-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Having walked on New Year’s Day
In Czech we have a saying conveying that what you do and how you behave on the New Year’s Day, it will last through the whole year. A bit scary if things don’t go well on that particular day, isn’t it? But we always laugh at something rather than become afraid and take it easy. We started this year with a walk nearby. First we planned to go to Plzeň to participate in a march, that kind of a march when people come to a specified place, get registered, choose the length of the trail they want to conquer and when they arrive at the finish, they get a certificate…
-
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.…
-
Church in Břeclav – Poštorná
During our summer vacation in Moravia we made many plans and visited many places but the church I’m going to show you today wasn’t on any of our itineraries. We were just passing it during one of our trips and because it attracted our attention, we made a short stop by it when going back, to take a closer look. And a few photos of course. Unfortunately the sharp evening sun and fading light made it quite difficult to take a decent photo against the sky but you can at least imagine what the building looks like. There were so many interesting details and if it wasn’t that late we…
-
Windmill in Kuželov
Kuželov is a village with just about four hundred inhabitants but it is worth visiting. On a hill above the village you can see and visit an original windmill of a Dutch type, the only windmill of this type in the whole Moravia nowadays. The windmill was built in 1842 at the expense of the village. 300 horse loads of stones were used for the building and I wonder, how many kilograms that could be? I haven’t found any conversion formula… The width of the mill is 8,6 metres at the base, height about 10 metres, diameter of the wind wheel 15,6 metres. In 1904 the windmill was bought by Mr…
-
Strážnice
In one of my previous posts you could see the open-air museum in Strážnice, reminding us of the past of the area. Today I’d like to add a few photos from the town itself, photos capturing the traditional face of the town. Strážnice is known as a place where a popular International Folklore Festival takes place every year. It started in 1946 and last year it was visited by more than 20 000 visitors. There are several buildings in the town which preserve the typical decoration as you can see in the following two photos. The patterns are not same but have the same style. Some of the houses don’t…
-
Open-air museum in Strážnice
There is an open-air museum in the Moravian town Strážnice, which has been open since 1981. It shows traditional architecture and history of living styles of South-East Moravian villages of the area called Slovácko. The terrain of the museum was modelled and planted so that the area resembled the original locations. Look at the inventively woven fence and roof and a detail of the roof taken from its downside. When I was watching photographs of the museum displayed on the Internet, I didn’t find them very interesting. The place looked still and abandoned, as if life escaped from it. But as one day was supposed to be cold and rainy…
-
Luhačovice spa
Back to Moravia where we spent one day in Luhačovice. Luhačovice is the biggest Moravian spa with a long tradition of spa treatment of diseases related to air passages, digestive tract, diabetes and locomotive organs. History of its healing springs reaches back to the 17th century, 17 springs has been found since that time. Every hour, about 15 thousand litres of mineral water rise to the surface from them. Water from the springs is not bottled except for a spring named Vincentka, one can buy the Vincentka water in pharmacies throughout the Czech Republic. The spring Vincentka has been known since 1680 and it is used for drinking therapy and…
