Hora Ríp is a prominent hill, located about 48 km/30 miles north of Prague. It protrudes from the otherwise relatively flat Central Bohemian Plain, and is very visible and easily accessible from the D8, the Prague-Dresden motorway. Of course, there should be a hácek, a little hook, above the ‘R’ in ‘Ríp’, as there should be above the ‘c’ in ‘hácek‘. But as I have explained several times previously, the set-up of this blog cannot cope with many Czech diacritics and instead renders them as ‘?’ 🙁
Wearing my geographer hat, I can tell you that Hora Ríp is the eroded remains of a former volcano. It consists of a variety of igneous rocks that are somewhere between 34 and 23 million years old. But for Czech people, Hora Ríp is believed to be the place where the first Slav people viewed the land and decided to settle here. So it has a great cultural significance.
Climbing Hora Ríp has been on my ‘bucket list’, (to use a very American expression 😀 ), for quite some time. Yesterday evening, I duly did so. My motivation was twofold. As well as wanting to tick it off my ‘bucket list’, I also wanted to see if I could still manage several kilometres of hill walking, being aware that my left leg has been giving me problems in recent days. I don’t want to set off in two weeks time, seeking to climb Swiss mountains with Sybille, if I cannot walk up a much lower Czech hill 🙁
It took me less than an hour, to drive out of Prague to the village of Vražkov, despite having to cope with rush hour traffic and various road works. I parked my car off the road at the edge of the village, and set off along the yellow waymarked route towards the summit. Near the summit, I came to the point where the red waymarked route from the village of Ctineves, joins from the right. The sign at this junction of paths, declared that it is only a further 0.5km to the summit. I have to say that it was one of the the longest 0.5km that I have walked in a very long time 🙂
And by using the zoom feature on my camera, I took this picture of Vražkov. If you look closely, you can just see my car, parked on the opposite side of the road from the large white house on the right of the photograph.
I had read that there was a bar at the summit, offering liquid refreshment to those who have exerted physical effort to climb there. There is – but it isn’t open at 19.00 on Wednesday evenings in July 🙁
Likewise, the ancient Romanesque rotunda of Saint George, built by Sobeslav I in 1126, was also not open. However, despite both of these disappointments, I still very much enjoyed my ascent and decent of Hora Ríp. And as my leg feels better today than in recent days, I hopefully will still be able to walk with Sybille, through Switzerland and into France, in two weeks time.
As promised in my first post eight days ago, here are my answers to the last six questions set by my Liebster Blogger Award nominator Emily, the owner of the blog Czechesotans.
6. What drives you crazy?
The addiction that so many people seem to have to their mobile/cell/smart phones. In particular, the number of people I see here in the Czech Republic, who talk on their mobile phones whilst driving, even though it is completely illegal to do so. What drives me even more crazy is that I’ve never yet seen the police stop someone doing so, even though here in Prague, there are always plenty of police around and they seem to stop people quite readily for relatively petty offences.
It is impossible to be in full control of a vehicle if someone is at the same time, using a hand-held mobile phone. Yet I regularly see mothers doing so, with children in their car; truck drivers who carry an even greater responsibility given the size and weight of their vehicles, also doing so; and when travelling along the D1 Prague-Brno motorway, vehicles passing me in breach of the maximum speed limit, with their drivers talking on their phones.
As I’ve previously highlighted on this blog, even when not driving, constantly talking on a mobile phone is highly anti-social. I continue to see, predominantly but not exclusively women, out walking with their children and/or their dogs, yet with their necks bent forty-five degrees whilst they talk away to some friend on the other end of their mobile phone. What message does that send to the children/dogs? Quality time with Mummy?
Just this morning, I saw another example of anti-social mobile phone use. A woman talking on her mobile whilst at the same time, passing her shopping through the supermarket checkout. If I had been the checkout operator, I would just have stopped serving the woman, until she got off her phone! Being a supermarket checkout operator is a mind-numbing enough without being treated to such rudeness by a customer.
