Ricky Yates

Arcaded building with sgraffito decoration in Telc © Ricky Yates

Leaving behind the Bata Canal and the valley of the Morava River, we drove westwards some 200 km to the little town of Telc, situated around 500 metres above sea level in the rolling hills of the far south-west of Moravia. Telc had been on my list of places to visit ever since I first read about it soon after arriving in the Czech Republic in September 2008.

The historic centre of Telc is surrounded on three sides by medieval fish ponds and access to it is via a narrow bridge and/or a gateway through the town wall. Inside the wall is the cobbled town square námestí Zachariáše z Hradce, which is surrounded by arcaded houses with beautifully decorated facades. These all date from the 16^th century when the town was rebuilt by Italian masons in the Renaissance style, following a disastrous fire in 1530. There has been little alteration or additions since then.

Late in the afternoon of Tuesday 5^th October, we parked the car near the narrow bridge across the fishponds, walked over the bridge, through the gateway and into the square. The view that greeted us did not disappoint, despite the poor light and the drizzle that was falling.

Cobbled town square - námestí Zachariáše z Hradce, in Telc © Ricky Yates

Walking around the square, we found Penzion a hospada U zeleného Žížaly on the southern side and enquired about accommodation. The proprietor had no English but did speak German, not surprising as the Austrian border is less than 30 km away to the south. She showed us a very pleasant room on the first floor, with access to a well equipped kitchen, which was within our price range. We gladly accepted the offer, especially as we were promptly given a parking permit for the car, allowing us to park in the historic square, directly outside the Penzion. Then, deciding that there was plenty to see the next day, we booked in for two nights.

At one end of the town square is Telc’s Renaissance Water Chateau. Originally belonging to a branch of the Liechtenstein family, it is now in the care of the Czech government. The following morning, we took a tour of the interior of the chateau. There were only four of us for the tour which was given entirely in Czech, though we were given laminated cards with quite a bit of information in English, which helped us understand more of what we were looking at. Some of the decorated ceilings were quite incredible but, as is often the case these days, no interior photography was allowed.

From l. to r: Spire of the Church of St. James the Apostle, former Jesuit monastery and the twin spires of the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Telc © Ricky Yates

Adjacent to the chateau are two Churches, one dedicated to St. James the Apostle and one to the Holy Name of Jesus. And in between, a former Jesuit monastery which is now used as a branch of Masaryk University in Brno. Here they can all be seen from the far side of one of the fishponds.

Decorated building in Telc © Ricky Yates

Visiting Telc in early October, well out of the main tourist season, had both its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage was that we could not gain access to the interiors of any of the Churches. In particular, we both would have loved to have seen inside the Church of St. James. But that is only open regularly between the beginning of June and the end of August. Otherwise you can only get inside when mass is being celebrated and mass times didn’t coincide with our time in Telc.

The main advantage was the absence of other tourists, especially during the two evenings we were there. During the day, there was the occasional group of tourists, particularly Japanese or Koreans. It would appear that some coach tours of Central Europe stop off at Telc for an hour or so, to break the journey between Vienna and Prague. But by late afternoon, all of these had departed and we could walk around the town square with only a few local residents for company.

Writing this post has once again highlighted my constant problem of most web browsers being unable to cope with diacritics which are an essential part of writing Czech correctly. There should be a hácek, (a little hook) above the ‘c’ at the end of Telc. But if I were to put one in, most readers of this blog would see ‘Tel?’ There should also be a hácek above the ‘c’ in ‘hácek’, but if I put one in, that would likewise appear as ‘há?ek’!!!!

Arcaded houses in Telc © Ricky Yates

The town square - námestí Zachariáše z Hradce, Telc © Ricky Yates

Phillip & Charlotte at Matt's birthday sports afternoon © Ricky Yates

On Friday 16^th July, I set out to make my first return visit to the UK since moving to Prague nearly two years ago. The five day trip was part holiday – spending sometime with my son Phillip in Derby; and part work – fulfilling a promise made earlier in the year to undertake a deputation visit for the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) who prayerfully and financially support the work of the Prague Chaplaincy.

