Ricky Yates

The Vltava River and Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

A really pleasant sight here in the Czech Republic is to see children, some probably no more than seven years old, making their way from home to school and back again on their own! They do this on foot or combine it with the use of public transport. It is such a throwback to my own childhood when I too nearly always took myself to primary school either by walking there or travelling on the bus. Yet now in the UK, (and I gather also in the USA and many other western countries), hardly any parents allow this to happen because of fears regarding their children’s safety.

It isn’t just to school and back. Here in Prague, I often see children and young people in the late afternoon or early evening, making their own way back home from their sports club, dancing class or music lesson, also without a parent in sight. And the corollary of this – rarely do I ever see an obese child!

In the past twenty years or so in the UK, there has been a massive rise in concern for the safety of children, both with regard to the amount of traffic on the roads, together with a small number of highly publicised cases of child abduction, resulting in parents now driving their children everywhere. This inevitably compounds the amount of traffic on the roads together with many children getting very little physical exercise.

Another refreshing difference in attitude between the Czech Republic and the UK & USA was very clearly illustrated to us just over a year ago. The 6^th December is Svaty Mikuláš/St. Nicholas Day. Each year on the evening of 5th December Svaty Mikuláš Eve, there is a Czech tradition of children dressing up as the Bishop/St. Nicholas, together with other children dressing up as angels and one as a devil. This website explains more.

On the evening of 5th December 2009, we walked around Staromestské námestí/Old Town Square where there were many children dressed up in the Svaty Mikuláš tradition. Most were accompanied by their parents, but what astounded both of us was that these parents were happily encouraging complete strangers to take photographs of their children dressed up in their outfits. In the UK, such is the paranoia about paedophilia that many schools do not even allow parents to take photographs of their own children in school drama productions, for fear of the photographs ending up in the hands of paedophiles.

I do not in any way want to belittle the incredible damage done to children who are abused by paedophiles. But research shows that nearly all child abuse is carried out by adults the children already know, be it their mother’s new boyfriend or a longstanding so-called friend of the family. Very rarely is a child abducted or abused by a complete stranger.

One further relaxed attitude we noticed last summer. On a couple of occasions on my day off when the weather was very hot and sunny, we drove south from Prague to the lake behind the Slapy Dam. Near the little village of Ždán, we visited a grassy ‘beach’ where it is possible to sunbathe and swim in the lake. Here we saw children, some up to seven or eight years old, happily paddling at the water’s edge, totally naked. Shock-horror as far as many Americans are concerned!

It was so nice to see children relaxed and being allowed to play au natural, without being made to wear something. In particular, not to have little girls made to wear bikini tops to cover non-existent breasts, thus sexualising them before they have even reached puberty.

As far as I am concerned – long may these attitudes and practices continue. Yet sadly, I do see some children being driven to and from school by their mothers in a 4×4, SUV, or ‘Chelsea Tractor’. Mostly these are expat families with children who attend the various international schools here in Prague. But some are wealthy Czechs who, for whatever reason, are beginning to adopt the relatively recent practices of the UK and USA. Sybille has taken to calling such vehicles ‘Bubenec Tractors’, after the nearby suburb where many diplomatic and wealthy Czech families live!

Sadly, there has also been a recent case of a young child called Anna Janatkova, disappearing whilst walking home from school. Because this event is so unusual, it has rightly received a large amount of publicity, unfortunately so far without a positive result.

I do hope that the practices and attitudes I have described in this blogpost, do continue and that increasing affluence and this recent extremely rare case of a child disappearing, do not bring about unwanted change. Because what I observe, are children who have a far greater degree of self-confidence than I see in many British children. And children who, almost without exception, are not overweight.

St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague photographed from Petrín Hill on New Year's Day 2011 © Ricky Yates

“Do you like living in Prague?” This is a question I’m frequently asked by Czech people once they discover that I’m not a tourist but that I’ve actually chosen to live and work here. Many Czechs cannot understand why someone from Western Europe might actually want to come and permanently reside in their country.

The same question is also frequently posed by English-speaking visitors who join us for worship at St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church and by family and friends when they write or speak with me. So for my first post of 2011, I’m going to set out some of the reasons why I enjoy living particularly here in Prague and more widely in the Czech Republic. Some of these I’ve mentioned in previous posts so there are an inevitable number of links to things I’ve written previously in this blog.

