Ricky Yates

The railway station in the village of Babylon © Ricky Yates

We spent the final long weekend of our October holiday in the far west of Bohemia, close to the German border, staying in the little village with the somewhat surprising name of Babylon. To get there from Slavonice, we spent a good part of Friday 8^th October driving, firstly through parts of northern Austria before passing back into the Czech Republic. Our journey then took us through Šumava, a highly attractive area of mountains, forests and lakes, parallel to the German border. Having now driven through Šumava, this area has been added to my ‘must re-visit and explore more’ list of places in the Czech Republic.

Babylon is where Jack, an Irish member of our St. Clement’s congregation, has a house that dates from the first decade of the twentieth century, which he has spent the last few years, restoring to its former glory. We have visited and stayed with Jack in Babylon on a couple of previous occasions and enjoyed his hospitality. On this occasion, he gave us a wonderful meal on our arrival on the Friday evening but then set out for Prague by train on Saturday morning, leaving us alone to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of his house and the beautiful rolling hills and woods of the surrounding countryside.

The village of Pasecnice with the Church spire (top left) and the lake (bottom right). © Ricky Yates

Just after Jack left, we decided we should make the most of the fine, sunny autumnal weather and set out to walk, through the woods beyond the railway station, to the neighbouring village of Pasecnice. The village has a very picturesque setting with a small lake in the centre. On the hillside beyond the lake is the village Church which we were delighted to find open as an older man and two older ladies were busy sweeping the Church forecourt and arranging flowers.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi, Pasecnice © Ricky Yates

The Church is quite new having only been consecrated in 2003. It is dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi whose feast day is 4^th October, the previous Monday. Our Czech was sufficient to be able to read the notice on the door saying that on the following day, Sunday 10^th October at 11am, there would be a mass to celebrate their patronal festival. This was the obvious reason for all the cleaning and flower arranging that was going on.

The gentleman had a little German and was very pleased to show us the interior of the Church. It was decorated in typical Roman Catholic fashion with various pictures and statues of saints. As well as a statue of St. Francis, there was also one of St. James or ‘Santiago’ as the gentleman said as he pointed it out. We both then told him that we had made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and he proudly told us that he had done so too, beginning his journey at Leon.

On Sunday morning, we once more walked through the woods from Babylon to Pasecnice, in order to attend the mass and see how the village celebrated its patronal festival. We were not disappointed! The Church was already nearly full when we arrived about twenty minutes before the service was to begin. We stood at the back of the Church which continued to fill up so that by 11am, there were also many people standing outside on the Church forecourt. Fortunately, the day was fine and sunny so the Church doors could be left open.

Chod people in traditional dress. The lady on the the left is the one who gave us the cake © Ricky Yates

This border area of the Czech Republic is known as the Chodsko Region and the local people, the Chods, have customs and traditions which are a blend of Bavarian and Bohemian. For this special occasion, many of the women, both old and young, wore their traditional costume with brightly coloured floral dresses and orangey-red stockings. Two of the men, including the one we had met the previous day, were also dressed in their traditional costume which includes yellow breeches and long white socks.

Father Antonio (left) & the Parish Priest (right). The man in traditional costume behind Father Antonio is the one who showed us around the Church the previous day © Ricky Yates

The parish priest, who is based in the nearby town of Domažlice, introduced the Spanish visiting preacher and celebrant for the mass, Father Antonio. As Father Antonio was a foreigner who has learned to speak Czech, he spoke Czech much more clearly and distinctly than many a native Czech speaker. As a result, Sybille and I understood far more of what he was saying than we normally do listening a native Czech speaker going at full speed!

Chod dudy (bagpipes) being played © Ricky Yates

After the mass was over, the whole congregation processed to the neighbouring nursery school which had recently been renovated and extended, for the building to be dedicated. These proceedings were accompanied by a man, dressed in traditional costume, playing the Chod dudy (bagpipes). His daughter, realising we were not native Czechs, asked if we spoke English or German to which of course we replied ‘both’! She told us that her father had been to Scotland a few years previously, to attend a festival of bagpipers which he had very much enjoyed.

Sybille also managed to speak in Spanish with Father Antonio, (much to his surprise!), to find out what a Spanish priest was doing in the West Bohemian countryside. The answer was that he is a member of the Augustinian order based in central Prague at Sv. Tomáš, where along with his colleague Father Juan, they celebrate mass in Spanish. Another of their colleagues is the American Father William Faix who celebrates mass in English and whom I know well.  The Augustinians own a Church and monastery in Domažlice but no longer have a community living there. However, they maintain their connection with the parish by coming to help out in the various Churches a few times each year.

