Renault Scenic

Nový Carly

Nearly ten years ago, I drove from the North Oxfordshire countryside to Prague, in order to begin my new life here in the Czech Republic. I drove in my right-hand drive Renault Scenic, first registered in March 2000, which has belonged to me since February 2004. I explained my reasons for bringing my car with the steering wheel on the ‘wrong’ side, to the Czech Republic, in this blog post from June 2009. Then there is a further post asking you to ‘Check this Czech car out!‘ 🙂

The ‘Carly’, as the Renault Scenic has become proverbially known, took Sybille and I all the way to Turkey and back in October 2009. In October 2015, it took us all around Poland. In between those trips, there have been various visits to Croatia, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as to many different places within the Czech Republic.

The ‘Carly’ has also taken me back to the UK on three occasions, the first of which I wrote about here, explaining all that is involved in a drive across five countries to Dunkerque on the French side of the English Channel. The last time I undertook the trip was in December 2017, in order to spend Christmas with my children and grandchildren, the first Christmas in 28 years when I wasn’t working!

However, despite my strong affection for the ‘Carly’, back in June, I came to the sad conclusion that the time had come to part with it and buy another car. There were three main reasons for this. Firstly, it has 217,826 miles / 350,000 kilometres on the clock. Secondly, the bodywork is beginning to go in several places, especially around the rear wheel arches. Thirdly and most significantly, various parts of the ‘Carly’s brain’ are no longer functioning. Whilst it would, at considerable expense, be possible to replace the ‘brain’, the Renault dealer in Prague told me that there would be no guarantee that a new ‘brain’ would talk to other parts of the ‘Carly’ and would thus render it immovable!

Having many times driven past Gregi Auta in Ústí nad Labem and seen their wide range of second-hand cars, I decided it was the place to start looking for another car. I visited on the afternoon of Tuesday 19^th June and two hours later, I had become the owner of the blue Volkswagen Golf that you see in the photograph at the beginning of this post and below.

Whilst it is sixteen years old, it had only 140,000 km on the clock and the bodywork is in excellent condition. Likewise the engine seems fine. Buying it hasn’t put a major dent in my bank account so, if it lasts the next three to four years, I shall be more than happy. Interestingly, it had been imported from Germany, the previous owner being a resident of the Spreewald area, south of Berlin. Therefore two days after I purchased the car, I had to visit the town council offices in Decín and apply for a Czech registration document and number plates.

On a couple of occasions when in France, I have previously hired a left-hand drive car, therefore driving one is not a totally new experience. But it does still take some getting used to. Even now, nearly three months after purchasing it, I still sometimes open the wrong door to get in to drive. I also often look over the incorrect shoulder to find my seat belt. And I have, more than once, tried to change gear with the door handle 🙂

When I posted a photograph of my new VW Golf on Facebook, I did raise the question of what it should be called. I had a few suggestions and my favourite was ‘Nový Carly’ which is the one I’ve adopted.

I also have one other problem – how do I dispose of an eighteen year old, right-hand drive Renault Scenic, in the Czech Republic?

The old ‘Carly’ in Prague, in the snow 🙂 © Ricky Yates

Some final thoughts on our October trip around Poland

Wroclaw dwarf at the ATM © Sybille Yates

‘Did you enjoy your holiday in Poland?’, is a question we’ve been asked several times since our return to Prague just over six weeks ago, on Wednesday 21^st October. My reply is always a very positive ‘Yes’, with the notable exception of the problem we had with the ‘Carly’ when the immobilizer malfunctioned. I hope that some of our enjoyment comes through in my previous eleven blog posts 🙂

A number of people questioned in advance of our visit, whether we were wise to travel around Poland in mid-October, thinking we would experience bad weather. However, in the whole of the fifteen days we were away, we were only affected by rain twice – in the late afternoon and evening when we drove from Frombork to Malbork, and the bulk of the day when we sought to explore Wroclaw on foot.

During the first few days of our trip, when we enjoyed blue skies and bright sunshine during the day, it was inevitably quite cold overnight, with a touch of frost on occasions. But it was never severe and temperatures soon rose, once the sun came up.

There were two major pluses arising from visiting Poland in October. One was the wonderful array of autumn colours we saw as we travelled, which became more pronounced each successive day. The other was the cost of our hire boat on the Masurian Lakes, which was half what it would have been, had we hired it in July or August. But also, because we hired in the late-season, we then had the lakes virtually to ourselves.

The Masurian Lakes more than lived up to my expectations. What really impressed me was the excellent balance that the authorities seem to have achieved, between protecting the wonderful unspoilt environment with its variety of wild animals and birds, and allowing visitors to enjoy and explore the area. I would love to visit again in summer, but it would inevitably be far busier with many more visitors.