Metro station at Jirího z Podebrad © Ricky Yates

Public Transport

Prague has the most wonderful public transport system consisting of buses, trams, the Metro and even a number of little ferries. Why is it wonderful? Because it is:

Incredibly cheap - Last week, Sybille and I went to renew our annual season tickets for the Prague public transport system. It cost each of us 4750 Kc – at current exchange rates, just over £160.00 / €193.00 / US$250.00. For this sum we can travel anywhere in Prague, at any time, for a whole year! The Church reimburses me for my season ticket – we just have to pay for Sybille’s.

Escalator on the Prague Metro © Ricky Yates

Integrated – Each part of the system links to the other. At Dejvicka, the current terminal of the A/Green line of the Metro and the nearest Metro station to our flat, you walk out of the station and immediately in front of you is place where buses depart to take you out further into the suburbs or to the airport. The Dopravní podnik hravního mesta Prahy or dpp for short, have a wonderful website that speaks Czech, English and German. Put in the starting point of your journey and your destination, the time you either want to start or arrive and then click. Out comes a journey plan with times, where to transfer from one form of transport to another, etc.

Frequent – If you know where you are going and you are travelling on a weekday between 07.00 and 19.00, there is no real need to visit the dpp website. Once you reach your point of departure you will only need to wait a few minutes at the most. Even on Sunday mornings, there is a tram every twenty minutes which will take us from the Podbaba tram terminus near our flat, all the way to Dlouhá Trída, just around the corner from St. Clement’s Church.

Reliable – there is a timetable and nearly always, it is adhered to. Sometimes buses and trams do get delayed by other vehicular traffic, but usually only at peak periods. And when it snows, everything keeps running – it doesn’t grind to a halt as in Britain.

It isn’t just within the city of Prague. The Czech Republic, along with Slovakia, has the densest rail network of any country in the whole of Europe. One member of my congregation lives in Milovice, about 50 km from the centre of Prague. But in 45 minutes, he can travel by train into the city centre and then have a 10 minute walk to Church. I don’t exactly know what his rail fare is for the return journey but he assures me it is extremely reasonable.

Bar-Restaurace U Topolu © Ricky Yates

Eating and Drinking

Prague has an abundance of bar-restaurants. And provided you avoid the expensive tourist traps in the city centre, ‘eating out’ can be remarkably inexpensive. As I’ve written previously, some single people tell me that it is often cheaper for them to ‘eat out’ rather than buy food from the supermarket and cook for themselves.

Half a litre of Kozel beer © Ricky Yates

The photo on the left is of U Topolu which, since it’s refurbishment in July 2010, has become our favourite local place to eat and drink. A main course here, even with a side dish, costs no more than 150 Kc / £5.00. The quality is excellent and portions are generous.

The further great attraction at U Topolu is the beer. As well as Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus, they have Kozel beer, directly from the tank. It is light, fresh and costs 26 Kc for half a litre. In British terms that is under £1.00 a pint! What more do I need to say?

Architecture and Buildings

As I’ve previously written, Prague suffered remarkably little structural damage during the Second World War. And whilst many historical buildings suffered years of neglect during the Communist era, since 1989, great effort has been put into restoration. What is really pleasing is how well restoration work has been done.

Restored building in Vinohrady © Ricky Yates

This photograph is of a building just around the corner from where my dentist has her surgery in the suburb of Vinohrady. It consists of residential flats on four floors with retail outlets on the ground floor level. But as you can see, all the intricate detail above the windows on each level has been lovingly restored, together with the ironwork that forms the railings to each balcony. Likewise, the render on the outside of the building has been repaired before being attractively painted.

These buildings are typical of those which form much of the inner suburbs of Prague. Yes – there are still ones like these that are crumbling. But increasingly they are a minority. And rather than wholesale demolition, buildings like these are being preserved and their interiors sympathetically modernised.

I could write and illustrate several blog posts about the architecture of Prague which I promise I will do during the coming months. But for the time being, just let me say that walking the streets of the centre of Prague, together with the inner city suburbs, is always a delight to the eyes.