The amazing cake which was given to us, together with 4 small cakes © Ricky Yates

Our amazing morning had one final instalment. One of the two ladies we had met the previous day, insisted that we walk back with her to a house just the other side of the Church. There she proceeded to present us with a large cake, together four little cakes, all in a box to enable us to carry it safely back to Babylon. What we had done to deserve this gift we did not know. But her broad smile seemed to say that she just wanted to thank two foreigners who had effectively gatecrashed their village celebration!

Chod young lady in traditional costume © Ricky Yates

There are many people who will tell you that Czech people are not welcoming or hospitable. This has never really been our experience and the warmth of the welcome given to us by the villagers of Pasecnice on Sunday 10^th October 2010 will remain long in our memories.

Tree with fascinating colours between Babylon & Pasecnice © Ricky Yates

Besídka Restaurant & Hotel, Slavonice © Ricky Yates

Less than 30 km south of Telc lies the little town of Slavonice. On the morning of Thursday 7^th October, we drove from Telc to Slavonice, stopping off to briefly explore the intervening town of Decice en-route.

Slavonice has some of the best examples of buildings with sgraffito decoration in the whole of the Czech Republic. The reason that so many of these architectural gems have survived is because of the town’s somewhat unfortunate history. A prosperous town in the latter part of the sixteenth century from which period, many of the town’s historic buildings date, it lost much of its prosperity during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and suffered a further economic downturn when the main road between Prague and Vienna was re-routed in the eighteenth century.

In the twentieth century, two further events had a dramatic effect on Slavonice. At the end of the Second World War in 1945, most of the minority German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia, the Sudeten Deutsche, were expelled. This included the majority of the population of Slavonice. Less than three years later, following the coup that brought the Communist Party to power in February 1948, because the town lies less than 2 km from the Austrian border, it was made part of a restricted zone which was off limits for most of the Czechoslovak population, for fear that they might try to escape from their Communist ‘paradise’.

It is ironic that, a combination of economic degradation followed by a period of social isolation, has maintained so much of Slavonice’s architectural heritage. Fortunately, since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, a considerable effort has been made to both restore and preserve it.

One of the many restored buildings with sgraffito decoration is now the Bar-Restaurant Besídka. We ate lunch here soon after our arrival and enjoyed the English version of the menu which has several humorous items on it and a total absence of Czenglish. Clearly it had been translated by someone who had a very good understanding of the English language rather than using ‘Google translate’.  The food was very good too! The interior walls are used to display a fascinating collection of pictures and other artwork and it is worth stepping inside Besídka just to see these.

Sgraffito decorated buildings in Slavonice. Ubytování Eva Giordanová is the building on the far right of the picture © Ricky Yates

A few doors along from Besídka, we saw a sign on the large wooden doors of Ubytování Eva Giordanová declaring Zimmer frei. So we went in, climbed the stairs to the first floor office and enquired about their rooms. We were shown a very attractive room with simple kitchen facilities adjacent, all for a very reasonable price. I was also able to move the car from the main square and park it securely in the yard at the rear of the building.

Not only does Ubytování Eva Giordanová have accommodation, it also houses a museum of old agricultural and household machines and implements. And on the first floor, adjacent to our room, is a former Lutheran prayer room, with the walls decorated with sixteenth century frescoes, illustrating scenes from the Book of Revelation. They date from the time when there was a strong Protestant community in Slavonice before the re-imposition of Roman Catholicism at the end of the Thirty Years War. I was not allowed to take any photos of the frescoes but there are pictures of them on their website, together with some very interesting Czenglish descriptions!

Gateway into Slavonice © Ricky Yates

Gateway into Slavonice © Ricky Yates

Here are two of the gateways that lead into the historic centre of Slavonice, one of which also features sgraffito decoration.

More sgraffito decorated buildings in Slavonice. The one on the left features scenes from the Old Testament © Ricky Yates

Sgraffito illustration of the story of 'Jacob's ladder' © Ricky Yates

One building that particularly fascinated me was the one on the left in the picture above. It is covered with scenes from stories recorded in the Old Testament, together with the associated biblical reference.

It was still fairly grey and cloudy when we walked around the town in the afternoon which meant the light was not so good for taking detailed pictures of the individual illustrations. However, I was pleased with this one on the left, which illustrates the story of Jacob’s dream at Bethel, recorded in Genesis chapter 28, where he saw a ladder or stairway between earth and heaven with angels ascending and descending.

Slavonice was a place that Sybille & I very much enjoyed. Whilst is has visitors, it is a little more off the tourist track than Telc. Being so close to the Austrian border, German is often spoken and understood – a great help with our relatively limited Czech! However, it doesn’t suffer from the blight that affects so many towns and villages in the Czech Republic that border Austria or Germany – a proliferation of casinos and gambling places together with associated prostitution that I have described previously in this blog. There is just one Herna Bar, (bar with slot machines), and even that wasn’t open all the time.

