• Praha
    Places in Czech Republic

    A few hours in Prague

    About a week ago my husband and I spent several hours in Prague. We had tickets for a concert of “Rodrigo y Gabriela” there and we decided to visit a few places before the concert would start in the evening. The weather wasn’t nice, it was a dreary and rainy day, but eventually it was not as awful as it was forecast and we enjoyed the trip. I’ll show you a few photos that I took but first I’d like to tell you more about those Rodrigo and Gabriela in case you’ve never heard of them. They deserve it. “Rodrigo y Gabriela” are an acoustic guitar duo coming from Mexico…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Františkovy Lázně

    About 15 years ago we spent our holiday in the spa Františkovy Lázně which is situated in Western Bohemia near the border with Germany. We were accommodated in a cabin in a camp called “Amerika”, which is situated at the outskirts of the town, and made trips in the town’s surroundings both in Bohemia and Germany. We liked that holiday and this year we decided to return to that camp for a few days and revisit some of the places, starting with the spa itself.  It’s a small town but it’s quite impressive. After our arrival and checking in, we spent the afternoon in the town, walking in its streets…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Weekend of open gardens – Part 3 – Meditation garden

    The third garden which we visited in Pilsen within the Weekend of open gardens was the “Memorial to victims of evil” also known as a “Meditation garden” or the “Hruška’s garden”. There was a man, Mr. Hruška, who spent more than 10 years as a political prisoner in a communist prison. When he came home in 1960, he started to remodel his fruit garden and changed it into an ornamental park. Though he had a job, he was attending lectures on garden architecture in a far city. He chopped down fruit trees and planted ornamental trees and bushes, created water and grassy areas. He wanted to commemorate suffering of those…

  • 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

    Overcast desperation

    This winter I haven’t seen much of blue sky. The sky is either light or dark grey, causes energy shortage and brings abundance of tiredness. Hence the title of this post. A few moments ago my husband was reading me weather forecast for the arriving March and it was like this: first ten-day period – cloudy and overcastsecond ten-day period – cloudy and rainythird ten-day period – cloudy, overcast and rainy I know that March is much worse for me than February. Spring is already expected but winter persists. Not that frosty shiny winter. The muddy overcast one. So when we got a new portion of snow last week, I…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    Metal art in Bezdružice

    To change the topics dealing with castles and nature reserves for a while, I’ve searched my archives and found a few older photos I’d like to share. A castle plays a role here but not the lead one. I have to go back, to August 2008, when my husband was too busy at work and I spent my holiday going on daily trips with our children. One of the outings headed for the castle in Bezdružice, a city which I found a bit lost and dull at the time. I parked the car and we went up to the castle. It’s quite a nice building… and when we reached the…

  • Places in Czech Republic

    ZOO seen a bit differently

    Two years ago I visited the zoo in Dvůr Králové. This zoo has always been known as the only one with safari in the Czech Republic as part of it is available only by busses with open decks which are going among animals that are moving freely around. Some changes have been made lately regarding the safari to attract more visitors. There are cottages prepared for photographs who can rent them and I think that you can also enter the area in your own car now. Nevertheless, the safari is not that big and inhabited, it seems to me that a lot needs to be done yet. The zoo itself…

  • 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…