By Ricky, on August 10th, 2012
A sand sculpture in Námestí Svobody, Brno © Ricky Yates
We spent the last weekend of our recent holiday, staying with our friends Lynsey and Johnny in Brno. It allowed me to get to know the second city of the Czech Republic better, having previously only paid flying visits there to plan, and then more recently to conduct, Church services. For Sybille, it was her first ever visit.
Walking into Námestí Svobody, the main city square in Brno, early on the evening of Friday 27th July, we found that a series of sand sculptures by various artists had been created as part of what is called the ‘Golden Sand Festival’. However, despite its English name, the associated website www.goldensandfestival.cz , is only available in Czech or Slovak! But I still have been able to glean from the website that this is the third year of . . . → Read More: Sand sculpture in Brno
By Ricky, on August 4th, 2012
The Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates
The historic small city of Kutná Hora lies about 70 kilometres east of Prague and it took us around an hour and twenty minutes to drive there on Tuesday 24th July. It is a popular place to visit on a day trip from Prague and of all the places we visited during our recent ‘staycation’, it was the one where we saw greatest number of other tourists.
The west end of the Cathedral Church of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora © Ricky Yates
During early mediaeval times, Kutná Hora was as significant a settlement as Prague, its wealth coming from the mining of silver in the surrounding hills. It was here that silver groschen were minted which was the hard currency of Central Europe during that time. However, a combination of the silver . . . → Read More: Kutná Hora
By Ricky, on July 30th, 2012
A colourful flower bed in Prague Botanical Garden © Ricky Yates
The Prague Botanical Garden is situated in the suburb of Troja, adjacent to Prague Zoo. So our journey to get there on Monday 23rd July was exactly the same as the one I described in my earlier post about our visit to the zoo. We had only visited the Botanical Garden once previously, about three years ago, and it proved to be somewhere well worth re-visiting.
The southern section of the garden consists of a series of beds planted with a whole variety flowers from across Europe and beyond. The photograph on the left is of a bed of perennial and annual plants which over the summer months, sees more than 300 species in bloom. These beds are surrounded by manicured lawns with plenty of space for people just to sit and relax and . . . → Read More: Prague Botanical Garden
By Ricky, on July 22nd, 2012
Krivoklát Castle © Ricky Yates
About 50 kilometres west of Prague, in the beautiful wooded valley of the Berounka River, lies the village of Krivoklát with its historic 12th century castle. Whilst it is slightly further away from Prague and somewhat less accessible than the much better-known Karlštejn Castle, I was still surprised at the relatively small number of other visitors there were when we visited on Thursday 19th July.
The original castle was completed in 1109, just over 900 years ago. As with so many castles, over the following centuries it has been altered, extended and re-built after being badly damaged by fire. Once through the main gate, there is a large courtyard surrounded by buildings of different architectural styles. These house various artistic exhibitions and shops as well as providing some residential accommodation, presumably for staff who help maintain and run the castle . . . → Read More: Krivoklát Castle
By Ricky, on July 21st, 2012
A ring-tailed lemur in Prague Zoo © Ricky Yates
Prague Zoo has always been one of our favourite places to visit on my ‘day-off’, ever since we moved to the Czech Republic nearly four years ago. It isn’t really feasible to see everything in one visit and, depending on the time of year, different animals and birds are more willing to show themselves each time we visit. And all the time, there are new developments at the zoo, some being the result of ongoing repairs to the damage caused by severe flooding in August 2002. Realising that we hadn’t visited Prague Zoo at all in 2012, we put it on our ‘staycation to visit list’ and we duly visited once more on Wednesday 18th July.
Prague Zoo is located directly across the Vltava River from where we live. Part of the fun . . . → Read More: Prague Zoo
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