The surrounding countryside consists of rolling wooded hills with many waymarked walking routes and cycleways. Certainly a place we plan to re-visit at some future date.

Sgraffito decorated house in Slavonice © Ricky Yates

Sgraffito decorated house in Slavonice © Ricky Yates

Christ Church, Vienna © Ricky Yates

On Thursday 16^th September, only a week after our previous trip, we once more drove the length of the Prague – Brno motorway. This time we then headed further south over the border into Austria and travelled onwards to Vienna in order to attend the annual meeting of our Eastern Archdeaconry Synod.

As I’ve blogged previously, St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague is part of the Church of England’s forty fourth diocese, the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. As with the other 43 dioceses that make up the Church of England, the Diocese in Europe is divided into Archdeaconries – in our case, into seven Archdeaconries. Even the smallest of these, the Archdeaconry of Switzerland, covers the whole of one country. And Prague belongs to the largest of the seven, the Eastern Archdeaconry, which consists of everything eastwards from Poland, Czech Republic and Austria, including all of the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and all the former Soviet Union except for the Baltic States.

Once a year, each Archdeaconry has an Archdeaconry Synod where the clergy, together with elected lay representatives, meet to discuss and report on issues facing our scattered congregations, to pray and to study, as well as to make decisions regarding the common life of our chaplaincies. Because of the distances involved, the synod meetings have to be residentiary. However, unlike in 2009 when the synod meeting took place in Izmir, Turkey, this time it was hosted by Christ Church, Vienna, meaning the car journey to get there took half a day rather than three & a half days!

The synod meeting took place in Pallottihaus, a Roman Catholic retreat house situated in the Vienna suburbs. It was an ideal venue with its own Chapel for worship, an excellent meeting room for listening to speakers and the discussion of synod business, as well as comfortable double and single rooms for overnight accommodation.

The major item for discussion was a plan, approved in principle by the Diocesan Synod earlier in the year, for the creation of four so-called ‘freestanding Archdeacons’ to provide better pastoral care and support for the clergy and Chaplaincies of our far flung diocese. The seven current Archdeacons have the almost impossible task of both being Archdeacon and being the Chaplain of a large Chaplaincy. My Archdeacon Patrick Curran is both Chaplain of Christ Church, Vienna as well as Archdeacon of the East.

The major issue regarding the scheme is, not surprisingly, one of cost. There is hope of some central funding coming from England and also the possibility of a private donor helping with accommodation. But inevitably, part of the funding will have to come from increased contributions from individual Chaplaincies. The Archdeaconry Synod gave its backing to the plan recognising the need for it and accepting the inevitable additional costs that will ensue.

On the morning of Sunday 19^th September, the synod concluded with a Eucharist at Christ Church, in the centre of Vienna. The synod members joined the regular Vienna congregation and Archdeacon Patrick was the celebrant and preacher.

The Christ Church building itself is a typical product of nineteenth century British diplomacy and politics. It is situated directly opposite the British Embassy and even has a memorial on an inside wall commemorating the reign of Queen Victoria! However, like nearly all the Chaplaincies in our diocese, the Christ Church congregation has long since ceased to be solely ‘the Brits abroad’. As with St. Clement’s, Prague, there were a large variety of nationalities represented within the packed congregation including many black Africans.

After the service, refreshments and a sandwich lunch were served in the nearby parish centre, just around the corner from the Church. Unfortunately, I had to decline the alcoholic liquid refreshment on offer because of needing to drive back to Prague straightaway afterwards.

Next year, the Archdeaconry Synod will meet in Bucharest and as in 2009, Sybille and I will probably try and combine our attendance with two weeks of annual leave making the journey to Romania all the more worthwhile.

Premošten, Croatia © Ricky Yates

When I wrote my first blog post about travelling to Asia and back which I posted on 30th October 2009, three days after our return to Prague, I promised to write about our trip ‘over the next few weeks…….’ As you can see, I was somewhat optimistic – it has taken me just over two months rather than a few weeks! But here on the last day of 2009 is my twenty-first and last post about our journey of 4,500 miles/7,200 kilometres, through twelve countries over a period of twenty-three days. Once this is posted, I shall return to writing about Church and expat life in Prague, something I’ve only done twice in the last two months on my blog.

We explored Trogir in the bright morning sunshine of Sunday 25^th October before setting out to drive some serious kilometres in order to complete the journey home to Prague in two days. Initially, we continued driving along the main coastal highway reaching Premošten, the furthest south we had travelled in Croatia during our July holiday. Then it was on to nearby Šibenik where we left the coastal highway for the nearby motorway which runs parallel to the coast but some distance further inland. We rejoined the coastal highway north of Zadar where the motorway heads off further inland towards Zagreb.