Not too big but not too small

Prague only has a population of about 1.3 million people. Therefore, as cities go, it is relatively small meaning that the nearby countryside can be easily reached. Yet because it is the capital of the Czech Republic, (10.3 million population), it has all the assets and facilities of a capital city.

There are many more things that I could list as to why I like living here in Prague, but this post is probably long enough already. And yes – there are also a small number of things that I don’t like. But they are minor irritants compared to the joy of living in this delightful city.

Riverside Primary School in the snow © Ricky Yates

This winter will be the third one we have spent in Prague. In both 2008 and 2009, we had a dusting of snow before Christmas which soon rapidly melted. In both years, the really serious snow which settled and remained unmelted on the ground, didn’t arrive until January. However, this year, the snow has come early and hasn’t gone away since!

This winter, the first snow started falling during the night Sunday 28^th – Monday 29^th November. On the morning of Monday 29^th November, I was booked to conduct assembly for Riverside Primary School which fortunately is located not far from the Chaplaincy flat. Normally, I hop in the car and drive there. Seeing the snow, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took the bus instead. Unlike in Britain, public transport in Prague doesn’t grind to a halt as soon as snow falls!

As it was the day after Advent Sunday, I spoke to the children about the Advent season and how we can use it to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. I also explained why Advent had begun the previous day and not on Wednesday 1^st December when every commercial Advent calendar producer thinks it does! Here are the school children enjoying their break time out in the snowy playground immediately following my assembly. I’m sorry that the picture is a bit grey and grainy – it was still snowing when I took it!

My Renault Scenic in the snow © Ricky Yates

The snow continued to fall leaving large accumulations. The photo above shows the front of my car twenty-four hours later.

Overhanging snow & loose downpipe © Ricky Yates

Last week, we did have a couple of days when the temperature rose above 0 degrees and some of the snow began to melt. Besides causing some lying snow to turn to slush underfoot, a far more serious problem was accumulations of snow suddenly sliding off roofs and landing on unsuspecting individuals below.

I took this photo from our office in the Chaplaincy flat, looking across to the neighbouring block of flats which has recently been completed as part of the fourth and final stage of the Podbaba development. As you can see, a serious amount of snow is about to come off the roof! The sheer amount of snow also dislodged a piece of downpipe which has since crashed to the ground, along with the snow.

Then, just as I thought that all of the snow would melt, the temperature dropped below freezing again and earlier this week, yet more snow fell. The accumulation of snow hasn’t quite reached the proportions experienced in January this year, but it is rapidly heading in that direction.

In the midst of all this snow, life continues quite normally. Up the hill, behind the Podbaba flats complex, is a sports stadium. It is the home of Dukla Praha football team who currently are top of the Czech second division. Sensibly in view of the weather, they are currently on an extended mid-winter break and, having last played on Sunday 7^th November, they are not due to play again until early in March 2011.

The football pitch is surrounded by a running track together with a variety of all-weather pitches and facilities. The stadium is also used for other events. Quite what event was being staged there last Tuesday evening I do not know? But what ever it was, it ended with a spectacular firework display. The Czechs seem to need little excuse for having a firework display and clearly, a serious amount of lying snow wasn’t going to stop them!

Firework display at the Dukla Praha Stadium © Ricky Yates

Signpost for the circular red route. EL. DR. is an abreviation of 'Elektrická dráha' - 'Electric railway': another name for the tram system. © Ricky Yates

I have blogged previously about the Šárka Valley Nature Reserve, a wonderful steep-sided wooded valley that lies beyond the Baba ridge which in turn, lies immediately behind the Podbaba flats complex where we live. There are a series of waymarked paths which enable this wonderful green oasis to be explored on foot with points every few kilometres, where public transport can be accessed.

Since we moved to Prague, Sybille and I have explored various parts of the valley, following a variety of the paths including walking from the Divorka Šárka tram terminus at the western end of the valley, all the way back to our flat which lies just beyond the eastern end. That walk was along one half of the circular red route and I traversed it once again with my sister Jenny when she visited us last August.