Although we travelled from the south of Poland, to the far north, and back again, we were still limited in the number of places that we had time to stop in and explore. And even in the places where we did stop, I often felt that we only scratched the surface of what there was to see and discover.

Speaking of the places in which we did spend some time, my own preference was for Wroclaw rather than Kraców, despite the rain that impinged on our enjoyment of the former. As Wroclaw is no more than five hours drive from Prague, it is certainly somewhere to which I would like to return, hopefully in better weather.

The inevitable question that has been asked is why didn’t we visit the capital, Warsaw. There is a very simple answer – I have to go there next year in late September, as the Warsaw Anglican congregation are kindly hosting the 2016 Eastern Archdeaconry Synod. I hope to encourage Sybille to come with me and we might then add on a few more days of annual leave, and discover a little more of Poland.

‘Did anything come as a surprise?’, is something I’ve also been asked. Probably the biggest surprise was discovering how widely English is spoken, with the exception of when we most needed it to be, when the ‘Carly’ broke down 🙁 Also, when we offered either English or German, English was nearly always preferred, with the notable exception of the marina at Mikolajki.

The only other surprise, though as a geographer by first degree I should have known, was discovering in reality, how big Poland actually is. Except when travelling on motorways, of which there are currently relatively few, it did take a lot longer than I originally anticipated, to get from A to B.

Of all the eleven blog posts that I’ve written about Poland, the one that has attracted the greatest number of comments has been the first one, regarding contrasts between the Czech Republic and Poland. I’m most grateful to everyone who did comment and it has been very reassuring to receive several affirmations within those comments, concurring with what I wrote.

Firstly, my thanks to Cynthia, an American expat living and working in the Czech Republic and who writes an excellent blog herself 🙂 , saying that she had exactly the same response from Czech people as we had, questioning why on earth she would want to spend time visiting Poland.

Secondly, I appreciated the various explanations, by both expats and native Czechs, as to why Czech people rarely visit Poland. That Czechs prefer the warm Adriatic sea to the cool Baltic sea. That they think it will be the same as the Czech Republic, therefore why would they want to see more of the same? That they have experienced poor Polish food imported into the Czech Republic and presume therefore that all Polish food is poor. That agnostic Czechs feel threatened by the power and influence of the Polish Roman Catholic Church!

My original observations were written and posted after only being in Poland for five days. But what we observed in the following days, only further confirmed what I originally wrote. I mentioned the high level of adherence and practice by Polish Roman Catholics, in contrast to to the Czech Republic. Both Sybille and I were amazed at the number of masses being celebrated at almost any urban Roman Catholic Church. The photograph on the left was one Sybille spotted in Wroclaw.

I also wrote that virtually the only area where I had observed any similarities between Poles and Czechs, was in their fashion sense. As in the Czech Republic, throughout our travels, we continued to see many men having long hair and tying it back in a pony tail. And it certainly seemed almost de rigueur, in virtually every bar-restaurant we patronised, for young female waitresses to wear short stretchy black miniskirts or mini-dresses 🙂

I finished that post by saying that since passing through the border area just north of Ostrava, we hadn’t seen a single Czech registered car! That continued to be true until three days before the end of our trip, when we were passed by a Czech registered car, just north of Wroclaw. But we didn’t see another until a few kilometres before the Polish-Czech border near the ski resort of Harrachov, on our drive back to Prague.

One major attraction that I omitted from my post about Wroclaw, were the dwarfs that can be found throughout the city. Apparently, there are now over three hundred of them! Our favourite of the ones we spotted, was the dwarf using the ATM, at the beginning of this post. Below is another.

Wroclaw dwarfs pushing a heavy ball © Sybille Yates

An educative but expensive journey

Decorated Wedding Car in Zambrów © Sybille Yates

We set out from Kraków on the morning of Friday 9^th October, to drive to the small town of Mikolajki in the far north-eastern corner of Poland, aiming to arrive there around lunchtime on Saturday 10^th. The centrepiece of our Polish adventure has been to spend a week, cruising the Masurian Lakes, on a hire boat from Marina Miko in Mikolajki. Handover of the boat was to be between 15.00 -18.00 on Saturday afternoon.

I was well aware that we would not accomplish the journey from Kraków to Mikolajki in a single day, which is why I had allowed nearly two days in our travel timetable. In retrospect, I’m very glad that I did. As it turned out, it could have very easily taken us a whole lot longer!

On Friday 9^th October, I made a number of significant discoveries, or I was reminded of things I really should have already known 😉 Firstly, driving out of any big city takes time – driving out of Kraków certainly did! Secondly, driving along ordinary Polish main roads, also takes time – lots of it! Whilst the motorway from the Czech-Polish border near Ostrava, to the outskirts of Kraków, had allowed for very speedy progress, route 79 from Kraków to Sandomierz, did not. Lots of small towns and villages with speed limits and plenty of relatively slow moving trucks.

