Tag: Public Transport

Walking the Šárka Valley

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 9th 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.

A brief visit to my old stamping ground

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

On Monday 19th 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 19th 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 20th 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.

Wizz 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 Wizz 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.

A visit to the UK

Phillip & Charlotte at Matt’s birthday sports afternoon © Ricky Yates

On Friday 16th July, I set out to make my first return visit to the UK since moving to Prague nearly two years ago. The five day trip was part holiday – spending sometime with my son Phillip in Derby; and part work – fulfilling a promise made earlier in the year to undertake a deputation visit for the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) who prayerfully and financially support the work of the Prague Chaplaincy.

As usual, the wonderful Prague public transport system got me from the bus stop, five minutes walk from the Chaplaincy flat, to the front entrance of Terminal 1 at Prague Airport, in little more than thirty minutes. Much more surprisingly, my Easyjet flight was taxiing down the runway at 10.45, exactly the time it was meant to be departing from Prague. Less than two hours later, we landed in the UK though, because of the one hour time difference, it was only 11.40 BST.

I flew into the rather incongruously named ‘Robin Hood Airport’ which serves Doncaster and Sheffield in South Yorkshire. At the end of 2009, Easyjet ceased to operate out of East Midlands Airport, the airport that serves Derby, and passed the Prague – East Midlands route to bmibaby.com. In their wisdom, bmibaby.com have suspended their Prague – East Midlands flights during July and August, presumably because it is more profitable to use their planes to fly British tourists to the Costas in Spain or the Greek islands during this time.

At UK passport control, I had great difficulty stopping myself from saying “Dobrý den” to the immigration officer, instead of saying “Good morning”. This was a problem I continued to have during the following few days, adjusting to the fact that I could actually speak in English and be completely understood. That I needed to say “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, not “Dekuji” and “Na shledanou”.

It was equally strange once I met up with Phillip in the airport car park. I got into the front passenger seat of his right-hand drive (RHD) car, in that respect no different from being in my RHD car in Prague. But he then proceeded to drive on the left-hand side of the road! After nearly two years of travelling or driving on the right-hand side of the road, that took some getting used to once again.

A forty minute drive down the M18 and the M1 got us to Derby. After Phillip had purchased a few things from Morrisons supermarket, I tried to get some Sterling currency out of the nearby ATM, using my Barclays Bank debit card. I had deliberately transferred funds from my Czech bank account to my UK Barclays account to be able to do exactly this. My attempt to withdraw cash was declined – a security measure because I hadn’t used the debit card in the UK for nearly two years!  So, before proceeding to Phillip’s home for a late lunch, we drove to a branch of Barclays Bank plc where I duly produced my passport and debit card with the request that I be allowed to withdraw my own money! I was extremely glad that I had arrived in the UK on a weekday rather than a weekend.

During my visit to the UK, I was asked several times whether there was anything I missed about the UK now I lived in the Czech Republic. My answer was always negative – as things currently stand, I don’t see myself living in the UK again in the foreseeable future. But on that Friday evening, I did do two thoroughly enjoyable things which it would not be possible to do in Prague.

Firstly, en-route to the city centre, Phillip and I purchased our evening meal from a Fish & Chips shop. We then walked slightly further on to the County Ground where we ate our fish and chips, (in Phillip’s case, pie and chips), whilst watching a day/night Twenty20 cricket match between Derbyshire CC and Northamptonshire CC. However, one less enjoyable, (though expected), thing was paying £3.00 a pint (0.568 litre) for a beer whilst watching the cricket when a 0.5 litre beer in most Prague bars would cost no more than £1.00.

The following day, Saturday 17th July, Phillip and his girlfriend Charlotte, had been invited to the birthday celebrations of Matt, a university friend of Phillip who, like Phillip, has stayed on in Derby after graduating. Matt kindly assured Phillip that his Dad was more than welcome to come along with him.

Matt lives with his heavily pregnant wife, in the village of Hilton, just to the west of Derby. For his birthday, he had invited various friends, his brother and sister, together with their respective boyfriends/girlfriends, to a picnic lunch and a sports afternoon on the nearby village playing field. So, after sandwiches, crisps and other goodies, accompanied by a variety of liquid refreshment, we spent the afternoon playing rounders and kwik cricket.