Yes – mobile phones are useful but they shouldn’t control our lives and their use should never endanger the lives of others.
7. Where do you do most of your blogging?
This one is relatively easy to answer. Almost exclusively whilst sitting at my desk in my office in the Chaplaincy Flat. Since May 2012, I’ve had a laptop computer which has enabled me to compile text when I’m elsewhere. But in more than two years, I think I’ve only twice successfully compiled and posted a blog post from somewhere other than my office.
8. How do you spend your free time?
This question raises an interesting issue as I don’t have a job with set hours or even a job description. Officially, I hold an office – I am the Anglican Chaplain in the Czech Republic. As I’m subject to canon law, I do have certain responsibilities that I must fulfil, but how I use my time is very much at my discretion.
Therefore, what is work and what is pleasure is frequently blurred. And I often move from one to the other and back again, several times during the day. Whilst I do regularly have to work unsocial hours – evenings and weekends; unlike many others, I can take ‘time-off’ during the day on weekdays.
I am actively encouraged to take one full ‘day-off’ each week which is normally Monday. Today is Monday, and what am I doing? Writing this blog post! So maybe that answers the question 🙂 I do also like to get out and walk around and explore various parts of Prague, especially the parks. And frequently these walks end by finding somewhere to have ‘a cool glass of something’ 😉
9. What is something cool you’ve found?
As in my previous answer, I’m adept at quite regularly finding ‘a cool glass of something’. But I don’t think that’s what Emily my nominator, meant 😀 Quite honestly, as a British male who is now the wrong side of sixty, I don’t think I’m going find anything that’s ‘cool’, in the sense that my thirty-something American female nominator intended 🙁
10. If you could switch places with someone for a day, who would it be?
I have two responses to this question. The first is that I don’t really want to switch places with anyone, even for a day. I’m perfectly happy being who I am, where I am. My second reaction is that if I did switch places, I would want to do so for far longer than twenty-four hours, in order to institute radical and permanent change. For example, to take over from Putin and put Russia on a totally different political path, in contrast to the confrontational one that is currently being pursued. That would certainly need plenty more time.
11. What gets your creative juices flowing?
With regard to this blog, it has often been current events and the reaction of other people to them, that has suddenly got my fingers tapping rapidly on my keyboard. The resulting blog posts have also usually attracted plenty of comments. Three examples come to mind.
Back in November 2012, I just had to write about the reactions to the result of the American Presidential Election that I was reading on social media, by right-wing conservative friends back in the USA, of a few of my American friends living here in the Czech Republic. It resulted in my post entitled ‘Two days after President Obama’s re-election‘, in which I challenged some of the absurd things that I was reading.
Earlier this year, the Russian takeover of the Crimea peninsula prompted me to quite rapidly write about ‘The Ukraine crisis as seen from the Czech Republic‘. It is a post that has since received many appreciative comments and unfortunately, continues to remain highly apposite in view of the very sad events of the last few days.
The most recent example was at Easter this year, when over fifty ‘public figures’, (for which read, ‘people full of their own self-importance’), declared that David Cameron referring to the United Kingdom as a Christian country, ‘fosters alienation and division in our society’. In response, I immediately wrote the post entitled, ‘The militant atheists are at it again‘. I can tell you, militant atheists and their pronouncements, very quickly get my creative juices going 😉
And finally…..
Thank you Emily, for your nomination and making me answer all these questions. And can I add that your own nomination is also highly deserved.
Visitors to the Chaplaincy Flat, when they look out from our main balcony, often ask exactly what is this industrial building, with its very tall chimney? The answer is that it’s a plant that produces hot water and heating for a large number of buildings in the immediate vicinity.
