By Ricky, on November 11th, 2010
Besídka Restaurant & Hotel, Slavonice © Ricky Yates
Less than 30 km south of Telc lies the little town of Slavonice. On the morning of Thursday 7th October, we drove from Telc to Slavonice, stopping off to briefly explore the intervening town of Decice en-route.
Slavonice has some of the best examples of buildings with sgraffito decoration in the whole of the Czech Republic. The reason that so many of these architectural gems have survived is because of the town’s somewhat unfortunate history. A prosperous town in the latter part of the sixteenth century from which period, many of the town’s historic buildings date, it lost much of its prosperity during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and suffered a further economic downturn when the main road between Prague and Vienna was re-routed in the eighteenth century.
In the twentieth century, two further events . . . → Read More: Slavonice
By Ricky, on October 25th, 2010
Do you fancy a pasta salad with a horse called 'Fruity' galloping through it? © Ricky Yates
In a valley between wooded Moravian hills, lies the small town of Rožnov pod Radhoštem which is where we drove to after leaving Ceský Tešín. Rožnov had been recommended to us as a place to visit by several people as it is the home of the Wallachian Open-Air Museum where an amazing variety of historic wooden Moravian buildings have been preserved since the founding of the museum 85 years ago in 1925.
We arrived just before dusk and eventually found a place to stay within our price range in Penzion Becva, which didn’t appear in our guidebook, but which I fortunately spotted as we were about to leave the town to look elsewhere. Having been so well-fed at lunchtime, we then went out that evening looking . . . → Read More: More Czenglish and Museums don’t open on Mondays
By Ricky, on September 1st, 2010 Back in July, we had to laugh when three different restaurants, all located in Jugoslávských partyzánu, the street that leads from Podbaba where we live to our nearest Metro station at Dejvicka, all closed down for refurbishment at the same time. Two of them were ones that Sybille & I have often frequented.
One was our favourite Italian restaurant, Pizzeria Grosseto, which shut down for exactly two weeks between 19th July and 1st August. During that time, the place was completely gutted. New windows and doors were installed, along with a completely new heating system ready for the winter. Tables and chairs were refurbished, the lighting updated and the whole place redecorated, inside and out. About the only thing to be left unchanged was the pizza oven!
In contrast, Bar – Restaurace U Internationalu is sadly still closed. This little establishment was run by two women, Margarita a . . . → Read More: Another wonderful example of Czenglish
By Ricky, on August 7th, 2010
Take your shoes off before entering a Czech home © Ricky Yates
The picture on the left illustrates a Czech practice that any foreigner visiting a Czech home, needs to be very aware of if they do not want to cause serious offence to their hosts. When entering a Czech home you should always remove your shoes.
Normally, this is done immediately after you have just set foot inside the front door of the house or flat you are visiting. There will usually already be a number of pairs of outdoor shoes sitting on a mat in the entrance hallway and, as a polite visitor, you should remove your own outdoor shoes and put them alongside those already sitting there.
Sometimes your Czech host may say, “O don’t worry about taking off your shoes”. If you want to be invited back, ignore what has just been . . . → Read More: Don’t offend or be offended
By Ricky, on July 16th, 2010 Further to what I wrote in my previous post, last Saturday I totally cleaned the kitchen. Despite our kitchen being somewhat small – it is only an alcove off the sitting room – it took far longer than I was anticipating. Dust combined with grease is far from easy to shift! However, as with the other rooms, the end result has left me with a deep sense of satisfaction.
After a rest day on Sunday, I decided that the office could wait until next week when I’m officially back at work. As always, it is that difficult line of demarcation when one lives on-the-job. What is work and what is domestic? However, as cleaning out the office will in part involve sorting through Chaplaincy papers and filing them, I think that is more work than domestic.
Therefore this week has been more holiday than domestic chores and tomorrow, . . . → Read More: Beautiful Gardens and a tale of two Bar-Restaurants
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