However, on my day off last Monday 9^th August, I finally managed to do what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I discovered the joys of the Šárka Valley – I walked the complete circular red route from one end of the valley to the other and then back round again on the other side. According to the signpost that is 20.5 km and if you add in the walk up the hill to reach the route and the walk back down the hill to return to the flat, I reckon it is 22 km in total.

View across the fields to the panelaks of Bohnice © Ricky Yates

I walked the route in an anti-clockwise direction, initially walking along the Baba ridge to its eastern extremity where the signpost in the photograph above is situated. The path then passes through woodland and down to the bottom of the valley at Dolní Šárka – ‘Dolní’ means ‘lower’. Then it climbs back up through the woods on the other side, emerging at the top to the view in this next photograph – a beautiful field of wheat swaying in the breeze but in the distance, the communist era panalaks rising from the suburb of Bohnice.

The red route through the woods. Note the red & white waymark on the tree © Ricky Yates

The route then follows the northern edge of the wooded valley before re-entering woodland, dropping down and through the village of Nebušice and on through the most spectacular part of the valley – Divorka (Wild) Šárka before emerging near the tram terminus of the same name at Dolní Liboc. As I was walking the final part of this section, the heavens decided to open with one of the ‘heavy showers’ the BBC Weather website had promised. It therefore gave me a good excuse to shelter in the McDonald Restaurant that is situated alongside the tram terminus and enjoy a ‘Double Cheeseburger Meal’ whilst waiting for the rain to stop.

The slightly shorter return route is the one I had walked previously twice last year and took me through more attractive woodland before dropping down to the little settlement of Jenerálka. Then the route has one more climb back up to the beginning of the Baba ridge from where I could walk back down the hill to the Chaplaincy flat. Fortunately, there was no more rain and I arrived home in the late afternoon, pleased to know that I can still walk over 20 km without too much difficulty.

My disintegrating walking boots © Ricky Yates

However, when I came to take my walking boots off, I got a shock that I was not expecting. I discovered to my horror that whilst walking, my boots had been slowly disintegrating. As can be seen in the photograph below, the central section of the sole and heel of each boot has turned to rubbery powder leaving a gaping hole on the side of the heel of the left boot. I last wore my boots during the very snowy weather we had here in Prague this past winter and can only postulate that maybe the salt used by the city authorities has affected the rubber.

These are the boots that I wore to walk 1500 km along the Chemin de St Jacques/Camino de Santiago. They are so comfortable I shall be extremely sad if I have to part with them and have the difficult and expensive task of wearing in a new pair of boots. Fortunately, there is still a culture here of trying to repair things rather than just throwing them away. So in the next few days, I shall pay a visit a shoe repair shop I have once previously patronised, in the hope that something can be done and that my much-loved walking boots are not deemed to be beyond repair.

Three regulars outside 'The Red Lion' at Little Tingewick © Ricky Yates

On Monday 19^th July, I travelled by National Express coach from Derby to Milton Keynes, my first experience of travelling by long distance bus in the UK for many years. Whilst the journey went smoothly, it did include a tour of the campus of Loughborough University, (where actually nobody got on or off!), as well as passing through the centre of Leicester where we stopped for about thirty minutes.

The drop off point in Milton Keynes was fortunately not far from the main Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. I was glad that I had chosen to take my clothes etc in my large rucksack which made walking from there, to and then around the shopping centre, very easy. I was also pleased to be able to finally purchase three packs of six ‘Thank You’ cards from the John Lewis Department Store. This is an extremely rare example of something I needed which I just could not find anywhere in Prague. Normally, having both Marks & Spencer & Tesco in the Czech Republic means that within reason, most things any Brit might want can be found.

After my brief foray around this familiar old shopping haunt, I then caught the X5 Cambridge – Oxford bus which took me from outside the CMK Shopping Centre to outside the even more familiar Tesco Supermarket on the outskirts of Buckingham. My good friends Mike and Nikki Geelan, had kindly offered me a bed for the night in their home in the village of Tingewick and Nikki picked me up from Tesco as she needed to do some shopping there.