Travelling that day, also really brought home to me, just how big Poland actually is. What looks like a short hop on the road atlas, in reality, takes far longer than anticipated.

When we did finally reach Sandomierz, we then headed for Lublin, finally crossing the Wisla/Vistula river, whose valley we had been following from Kraków. Unfortunately, a section of bypass around Lublin, which is shown as being ‘under construction’ in our road atlas, was still under construction. Thus we battled our way into and out of Lublin during the Friday afternoon rush hour. Progress northwards after that, was a little quicker.

Once it got dark, we decided to head for the next major centre and find somewhere to stay. So when we reached the outskirts of Siedlce, we made for the town centre and spotted a sign for a hotel. The receptionist spoke excellent English and the price for a pleasant double room for the night with breakfast, was very reasonable. As the hotel restaurant seemed all but empty, we instead found a much busier one nearby where we had a most enjoyable evening meal.

The next morning dawned cold, but fine and sunny. Being Saturday, there were relatively few trucks on the road so we made quite rapid progress northwards. After about two hours of driving, we reached the town of Zambrów and decided to take a short break. We parked in a small square opposite a flower shop where a wedding car was being decorated as you can see in the photograph above.

But when we got back into our car to continue our journey, disaster struck. The ‘Carly’ refused to start! It turned over perfectly, so there was clearly plenty of life in the battery. But the engine refused to fire. We tried rolling it down the road to bump start it, but still to no avail.

First we rang the number for the National Emergency Roadside Service as given in our Poland guidebook, but it didn’t work. So we then rang 112 and a most helpful operator who spoke English, gave us the phone number of a local Zambrów breakdown service. He of course, didn’t speak English but somehow Sybille conveyed to him over the phone, where we were and correctly understood him say in reply, that he would be with us shortly. Twenty minutes later, a breakdown truck arrived.

The breakdown truck driver had previously worked in Germany for a short while and therefore spoke some German which aided communication. He rang his mechanic friend to say that he would be bringing a Czech-registered right-hand drive Renault Scenic to him shortly, and then duly took the ‘Carly’ and both of us, to the mechanic’s workshop.Cost 150 zloty/960 Czech crowns.

After about an hour of trying various things, the mechanic and his son conveyed to us that the problem was with the immobilizer. It was an electronic problem rather than a mechanical one. Despite phone conversations with his electronics friend, the mechanic couldn’t fix it. We would have to wait until Monday. All this was conveyed without any of us having any language in common. The similarities between Czech and Polish were of considerable help in our somewhat interesting conversation.

We were able to explain where we were travelling to and why – pointing to the picture of our hire boat in a brochure helped. The mechanic called a taxi driver friend who quoted between 375-400 zloty/2555 Czech crowns to drive us the 125km from Zambrów to Mikolajki and cover the cost of his return journey. We bit the bullet!

Within twenty minutes, the taxi arrived and we then transferred all of our belongings out of the ‘Carly’, and into the taxi. The journey that followed might best be politely described as ‘interesting’. At times our taxi driver drove at speeds of up to 140kph on roads with a maximum speed limit of 90kph. At the end of the journey, Sybille declared that she was in serious need of a double Polish vodka!!!!! But we made it to the marina in Mikolajki arriving at 16.10, still all in one piece – just! – together with all our belongings.

Update – You can find out how we were eventually reunited with the ‘Carly’ here.

All in the month of April

Oh dear! April is gone and I haven’t written or posted anything here for nearly a month. So finally, an update, explaining what I’ve been up to.

Worship

The first few days of April were the latter days of Holy Week, leading to Easter Sunday. As I’ve previously written, Easter Day is the Sunday when we normally have the biggest congregation of the year. However, 2015 proved exceptional with a total attendance of 136, (121 adults and 15 children), the largest ever during my seven Easters in Prague.

The additional encouraging thing is that a higher level of numbers attending worship has been maintained post-Easter. Low Sunday, (the Sunday after Easter Day), was far from being ‘low’ and on the following Sunday 19^th April, the congregation numbered 74, nearly 50% up on our Sunday average for the year, of around fifty.

Besides being thankful for this rise in numbers, I’ve obviously asked myself what has brought this about. I think the answer is that our core congregation has slightly increased in size and is putting in a higher regularity of attendance. This has combined with an increase in visitors to Prague, joining us for worship. Well over half of our Easter Day congregation were visitors. Nearly all of these find us via our Church website which I constantly seek to keep up-to-date. I recently read some research which indicates that having a Church website that is not up-to-date, is a sure way of discouraging people from attending your Church.

