• Places in Czech Republic

    Spring is in the air

    …and that helped me to take my camera out of its bag and go with my hubby for the first photo walk this year. I can tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed the occasion. Stop No. 1: That construction in the background is a transformer station. It sits amid fields and buzzes quite aloud while transforming and transporting the electricity. Very technical and somewhat mysterious place… Stop No. 2: I am not much into horses but these two looked charming and well groomed, and curious to know what I was doing there at the fence… Stop No. 3: Guess what made me stop at this spot… Well, the bag tied to…

  • Focused on photography

    Fire engine and Rabí

    On Saturday my hubby and I went on a photo walk, despite quite unfavourable weather forecast. You never really know what the weather will be like in two hours in a location far enough from where you start and we rather wanted to give the photographing a chance than stay at home and regret what we might have missed. Well, I can tell you that the weather was bad enough at the destination we headed for and arrived at after almost an hour of driving. The temperature was just below the freezing point but the wind was chilly and then it started drizzling persistently so taking photos was rather a…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Castle and chateau Frýdlant

    In the Jizera Mountains in northern Bohemia, you can find a castle and chateau in one. It has the same name as a nearby town – Frýdlant – and belongs to one of the most important historical buildings in the Czech Republic. The castle was built in the 13th century to protect tradesmen using local business trails. A legend says that in the core of the castle was a stately tower on top of which fire was set to serve the tradesmen as a beacon. The castle was owned by several noble families that remodelled and improved the castle gradually. In the 16th century, part of the castle was rebuilt…

  • Poetry

    When the time comes

    Stone.Body like a stone.Heavy like a stone. Consciousness,at the edge of wakefulness,at the edge of awareness,at the edge of perception. At the edge of comprehension,when there is no way back,when one can’t wake up and live,when the way leads just to falling asleep. The door is getting closedto be openedwhen the time comes.

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Loket castle

    Do you have memories which you are not sure that are real? I have one which is very persistent. I don’t remember much from my childhood but I seem to remember very strongly that we went on a school trip to a castle called Loket. No more details, just this piece of information and it carries quite a positive feeling. I keep this memory like some treasure though I absolutely don’t know why, it’s so strange. Now, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the memory made me really curious about how the castle looks so last year my husband and I went to visit it. I loved…

  • Miscellaneous

    PF 2016

    Here we are again, at the end of another year. Nobody knows what the next year holds for them and how they’ll be able to embrace that. It’s time to wish one another strength, health and happiness and it’s high time to send New Year cards to our friends, families and business partners. Someone celebrates the last day of the year as a milestone, others refuse to see anything special in it, but the truth is that the date changes and we need to get used to that new number… I’ve posted New Year cards in this blog since 2011 and just a few weeks ago I was made aware…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Easter outing

    Though Easter cold and rainy weather forecast did not seem favourable for outings, we wanted to make one and decided to visit an Easter market at the castle Křivoklát. Frankly, I don’t like crowded places like such a market much but I had never been to Křivoklát, which is one of the oldest (more than 900 years since the first written reference) and most important castles of Bohemian kings, and this seemed to be a good opportunity to change that. When we arrived at Křivoklát, there were even more cars and people than I expected as we made an effort to get there soon enough but eventually it didn’t matter…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    This and that in Klenová

    A few years ago we stopped in Klenová for a while and visited an old church there, a small church hidden among trees. I just remembered there was also a gallery we didn’t want to visit at that time and having taken a few photos in front of the church and having spent several minutes there, we left for home. Last weekend we decided to visit that place once more and to be thorough this time and visit everything it offers. Which is the church, a gallery, an exhibition of photos and an exhibition of paintings, ruins of an old castle and a building of a new chateau. When we arrived at…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Blatná castle

    Amidst marshland, situated on rock bedrock, a wooden fortress used to stand. Then, in the 13th century, the fortress was rebuilt into a castle. Later a moat was built in the place of the marsh to protect the castle. That is where the history of the castle in Blatná, which is a small town in South Bohemia, dates back. The era of the family of the house of Rožmitál in the 15th century, under which the castle was remodelled significantly, is considered as the most important period in the castle’s history and sometimes it is called a golden age of the castle. The family of the house of Rožmitál was…