After lunch, we drove further up the Croatian coastal highway with splendid views across to the offshore islands of Pag, Rab, and Krk. Then it was back onto another motorway which took us around the port city of Rijeka and on into the hills and to the Croatia – Slovenia border.

On the Slovenian side, we were most surprised to be waved across the border without even a cursory look at our passports bearing in mind this is the border of the Schengen area. The whole idea of the Schengen agreement is that thorough checks are carried out as people enter the Schengen area so that no checks need to be made at borders within the area. But if checks aren’t carried out at the border…….! Clearly we looked middle-aged and non-threatening!

We were only in Slovenia, (country number ten on our travels), for a relatively short time before we entered country number eleven, Italy. Here we headed downhill back to the Adriatic coast and into the city of Trieste where we stayed overnight.

The following day, we finally had to bid farewell to the sea as we headed northwards inland towards the Alps. One of the few disadvantages of living in Prague is that it is so far from the sea! We travelled via the Italian autostrade past Udine and up into the mountains to the Austrian border. Here we bought our final vignette, this time for the Austrian autobahnen. We then drove past Villach, Salzburg and Linz right across Austria, eventually reaching the small town of Freistadt where we had stayed on the first night of our journey to Croatia in July 2009 and where we stayed once more on the last night of our journey to Asia and back. Early the following afternoon, Tuesday 27^th October, we arrived safely back at our Chaplaincy flat in Prague.

It was a most wonderful trip and our only regret is the number of places we had to drive by without the time to explore them. Looking back, on a few days, we were in the car for a bit longer than we would have liked to have been. I must admit to have forgotten how big Turkey is! But needing to attend the Synod meeting in Izmir, it was a travel opportunity not to be missed. In particular, it was fascinating for me to re-visit places nearly thirty-five years after my first visit and for Sybille to see them for the first time.

Dalmatian islands seen from the coast road between Senj and Zadar © Ricky Yates

On Monday 6^th July, we drove right across Austria via Linz in the north to Klagenfurt in the south. As we did so, the rain got heavier and heavier so that, as we headed towards the steep mountain pass that would take us into Slovenia, it was positively tipping it down. The weather was no better on the Slovenian side of the border. However, as we joined the motorway to head south towards Ljubljana, (having purchased an expensive vignette to travel relatively few km of motorway), the rain slowly started to ease. And having bypassed Ljubljana and travelled on to Postojna where we left the motorway for the somewhat windy road that leads to the Croatian border, the sun came out as though to welcome us to our holiday destination.

At the Slovenian – Croatian border we had our passports checked for the first time on our journey. I couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of the situation and how the political geography of Europe has changed in the last twenty years. We had crossed from the Czech Republic to Austria and from Austria to Slovenia where, in both cases, border controls are now non-existent because all three countries are EU members and also part of the Schengen agreement. Yet now we were having our passports checked at a border that used not to exist until the beginning of the 1990s with the break-up of Yugoslavia.

It was also as we had our passports checked on the Croatian side of the border, that questions about our somewhat complex identity first raised their head as we tried to explain why a Brit and a German were travelling in a car with Czech number plates! This was the prelude to two cases of mistaken identity that occurred the following day.

We spent Monday night in the small Croatian coastal town of Senj. On Tuesday morning, after the secession of an early morning thunderstorm, we set out along the winding coastal road towards Zadar with wonderful views across to nearby islands. As we drove, we passed three motorcycles parked at the side of the road. Their riders & pillion passengers who were having a mid-morning break, waved to us in a very friendly fashion. We waved back and soon realised that the reason they were waving was because they were Czech and thought they were waving to fellow Czechs. Suddenly their friendly smiles turned to very quizzical looks when they noticed that my steering wheel was on the ‘wrong’ side!

Later in the day as we approached Zadar, we used a short section of motorway. As we turned off the motorway to drive into Zadar, we had to present our ticket and pay a small toll. Sybille wound down the car window and gave our ticket to the young man in the toll booth. ‘Pet’ he said, which is the word for ‘five’ in Czech. (There should be a hacek over the ‘e’ to lengthen the sound but most computer browsers won’t cope with it if I put one in and will instead render it as a ‘?’)! He seeing the Czech number plates was trying to be helpful and tell us in Czech, that we needed to pay five kuna, bearing in mind that both Czech and Croatian are Slavic languages with similar vocabularies. He couldn’t understand our blank looks until he saw where my steering wheel was located. ‘Five kuna’ he then said, and we paid!