As usual, the wonderful Prague public transport system got me from the bus stop, five minutes walk from the Chaplaincy flat, to the front entrance of Terminal 1 at Prague Airport, in little more than thirty minutes. Much more surprisingly, my Easyjet flight was taxiing down the runway at 10.45, exactly the time it was meant to be departing from Prague. Less than two hours later, we landed in the UK though, because of the one hour time difference, it was only 11.40 BST.

I flew into the rather incongruously named ‘Robin Hood Airport’ which serves Doncaster and Sheffield in South Yorkshire. At the end of 2009, Easyjet ceased to operate out of East Midlands Airport, the airport that serves Derby, and passed the Prague – East Midlands route to bmibaby.com. In their wisdom, bmibaby.com have suspended their Prague – East Midlands flights during July and August, presumably because it is more profitable to use their planes to fly British tourists to the Costas in Spain or the Greek islands during this time.

At UK passport control, I had great difficulty stopping myself from saying “Dobrý den” to the immigration officer, instead of saying “Good morning”. This was a problem I continued to have during the following few days, adjusting to the fact that I could actually speak in English and be completely understood. That I needed to say “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, not “Dekuji” and “Na shledanou”.

It was equally strange once I met up with Phillip in the airport car park. I got into the front passenger seat of his right-hand drive (RHD) car, in that respect no different from being in my RHD car in Prague. But he then proceeded to drive on the left-hand side of the road! After nearly two years of travelling or driving on the right-hand side of the road, that took some getting used to once again.

A forty minute drive down the M18 and the M1 got us to Derby. After Phillip had purchased a few things from Morrisons supermarket, I tried to get some Sterling currency out of the nearby ATM, using my Barclays Bank debit card. I had deliberately transferred funds from my Czech bank account to my UK Barclays account to be able to do exactly this. My attempt to withdraw cash was declined – a security measure because I hadn’t used the debit card in the UK for nearly two years!  So, before proceeding to Phillip’s home for a late lunch, we drove to a branch of Barclays Bank plc where I duly produced my passport and debit card with the request that I be allowed to withdraw my own money! I was extremely glad that I had arrived in the UK on a weekday rather than a weekend.

During my visit to the UK, I was asked several times whether there was anything I missed about the UK now I lived in the Czech Republic. My answer was always negative – as things currently stand, I don’t see myself living in the UK again in the foreseeable future. But on that Friday evening, I did do two thoroughly enjoyable things which it would not be possible to do in Prague.

Firstly, en-route to the city centre, Phillip and I purchased our evening meal from a Fish & Chips shop. We then walked slightly further on to the County Ground where we ate our fish and chips, (in Phillip’s case, pie and chips), whilst watching a day/night Twenty20 cricket match between Derbyshire CC and Northamptonshire CC. However, one less enjoyable, (though expected), thing was paying £3.00 a pint (0.568 litre) for a beer whilst watching the cricket when a 0.5 litre beer in most Prague bars would cost no more than £1.00.

The following day, Saturday 17^th July, Phillip and his girlfriend Charlotte, had been invited to the birthday celebrations of Matt, a university friend of Phillip who, like Phillip, has stayed on in Derby after graduating. Matt kindly assured Phillip that his Dad was more than welcome to come along with him.

Matt lives with his heavily pregnant wife, in the village of Hilton, just to the west of Derby. For his birthday, he had invited various friends, his brother and sister, together with their respective boyfriends/girlfriends, to a picnic lunch and a sports afternoon on the nearby village playing field. So, after sandwiches, crisps and other goodies, accompanied by a variety of liquid refreshment, we spent the afternoon playing rounders and kwik cricket.

