family…

  • Reflections

    Reflections

    Once I was standing on a bank of a pond, watching a duck resting just opposite and admiring its reflection in the water. It was such a tranquil scene… I zoomed in my camera in an effort to capture the impression but when I opened the photo on my laptop, I felt taken aback. Is this what I saw at the place? There is something wrong with the picture… And then it dawned on me. The reflection did not look as I supposed it should. The duck was there but there were also trees mirroring themselves in the water which could not be seen in the upper part of the…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Autumnal moments

    This year it seems to me that autumn has been slipping through my fingers mercilessly. There is always so much to do and leaves have been changing their colours and falling to the ground far too quickly. In a desperate effort to catch a few moments I took my camera when we went shopping a few days ago and made a short stop in a near village called Dolní Lukavice where there is a rather run-down castle surrounded by quite a large park. I’ve never been there so this has been the first time. The sky was overcast but here and there a few rays shined and lit the scene.…

  • Reflections

    Beads of memories

    When I was in my twentieth, I had a pair of friends who used to organise evenings of reading in their flat for a bunch of young people. I do not remember if there was served any food (probably just what participants brought with them) but there was always prepared a big pot of strong black tea with a pinch of cinnamon, the flavour was very unusual to me at that time. The reading was voluntary and everybody was welcome to participate in it. One could choose any book and any section of it to read it aloud to the others. To make them think, discuss the matter or laugh,…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Taking a stroll

    Temperatures are supposed to be falling significantly next weekend, it’s time to exchange summer tyres for winter ones. This morning I had an appointment at a garage in a near town where they did the exchange for me. I had to wait until it was finished so when I was thinking of what I was going to do during that time, I decided to take a camera with me and just stroll a bit. I headed for the part of the town where town people living in blocks of flats have their gardens, the area is located by a river. While walking along the river’s bank I came across a…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Kladská

    As I’ve already written, some time ago we were looking for an interesting destination of our weekend trip and while browsing the Internet, our eyes fell on a description of a nature trail “Kladská”. We liked the description and went there. The nature trail starts as well as ends in Kladská. Kladská is a village where you can find just a few buildings but their history – although not very long – is quite interesting. In 1873, the prince Otto Friedrich Schönburg-Waldenburg bought a woody area in this region and liked it so much that he started to build a village – a hunting castle with outbuildings, gamekeeper’s lodge, revenue…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Kozel castle – Part 3

    I tidied up my blog a bit, got rid of some older posts I found pointless, dressed the blog in a winter coat and now I can happily return to the last part of my Kozel castle series: There is a small island in the pond inhabited by ducks. I saw it from this side of the pond for the first time and was surprised that it was arranged and maintained. There were many ducks, coming for feed and looking tame, they were not afraid of watching people at all. Only when a dog appeared and ran after them, they followed their instinct without hesitation and flew away. I guess…