Judging by the utilitarian nature of it’s architecture, the plant clearly dates from the communist era. But it was obviously built with a far greater capacity than was necessary when first constructed. For now, the whole of ‘Rezidence Pobada’ is also supplied with heating and hot water from it. ‘Rezidence Pobada’, where the Chaplaincy Flat is situated, has been developed over the last ten years on the site of a former brewery.
Being supplied by this plant with heating in winter and hot water all year-round, means that we do not have a separate central heating boiler. Hot water is metered as it enters the plumbing system of the flat and the amount of energy we use for heating is likewise taken into account as part of the monthly service charge that the Church kindly pays on our behalf. An adjustment is made annually, dependent on meter readings.
All of this works extremely well, except for one week each year. During July every year, the plant is completely closed down for annual maintenance. Below is the notice telling us of the closure this year, which started yesterday and continues until next Monday.
Because this happens in July each year, the lack of heating is irrelevant. But what it does mean is a week of no hot water. Yesterday morning, despite the plant having already been closed down for a few hours, there was neither a problem with having a shave or shower, as the water in the system was still perfectly warm. But, this morning, it was a different story.
Boiling water in the hot water jug in the kitchen, then taking it into the bathroom & pouring it it washbasin so I can shave, is an irritation and a little time-consuming, but something I can live with. But having a cold shower, even when the ambient temperature is quite pleasantly warm, is not my favourite way to begin the day Brrrrrrrrrrrr! It is like an act of penitence and it isn’t even Lent!
However, it is a reminder that having ready access to hot water, whenever I want it, is yet another example of taking something completely for granted – until it suddenly isn’t available. Of course many people in this world have no ready access to hot water, all year long.
So it is cold showers in the morning for at least the next four days. Hopefully, as in one or two previous years, the maintenance crew will complete all their work in six days rather than seven. Rather like those waiting for white smoke to appear from the Vatican chimney, on Sunday evening, I too shall be looking for a similar sign coming from this slightly less significant chimney, indicating that my penance of nearly a week of cold showers, is finally over.
PS I haven’t forgotten that I still have the other six questions about my Liebster Bloggers Award to answer.
A month ago yesterday, this blog was nominated for another award – A Liebster Blogger Award. This is an award given by fellow bloggers, to show appreciation for other blogs that they enjoy reading and think deserve to be highlighted and receive some praise.
My blog was nominated by Emily aka Writergem, whose own blog Czechesotans, is also about living as an expat in Prague; in her case, from the viewpoint of being an American teaching in an international school here for the past year. In her nomination of my blog she says, ‘Consider yourself educated after reading this one’. I did say in reply that I clearly needed fresh polish for my halo after receiving such praise 🙂
As part of the nomination process, the nominator sets a series of questions that each nominee has to answer in a subsequent post. Emily has set me eleven questions and this post is my attempt to answer the first five of them.
1. If your blog was a song, what would it be and why?
I must admit that I had to think hard and long about this one. Then I suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Why not a hymn? So my answer is, ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation’.
My blog is predominantly about my experience of living and working in Prague and the wider Czech Republic. For the most part, I very much enjoy my life here and I’m very thankful for the opportunity of spending the last eight and a half years of my full-time public ministry as the Anglican Chaplain.
The words of the third verse of the hymn are particularly appropriate:
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee,
surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend thee:
ponder anew
what the Almighty can do,
if to the end he befriend thee.
There are two other associated reasons for choosing this hymn. It was originally written in German – Lobe den Herren – and my wife Sybille is German. And when Sybille and I got married nearly nine years ago, we walked into Church to the congregation singing this hymn, and we made them sing two verses auf Deutsch!
2. What is one thing you reeeeally like about the town where you live?
There are so many things that I like about living in Prague and have previously written all about them on this blog. But if I am only allowed to choose one, then it would have to be public transport. It is efficient, frequent, integrated and incredibly cheap, even more so now I’m deemed to be ‘Senior’ because I’m over sixty 🙂
PS – for the benefit of David Hughes and other commenters who spot my very occasional spelling mistakes, the spelling of ‘reeeeally’ in the question above is exactly as Emily posted it on her blog – and she teaches English 😀
3. What are you doing this summer?
I could start this answer by pointing out to my nominator that, unlike teachers in international schools, I don’t get a two month holiday/vacation during July and August 😉 However, it is true that Church life is usually much quieter during these months, especially as this year I do not currently have any weddings to conduct.