Afterwards, I returned with Phillip and Charlotte to their home. We quickly ate a stir-fry and got washed and changed before we rejoined the others in the centre of Derby where the birthday celebrations were resumed and the following two pictures were taken.

Father and Son © Ricky Yates

Phillip & Charlotte © Ricky Yates

More about my UK trip in my next post.

U Slabé vule - The Weak Will © Ricky Yates

Although Saint Clement’s Church is located in the centre of Prague, it does lie slightly away from the streets most frequented by visiting tourists. It is situated in Klimentská, the street taking its name from the Czech form of Saint Clement, Svatý Kliment. Klimentská is accessed from Revolucní, which runs from Námestí Republiky to the River Vltava. Whilst Námestí Republiky is bright and busy, particularly since the opening in October 2007 of the Palladium Shopping Centre, Revolucní has always struck me as being a little run down, with a number of empty premises at street level.

It was therefore a most pleasant surprise a couple of months ago, when alighting from the Number 8 tram at the Dlouhá Trída tram stop on Revolucní, to see that one of these vacant premises directly alongside the tram stop, had been transformed into a new Bar-Restaurant entitled U Slabé vule. A quick examination of their menu and price list displayed in the window convinced us to try it out for Sunday lunch after our service.

For their city centre location, prices at U Slabé vule are remarkably reasonable. 0.5l of Staropramen is 25 Kc (£0.90). Meal prices range from 120 – 150 Kc (£4.00 – £5.00) with generous portions very nicely presented. Their printed menu, in Czech, German and English, is most notable for the almost complete absence of ‘Czenglish‘.

The premises themselves are large, reaching through as far as the street parallel to Revolucní to the west. It is almost divided in two by the kitchen and bar with the whole of the section on the Revolucní side being ‘non-smoking’, a rare provision in the Czech Republic. What is more, they enforce it!!! In several other bar-restaurants we have frequented, whilst there is nominally a non-smoking area, as soon as a smoker lights up, rather than telling him/her to move, the waiter brings an ashtray. At U Slabé vule, the customer is told to move to the smoking area – Halelujah!

The last two Monday evenings, U Slabé vule has become the venue for a new activity in the life of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church – Czech conversation classes led by my native English, Czech-speaking Churchwarden, Gerry Turner. Over a glass or two of various varieties of liquid refreshment and a simple nicely presented meal, a small group of us are trying to lose our inhibitions and converse in Czech.  Will I be successful or will I have what the name U Slabé vule actually means which is  – ‘The Weak Will‘!!

PS – As you will see from the photo above, vule should really have a kroužek (ring) above the ‘u’ which is meant to lengthen the vowel sound by 30%. As with many other diacritics, most web browsers can’t cope and would render it as ‘?’, hence I’ve had to leave it out.

Lea & Petra at Bouzov Castle © Ricky Yates

The newly married couple © Ricky Yates

Earlier this year I received an email from an English young man called Lea, asking if there was a Czech language version of the Anglican ‘Common Worship’ Marriage Service. He was planning to marry a Czech young lady called Petra, at a venue near her home town of Olomouc in the east of the Czech Republic, and this was the liturgy that they wanted to use. As there would be both English and Czech speakers attending the wedding, they wanted the text in both languages.

One of the many helpful things left by my predecessor John Philpott, was a ‘Word document’ containing exactly the text that Lea had asked for. I forwarded it to him but wrote an accompanying note asking who was going to use it? If they were going to be married by an English-speaking minister from one of the Czech Churches, then surely that minister would want to use his/her own Church’s liturgy. On the other hand, if they were going to have a Czech civil ceremony followed by a Church service conducted by an Anglican priest imported for the occasion, then it was common courtesy for me, as the Anglican priest for the area concerned, to be consulted.