Afterwards, I returned with Phillip and Charlotte to their home. We quickly ate a stir-fry and got washed and changed before we rejoined the others in the centre of Derby where the birthday celebrations were resumed and the following two pictures were taken.

Father and Son © Ricky Yates
Phillip & Charlotte © Ricky Yates

More about my UK trip in my next post.

A ferry across the Vltava

Ferry boat moored at the ferry terminal at Podbaba © Ricky Yates

I’ve written previously about the wonderful integrated public transport system here in Prague. It consists of buses, trams and the metro. They do all interconnect and allow access to every part of the city. Not only are services frequent and reliable, unlike in the UK, they don’t stop functioning as soon as it snows!

And travel on the whole system is so remarkably cheap. Sybille and I both buy an annual season ticket. The Chaplaincy kindly pay for mine. Each annual season ticket costs 4750 Kc which at current exchange rates is about £168.00. A combination of this great value, together with the extreme winter weather which has only recently finally relented, may explain why I haven’t put petrol in my car since December 2009!

Ferry crossing the Vltava © Ricky Yates

However, not only does the integrated public transport system include buses, trams and the metro, it also includes three little passenger ferries across the River Vltava. Two of these lie relatively close to where we live and help overcome the fact that there is no road bridge across the river after Most Baríkádníku just north of the city centre at Holešovice, until the town of Kralupy, many kilometres further north of Prague.

One ferry terminus on our side of the River Vltava, is just a short walk or two stops on the bus from the Chaplaincy flat. It goes across to Podhori on the other side from where it is only a further short walk to one of Sybille’s favourite places to visit – Prague Zoo. Last month, I crossed to river on the ferry and caught the connecting bus on the other side, in order to travel on to the hospital in Bohnice to make a pastoral visit to one of the congregation. The journey took no more than twenty minutes. Not using the ferry, it would have taken nearly an hour.

Despite being rather small, not only are foot passenger transported across the river by ferry, but also bicycles and children in pushchairs and buggies.

Ferry crosing the Vltava, seen from the Baba ridge with the paneláks of Bohnice on the opposite hillside © Ricky Yates

Finally, the snow has melted

My Renault Scenic on Saturday 9th January 2010 after snow had fallen for 24 hours © Ricky Yates

I previously blogged about the heavy snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January 2010 and continued right through the weekend. The photo on the left shows my car on the Saturday morning after snow had fallen continuously for 24 hours. As I remarked in my more recent post about the visit of the Archdeacon to Prague on the weekend of 30th-31st January, most of the snow that fell then was still lying on the ground during his visit. However, after more than six weeks of temperatures almost permanently being below freezing, finally during the past week, a thaw has set in and the snow has gradually melted.

I was warned before moving to the Czech Republic, that I would have to get used to colder continental winters. But nothing could really prepare me for the weather Prague has experienced these last nearly seven weeks. Apparently, this has been the worst winter weather that the Czech Republic has had in 17 years. Towards the end of this long cold spell, even native Czechs were beginning to express their frustration with the extreme nature of the weather.

Despite the lying snow and freezing temperatures, Prague has continued to function. The city authorities have made major efforts to clear roads and pavements and public transport has kept operating with the minimal of delays. Particularly in popular pedestrianized areas in the city centre, snow has been cleared away by loading it into trucks and dumping it out of the way elsewhere. There are still massive heaps of snow along the banks of the River Vltava which are the result of this exercise.

Heap of dirty snow © Ricky Yates

Even in suburban streets, snow has been pushed into piles in order to leave a clear path along the pavement or road. It is mainly these heaps of snow that still have not melted, together with snow lying on north facing slopes which get very little sun.

When snow falls, everything looks beautiful and white. However, as it melts, dirt, litter and scattered street debris is revealed which look highly unattractive. In particular, many dog owners have got out of the habit of cleaning up after their dogs have obliged in the street believing that the snow will cover it up. Now the snow has melted, one has to walk quite carefully in places to avoid stepping in dog s–t. It will be interesting to observe how quickly all of this mess is cleared up.

As well as the marked improvement in the weather, last week was also notable for a number of other things. Both of us had our birthdays which has resulted in our joint ages now totalling one hundred! On the intervening day between our respective birthdays, I paid the last of several visits to the dentist for the fitting of a crown to replace one of my front teeth which I broke at the beginning of February.

Looking ahead, I have an early morning meeting on Wednesday 3rd March, following which I may be able to write a very interesting blog post. Watch this space!