The other big difference this summer is, as most followers of my blog already know, since 9th June, Sybille has been on pilgrimage, seeking to walk from Prague to Santiago de Compostela. To her great credit, before setting out, she did what she has been promising to do and completely sorted out all of her papers that were scattered across her desk and in collapsing boxes under her desk. In the week before her departure, my paper shredder worked overtime and I paid several visits to the paper recycling bin 🙂
Sybille’s desk is in one corner of our sitting room and with it and the area beneath it being completely clear, it has given me the incentive to try and ‘Summer clean’ the whole flat. The sitting room is already complete, including taking down the curtains, washing, drying and ironing them, before rehanging them once more. Whilst they were down, I cleaned all the windows, inside and out. The increased light and the improved view are most noticeable 🙂
I’ve also washed, dried, ironed and then refitted the covers on both settees; taken down every picture, polishing the glass at the front and removing the cobwebs from the back: taken all the books off three different bookcases, dusted both books and shelves before replacing the books. I then moved every item of furniture to enable me to first vacuum and then wash the wood-laminate floor, section by section. The collection of cobwebs and dead insects under one of the bookcases was a sight to behold! What am I doing this summer? Giving every other room in the Chaplaincy Flat a similar treatment. My office should be very interesting 🙂
However in August, I do have two weeks of annual leave and I shall spend them walking with Sybille. The exact logistics of how this will happen has been the subject of discussion between the two of us during the past few days. Sybille is deliberately not walking to a set timetable and cannot promise to be at a particular location in just under four weeks time. So I’ve got to decide very soon, where might be the most suitable place to fly to. Currently, this looks like being Geneva. Then a day or two before I set out, we will have to agree exactly where we are going to meet up and I will then plan to make my way from my arrival airport, by public transport, to that agreed location.
There is then also the issue as to where we will stay overnight whilst we are walking together. Sybille has already rightly pointed out that we won’t both fit in her one woman tent 🙂 Hopefully we will be walking together in France where there is often good provision of Gîtes d’Etape accommodation for walkers. I’m sure we will work something out and you can be sure that there will be a blog post about it!
4. Name a place you’ve travelled that you’d recommend to others and why.
One of the great joys of living at the heart of Central Europe, has been the opportunity it has given us to explore a whole variety of fascinating, new (to both of us) places, many of which I’ve written about here on this blog. As I am only allowed to choose one, then it has to be the Croatian island of Dugi otok, where we spent a delightful ten days in July 2009.
The name ‘Dugi otok’ means ‘Long Island’, highly appropriate as it is forty-five kilometres long but never more than four kilometres wide. It lies a one-and-a-half hour ferry journey from the port city of Zadar and has a resident population of no more than 1,800. You can read more about our time there in this post and the four that follow it.
Why do I recommend Dugi otok? It has all the facilities for a relaxing summer holiday, but is sufficiently off-the-beaten-track, not to be overrun with visiting tourists. Sitting at an outdoor restaurant table, alongside the harbour in the port of Sali, enjoying a meal, accompanied by a cool glass of something, whilst watching the sun slowly setting, was an experience we enjoyed on many evenings and of which I still have vivid memories. The remote beach at Mala voda on the uninhabited west coast of the island – very difficult to find a more pleasant spot for sunbathing and enjoying a swim in the warm Adriatic Sea.
Ever since our 2009 visit, we’ve spoken many times about going back to Dugi otok. I suspect we just might in 2015.
