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Costume
Last summer we visited a Milotice castle, a baroque castle situated in South Moravia. When we entered the castle’s court yard, we noticed a poster inviting everybody to “Change into a period costume!”. After a while we noticed a group of three women dressed in enchanting period gowns. Obviously they were having fun while promenading in the castle’s park, posing for photographs and chatting, and it felt as if we found ourselves in that period as well. The way we dress ourselves definitely influences or even decides on how we feel. To put on clothes of a different style than we are used to wearing may evoke a surprising experience…
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Pálava hills
Last summer, during our stay in South Moravia, we visited Pálava. Pálava belongs to the longest settled areas of the Czech Republic where remnants of prehistoric camping sites of mammoth hunters were discovered as well as a world-known ceramic figure of “The Venus of Dolní Věstonice”, a nude female figure with large breasts and wide hips. The figure was found in ash in a Palaeolithic site by Dolní Věstonice in 1925 and is dated to 29,000 – 25,000 BCE. It belongs to the oldest examples of ceramic articles worldwide. In 1976, Pálava was declared a protected landscape area and 10 years later in 1986 also UNESCO biosphere reserve. It is…
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Revisiting Kozel castle
During the last several years I posted quite a few photos taken in the park surrounding the Kozel castle. I’ve known the castle since my childhood but I see it differently every time I come there. The park is charming in each and every season. I’d like to add a few more photos to that collection today. The castle which is in the upper part of the photo above is not the only interesting building in the complex. Below it you can see greenhouses where plants are kept and grown during the colder months of a year. I liked that overall as well as detailed view. In the following photo…
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Photo bits and pieces
Thanks to my photography project I regularly take my camera into my hands and though there is still a lot I need to learn and improve, the regularity is enriching. I have more photos than I would have had without starting the project and though they may not be striking, I learn from each of them. The following photos were taken a few days ago and form somewhat incoherent set but I find them worthy of sharing here. Number 1: Cottage I wonder whether the cottage get flooded in spring when there is too much water in the river but in summer it must be a nice place to stay…
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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.…
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Faces of denial
A few months ago, Dan Brown’s Inferno was released, which is his latest novel. I have read all of his novels and felt curious what he would come up with now so I bought the book as soon as I saw it in a book store. Frankly, I have been disappointed in many respects. Nevertheless, there is mentioned a theory of denial in the story and I had to think about it a lot. It has stuck in my mind… The theory says that our human mind protects itself against feeling unbearable stress which could be faced when thinking too much about possible threats. We could be permanently afraid of…
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Buchlov castle
My family spent the last week of July in south-east Moravia, which represents the south-eastern part of the Czech Republic. We were staying in a camp and went on a trip every day so we visited a few castles and several interesting places I’d like to show you. On the first day we went to visit the Buchlov castle. The funniest part of that trip was that when we entered the first yard of the castle, I immediately realised we’d been there before. My husband didn’t believe me until we returned home when I proved my assertion by showing him photos we took at that time. So first I felt a…
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Bečov nad Teplou – castle, palace and chateau in one
There are not many places where you could find a Gothic castle, Renaissance palace and Baroque chateau as parts of one complex but I can show you one. If you come to Bečov nad Teplou, a wonderful view of such a complex surrounded by deep forests will open in front of you. First reliable information on the castle’s existence comes from 1349 when it was unequivocally documented in a charter. To a considerable extent, period decoration and many building features have been preserved as well as the medieval look of the castle. The chateau was built much later, at the beginning of the 18th century. After the WWII, when Beauforts…
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Bečov nad Teplou
This time I’ll take you to Bečov nad Teplou, a town whose name I’d translate for you as Bečov upon Teplá. We found out that there is a castle we hadn’t known about and went to see it. When we came to the town, I was surprised by its atmosphere, it looked good. Deep woods, a picturesque castle, pieces of metal plastic art displayed in the streets and reminding blacksmith symposiums having taken place during previous years. While we were passing by the first houses, we saw the following flower which immediately caught my attention. Later I was trying to identify it with the help of on-line field guides but…
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Kynžvart castle – Part 1
When we were looking for an interesting destination of our weekend trip a few weeks ago, our eyes fell on a description of the nature trail “Kladská” which we found on the Internet. The trail looked great but as it’s not that long and it’s situated about 100 kilometres from our home we wanted to add one more stop to make the trip perfect. Well, just a few kilometres away from the trail there is a town Kynžvart and its castle, so we went for it. I can tell you now how much I was surprised (once again) what a remarkable place it is. I wish I could see the…
