By Ricky, on October 22nd, 2010
Wooden Church in Bílá, Moravia © Ricky Yates
The modern-day state of the Czech Republic is made up of what was historically known as Bohemia and Moravia, together with a small part of Silesia. Bohemia forms the western part of the country with Prague at its centre, whilst Moravia forms the eastern part where the country’s second city Brno, is located. The bulk of Silesia now lies in Poland with only a very small part being contained within the borders of the Czech Republic, in the far north-eastern corner of the country.
On the afternoon of Thursday 30th September, we drove from Litomyšl, which is in East Bohemia, further eastwards into South Moravia, to the little town of Vizovice. The main claim to fame of Vizovice is that the very best variety of Slivovice (Czech plum brandy) is distilled within the town, a fact that we were . . . → Read More: Two Moravian Churches and a brief visit to Poland
By Ricky, on October 17th, 2010
Town Hall in Litomyšl © Ricky Yates
Yet again, I have to start a blog post by apologising for not posting anything here for the past three weeks. My chief excuse is that Sybille & I have been on away on holiday for two of those weeks only returning to Prague last Tuesday (12th) in the afternoon. We’ve spent our time exploring various parts of the Czech Republic with little forays into each of the country’s neighbours – Slovakia, Poland, Austria & Germany. Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to write a series of posts about our travels & introduce readers to the delights of the Czech Republic that lie outside of Prague.
On the evening of Tuesday 28th September, we met my former colleague Rev’d Kathy Ferguson, at Prague airport and brought her to the Chaplaincy flat. Then on the Wednesday morning, I took . . . → Read More: Litomyšl
By Ricky, on September 27th, 2010
Christ Church, Vienna © Ricky Yates
On Thursday 16th 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 . . . → Read More: The Eastern Archdeaconry Synod in Vienna
By Ricky, on September 13th, 2010
With Lenka & Phil in the courtyard of Valtice Castle © Ricky Yates
On Friday 10th September, I conducted my third wedding in just under four weeks when Phil, an Englishman, married Lenka, a Czech. However, unlike the two previous weddings which I’ve described in earlier blogposts, this wedding took place over 270 km southeast of Prague in the small Moravian town of Valtice which lies very close to the border with both Austria and Slovakia.
In order to be sure that I arrived on time for the wedding and in a well prepared state, we chose to drive to Valtice the previous afternoon. The bulk of the journey was along the Prague-Brno motorway which was originally constructed during the Communist era. The section nearer to Brno still has the original concrete road surface which is horribly uneven and extremely noisy to drive on. But other . . . → Read More: An English – Czech Wedding in Moravia
By Ricky, on September 5th, 2010
Me, Allison & Jan inside St. Clement's Church following their marriage service © Sybille Yates
Yesterday, Saturday 4th September, I conducted my second wedding of the year when Jan, a Czech, married Allison, an American. Like my Scottish – Slovak wedding of three weeks earlier, Jan & Allison’s wedding took place in St. Clement’s Church with a similar wonderful mix of nationalities in the congregation including Czech, American, Canadian, German, French and English.
Allison and Jan first met whilst postgraduate students at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. They are both undertaking research in aspects of political science and have spent the past year studying in Berlin.
I first met the happy couple just over a year ago when they attended worship at St. Clements one Sunday morning in August 2009. But it was in December last year that Allison got in . . . → Read More: A Czech – American Wedding
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