5. Who is someone you look up to?
John the Baptist. He lived a simple lifestyle with a rather interesting diet and fashion sense. He wasn’t afraid to be outspoken and challenge hypocrisy, including calling some Jewish religious leaders, ‘a bunch of poisonous snakes’! Showed great humility as he spoke about Jesus and, once Jesus began his public ministry, stepped out of the limelight. Openly criticising the immorality of Herod Antipas cost him his life. What not to admire?
Watch for my next post when I’ll try and answer the other six questions.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my previous post, I had a most interesting week in advance of my laptop computer lock-out problems. The highlight was attending two interrelated events on the afternoon and early evening of Tuesday 17th June.
The first event was the official unveiling of this monument, entitled ‘The Winged Lion’, by Sir Nicholas Soames MP, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill. It commemorates the nearly two and a half thousand Czechs and Slovaks who escaped from Czechoslovakia after the country was occupied by the Nazis in 1939, and served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
As this BBC news article explains, the idea for the memorial came from members of the British expat community currently living and working in the Czech Republic. They in turn, successfully raised the £100,000 that the monument has cost. However, contrary to what the news report says, it wasn’t just British expats who contributed towards the cost, but also other English-speaking expats and some Czech business people too.
Unfortunately, after the communist coup of February 1948, as is briefly referred to the BBC news report, the Czechoslovak airman who returned to their native country following the defeat of Hitler, were extremely badly treated by the communist authorities, who deemed them to have fought for ‘the wrong side’. Some were imprisoned whilst others were made to undertake demeaning manual labouring jobs. Seen as heroes in the West, they were regarded as a security threat by the communists.
One part of this story which is not recounted in the BBC report is that, just as many young British women met and married American servicemen who were ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here’, and became ‘GI brides’, so also, quite a number of young British women married these Czechoslovak airmen. They came to live with their husbands in Czechoslovakia in 1945-6 and then were treated just as badly by the communist authorities because of the men they were married to. If their husbands were imprisoned, then they were left to fend for themselves, often in small rural towns and villages and with little fluency in Czech or Slovak.
I first heard the story of these remarkable women from Linda Duffield, who was the British Ambassador when I first came here in September 2008. She told me that each year just before Christmas, she held a tea party at the embassy for these Czechoslovak airmen’s wives and widows, but that each year, there were inevitably fewer and fewer of them attending.
Since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the brave Czechoslovak airmen who served in the RAF, have had their, rank, medals, pensions etc restored to them and they are now rightly regarded as national heroes. But as the BBC article states, only nine survivors were able to be present at the unveiling of this monument that celebrates what they and their colleagues did in the service of freedom.
My official invitation – minus the ‘Rev’d’
Following the unveiling ceremony, I went on to attend a Garden Party at the British Embassy, celebrating the official birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, a regular annual event about which I’ve previously written on this blog. This year, having been greeted by the current British Ambassador Jan Thompson, the guests were invited to walk down to the terrace where we then had a splendid view of the flypast by a WW2 Spitfire which is referred to in the BBC report.
After the flypast and the playing of ‘Where is my home?’ and ‘God save the Queen’, there was speech of welcome in both Czech and English by the ambassador, followed by a speech in English, by President Zeman, in which he praised Sir Winston Churchill and at the end, proposed a toast to Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion of her 88th birthday. In case any reader is wondering about the Czech National Anthem, the Czechs do know where their home is – the title is a rhetorical question.
After the formal part of the evening, we then all returned to the embassy garden for drinks and refreshments which were, as in previous years, an interesting eclectic mix of things British and Czech. As usual, I both reconnected with people who I already know, be they embassy staff, fellow Brits or Czech business people. I also got to meet in person for the first time, Marie Knezová, who I previously only knew online. She asked me to pose with her for this delightful photograph, taken for us by her sister Jana who is the Vice Consul at the Embassy.
In her description of this photograph on Facebook, Marie describes me as her ‘favourite pastor and blogger – charismatic Ricky Yates’. Now that’s a reputation to live up to 🙂