In reply, Lea and Petra explained that they didn’t yet have anyone to use the liturgy. But they had booked their wedding venue, the ‘chapel’ in Bouzov Castle, and that they had met with the local registrar and were in the process of completing all the necessary preliminaries to enable  a legal wedding to take place. Once I explained that, because of my status as a priest in the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, I could legally marry them, then they promptly invited me to do so. Thus on Friday 3^rd July, I conducted my first Czech wedding and my first wedding of any variety since mid-August 2008.

Olomouc is a historic city in Moravia, part of the Czech Republic that neither of us had previously visited. Although it should only take about two and a half hours to drive there from Prague, we decided not to risk it and drove down on the Thursday evening in order to ensure we reached the wedding venue in good time the next day. Some good internet research by Sybille found us a very comfortable double room in the Poet’s Corner Hostel, an extremely interesting establishment owned and run by an ex-pat Australian.

Our ‘Lonely Planet’ Guide to the Czech & Slovak Republics describes Olomouc as ‘Prague  minus the tourists’ and it is an apt description. We ate our evening meal in an open air restaurant on the square in the historic centre of the city. The architectural views surrounding us are reminiscent of Old Town Square in Prague. However, other than a small amount of German, we heard no other language spoken that evening except Czech and were far from being surrounded by hoards of people.

The next morning, after leisurely breakfast, we put on our best clothes and set off on the  forty minute drive to Bouzov Castle. The castle is situated in the small village of Bouzov set in the rolling wooded hills of Moravia. It was a spectacular sight to see as we drove towards it. After parking in the official car park, we walked up to the main entrance to await  the arrival of the wedding party. We had been warned that we would need to be admitted as one group all together to avoid any confusion, as the castle is also open to paying visitors. Eventually, everybody arrived and we were all escorted over the castle bridge and up the stairs to the the ‘chapel’.

As we had discussed back in April when I had met Lea & Petra for the first time, everybody had an order of service with the English liturgy on one side and the Czech translation on the other, using the very material that had been the subject of Lea’s original enquiry. Whilst I conducted the service in English, I did manage to greet the congregation at the beginning in Czech. I was assisted by a wonderful lady called Ivana, who helped Petra make her vows in Czech after Lea had made his in English. She also translated my short address into Czech.

My greatest fear was getting the registration of the marriage wrong. In advance of the service, I had filled out a four-page form all in Czech, which being part of Czech bureaucracy, inevitably required an immense amount of detailed information about the bride and groom, their respective parents, both witnesses and me. This included full name and address, date and place of birth, birth number for Czechs, passport number for non Czechs! Fortunately, John Philpott had also left me an annotated version of this form with guidance as to how to fill it out. Having completed it following his instructions, I got the ever-faithful Gerry Turner to double check what I’d done in Czech, before we set out for Olmouc.

It is this form, rather than two sets of Church registers, that is signed during the wedding service. Again, as I have explained previously in this blog, not only signed but, much more importantly, stamped!! As I raised my hand above the stamp that declares us to be the English-speaking parish of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, I said in English & Ivana said in Czech, “This is the most important part of a Czech marriage service!” Everybody smiled and laughed as I very firmly slammed the stamp down. It is this signed and stamped form which must be returned to the local registrar within two working days. The registrar will then issue the happy couple with their marriage certificate.

The service over, we were all escorted back out of the castle and then the newly married Lea and Petra walked down from the castle bridge hand-in-hand. As you can see, you cannot really have a much better setting than Bouzov Castle for your wedding photographs. An evening reception followed back in Olomouc.

A wonderful example of 'Czenglish'! © Sybille Yates

One of the joys of living in Prague is being able to ‘eat out’ in one of the very many bar-restaurants that abound here. Provided you avoid the expensive ‘tourist traps’ in the centre of the city, prices are extremely reasonable, so much so, that some single people have told me that it is often cheaper for them to ‘eat out’ rather than try & cook for themselves at home. However, there are noticeable cultural differences between Britain and the Czech Republic in the way that you order, are served and pay for your drinks &/or meal.