Just after 6pm that evening, I set off to walk out of Tingewick, up the hill, to visit another old haunt, ‘The Red Lion’ at Little Tingewick. ‘The Red Lion’ is effectively the pub of Finmere, the village in which I used to live from January 1993 until September 2008. But whilst Finmere, together with the other nine villages of which I used to be Rector, are all in Oxfordshire, Little Tingewick is in Buckinghamshire – the county boundary runs down the middle of the road in front of the pub. Therefore I could always claim, as I did when drinking there, that I was at least six feet/two metres outside my parishes!

I caused a nice surprise to a few of the regulars as I walked in. The accompanying photograph is of three of them enjoying their respective pints in front of the pub. But for my pint (0.568 litre) of Staropramen, I was charged £3.75/112 Kc. In Prague, I will rarely pay more than 25 Kc for 0.5litre of Staropramen. I’m glad that one of the regulars kindly bought me my second pint!

Afterwards, I walked back down the hill to Tingewick and shared a thoroughly enjoyable evening meal with Mike and Nikki, together with our mutual good friends, their neighbours Marc and Donna. As we all said at the end of the evening, it was very much like old times.

Rev'd Christobel Hargraves, current Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes and me, former Rector, outside Finmere Rectory © Ricky Yates

An unwritten but most important rule for Anglican clergy is that they should not interfere in anyway in their former parish(es) to enable their successor to minister freely. This is one of the reasons why I’ve stayed away completely from the UK until now. My successor as Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes is Rev’d Christobel Hargraves who came into post in August 2009, nearly a year after I left. Chris and I had been in contact with each other by email on a number of matters, but we had never met. Recently she emailed me about a particularly tricky legal matter in relation to some land owned by a Church Trust. In my reply, as well as answering her query, I said that I would be staying overnight nearby on Monday 19^th July and would she like to meet up with me. Her reply was positive with an invitation to coffee at Finmere Rectory on the morning of Tuesday 20^th July.

On the Tuesday morning, I walked up the hill from Tingewick, past ‘The Red Lion’ and into the village. Seeing the familiar houses and roads did seem somewhat strange, as did walking across the gravel to the front door of my former home. I was greeted warmly both by Becky, my former part-time benefice administrator, and by Chris. Inevitably, a combination of redecoration and Chris’s own possessions, have put a different style upon my former home. But I had to admire the garden which, courtesy of her husband (also called Chris!), was in far better shape than Sybille and I had ever been able to get it!

My other reason for visiting my former home was because I had accidentally left some personal papers in the back of the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in the Benefice Office. They all related to the education of my two (now adult) children including various school reports. I was able to sort through them all; rescuing what I thought was worth keeping and consigning the remainder to Cherwell District Council’s paper recycling service.

Whiz Air flight delayed to 01.50 © Ricky Yates

I had arranged to fly back to Prague from Luton Airport with the Hungarian low-cost airline Whiz Air. The flight was scheduled to leave at 20.10 on Tuesday evening meaning that I should have got back to the Chaplaincy flat by midnight CEST. As I queued at the check-in desk, there was an unwelcome notice that my flight was delayed 00.40 which I wishfully thought meant by just 40 minutes. The check-in clerk kindly broke my illusion telling me it meant the flight was now scheduled to depart at 00.40, four and a half hours late. As you can see from the pictures of the departure board, this eventually extended to 01.50.

Yes - it is the flight to Prague! © Ricky Yates

When I and the rest of the frustrated passengers did eventually get on board our flight, we were finally offered some explanation for the five and a half hour delay. The pilot explained that earlier in the day, (by now, the previous day!), the aircraft had experienced a bird strike and had to be pulled out-of-service for safety checks. The flight was uneventful and once reunited with my rucksack; I walked out of Prague airport just after 05.00 on Wednesday morning and by means of two bus journeys, reached my home at about 05.50.

Whilst I enjoyed my trip, spending roughly seven hours sitting in Luton Airport did rather take away some of the pleasure. The experience was uncannily similar to what happened to Sybille and I the last time we both flew in September 2008. Then we were stuck in Corfu Airport for several hours by a combination of bad weather and the returning Easyjet flight being overbooked and overweight. Thus, instead of getting back to Finmere Rectory just after midnight as scheduled, we got there at 07.00, just an hour and a half before the removal men arrived to start packing up our belongings to transport them to Prague! I will certainly be thinking twice before booking flights with a low-cost airline in the immediate future.