As in Britain, most bars also serve food. But even if you go to a bar-restaurant just for a drink, do NOT go to the bar itself and say “I’d like two beers please”. No – go in and sit down at one of the free tables and wait until the barman/lady comes to you. If you just want a beer, taking a beer mat from the container in the middle of the table and putting it down in front of you, will indicate fairly clearly what you want. And if you forget to do this before your beer arrives, then the barman/lady will do it for you, before placing your beer in front of you. In the Czech Republic, beer glasses have to be placed on beer mats!

Do not try to pay for your beer when it is served to you. No – wait until you have finished drinking and are ready to leave. This may of course, be several rounds of drinks later. However, the person who has served you will have kept track of what you have had, either behind the bar or on a strip of paper left on the table on which the number of beers served will be marked. Saying “Zaplatim prosim” (may I pay please), will produce a bill which you then settle.

If you want to eat, do exactly the same as you would if you just want to drink. Go in, choose a vacant table and sit down. Only in slightly more upmarket restaurants will you be met at the door, asked how many people there are, and then be directed to a suitable table.

Czech menus have a number of interesting characteristics. For any meat dish, the exact weight of the meat will be specified such as 200 grams of pork, or 150 grams of chicken. There is of course, no way to check whether you actually are served 200 grams of pork rather than 191 grams of pork as scales are not provided! Often a meat dish will be served with little else other than a small salad garnish. Therefore you need to go to the ‘side dishes’ section of the menu where various forms of potato, together with other vegetables, will be listed. The advantage of this system is that you can choose almost exactly what you want to eat.

Prague is a city that is geared to visiting tourists. Therefore nearly every bar-restaurant has their menu not only in Czech, but also in English, German & sometimes also in Russian. But this is where you encounter a wonderful language which I have christened ‘Czenglish’. Very rarely do Sybille & I visit a new restaurant without descending into fits of laughter at the interesting English used to describe certain dishes. The menu on a Prague restaurant window shown in the photo at the head of this post left us creased up with laughter when we saw it last Monday. Clearly the bread to accompany the potato soup had been taken to Church and blessed prior to being served!

Czech people tend to be very particular regarding their own language and quickly correct anyone who dares to conjugates a verb or noun incorrectly. Yet they seem oblivious to the multiple mistakes that are contained within the English version of so many menus. My English Czech-speaking friend & Churchwarden Gerry Turner told me that he offered once to correct the English on the menu of a restaurant he regularly frequents in return for a free meal. The offer was refused point blank as the restaurant owner could see no reason for doing so.

There are two other cultural peculiarities that I experience every time I eat in a bar-restaurant in Prague. The first is the absence of place settings. Instead, soon after you have placed your order, a plate or upright container will be brought to your table containing your cutlery and paper serviettes. You take what you need from the plate/container and create your own place setting. The second is that, as soon as one person has finished eating, immediately a waiter will appear and whip their empty plate away, regardless of the fact that other people sitting with them are still eating. The reasoning behind this practice I have yet to discover but it happens everywhere we eat.

Normally in the UK, once everyone has finished their main course, the dirty plates and cutlery will be removed from the table and the dessert and coffee menu will be offered. Yet here in the Czech Republic, despite desserts (often the Czenglish ‘deserts’!!) being available, the opportunity to order them is rarely offered. If you want to have a dessert, you often have to specifically ask for the return of the menu in order to be able to decide what you want and place your order.

This post is my contribution to World Blog Surf Day being organised by Sher. Please read the next expat blogger in the chain by going to empty nest expat who is my friend Karen, currently back in the US of A but hopefully returning to Prague very soon once her work permit and visa problems are resolved.  I am also asked to link to Anastasia Ashman who is an American cultural producer based in Istanbul, and is a creator of Expat Harem, the anthology by foreign women about modern Turkey. Her Tweetstream focuses on women, travel and history and she shares resources for writers/travelers, expats, Turkophiles & culturati of all stripes.