Weather

Despite writing in early March, that Spring seems to be arriving, winter has been somewhat reluctant to release its grip. There were several occasions during the last week of March and the first week of April, when Prague experienced heavy snow showers, most notably on Maundy Thursday when I took this picture from the balcony of the Chaplaincy Flat. Much to the amusement of the congregation, I did say at the beginning of our service that evening, in view of the weather I was tempted to change the opening hymn to ‘In the bleak midwinter’ 🙂

However, since the Easter weekend, the weather has been much improved. It was pleasantly fine for our mini-pilgrimage on Holy Saturday and positively warm when I went walking to further explore Ceský Ráj.

Dentist

Earlier this year, I was forced to visit the dentist for the first time for a few years, when one of my front teeth just fell out. Actually, it was a crown dating back nearly thirty years, which had come adrift because the tooth root to which it was attached, had died. A root canal filling and a new crown restored my good looks 😉

However, whilst fixing my front tooth, my dentist did point out that the rest of my mouth was a bit of a mess. So in late March, I decided to bite the bullet – please forgive the obvious pun – and get some further dental work done. Several visits later, on Friday 10^th April, I had three new crowns fitted to the top left side of my mouth, into the large gap left by bits of tooth and filling falling out over previous years.

Whilst I’m very pleased with the end result, my three new crowns have inevitably cost me many Czech crowns – CZK13,500, (£400 at current exchange rates), to be precise 🙁 , making a serious hole in my bank account. My only consolation is knowing that having similar work done in the UK, would probably have cost twice as much!

Annual Church Meeting

At our Annual Church Meeting on Sunday 19^th April, we did all the usual things such as receiving the 2014 accounts and electing the Churchwardens and Church Council for the next twelve months. But as well as looking back over the previous year, I took the opportunity to look forward.

I pointed out that in less than two years time, I would turn sixty-five, and that my current bishop’s licence as Anglican Chaplain in the Czech Republic, expires on 30^th April 2017. Further to that, somewhere between my sixty-fifth birthday and the expiry date of my bishop’s licence, I intend to retire. Ahead lies an interesting two years as the Chaplaincy begins to prepare for finding my successor and as Sybille and I begin to sort out where we are going to retire to. Keep reading this blog if you want to know more!

The 'Carly' at the STK testing station © Ricky Yates — The ‘Carly’ at the STK testing station © Ricky Yates

Tyres and STK for the ‘Carly’

As in many continental European countries, in the Czech Republic it is a requirement to have winter tyres fitted on cars, when driving in severe weather conditions. This realistically means between November and March each year. So on Friday 24^th April, I drove to Nepomuk to visit my friend Adrian Blank, in order to change from winter back to summer tyres. Adrian’s in-laws truck and car servicing business, kindly store the set of tyres I’m not using at any given time.

As I’ve previously explained, once every two years in the Czech Republic, a car also has to pass STK, the equivalent of a British MOT test. Although my current STK is valid until 20^th June 2015, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity of needing to be in Nepomuk for the tyre change, to also get the ‘Carly’ through STK slightly earlier than required.

As well as changing the tyres, I asked Adrian and his mechanic colleague, to check if anything else needed doing to ensure the ‘Carly’ would pass STK. Fortunately, the only thing wrong was that one light over the back number plate was not working, because the bulb was kaput.

After this, Adrian and I set off to the nearby town of Horažd’ovice, where the STK testing station is located. Conveniently, Adrian had another car that had been left with him by the owner, in order to get it through STK, so he drove that car and I followed in mine. I am pleased to report that the ‘Carly’ passed with flying colours, costing me only CZK1125 for the test and CZK9 for a new light bulb 🙂 Afterwards, Adrian and I had lunch together which I did also pay for as a ‘thank you’ for his continued help in keeping the ‘Carly’ legally on Czech roads.

A tale of two Advents

The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement's Church © Ricky Yates — The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement’s Church © Ricky Yates

Last Sunday, 30^th November, was Advent Sunday which marks both the beginning of the Church Liturgical Year and of the season of Advent. Contrary to what the manufacturers of Advent calendars all believe, Advent only occasionally begins on 1st December. Instead it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day.

The word ‘advent’ means ‘coming’, from the Latin ‘adventus‘. And particularly at the beginning of the Advent season, we are encouraged to think seriously about the promised second coming of Christ – his second Advent, as in turn we prepare ourselves to once more celebrate his first coming at Christmas.

The tradition of having an Advent ring/wreath/crown, with four candles, an additional one to be lit on successive Sundays during Advent, is very popular here in the Czech Republic. Whilst our host Ceskobratrská církve evangelické / Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren congregation, are not great keepers of the Liturgical Year – for example, they do not mark Ash Wednesday – they do mark and keep the Advent season. As part of doing so, each year they provide this amazing Advent ring which hangs from the Church ceiling, just behind the altar. I took this photograph at the end of our Advent Sunday worship last Sunday morning, just before snuffing out the first lit candle, as part of our duty of leaving the Church building safe and secure!

I thoroughly enjoyed our Advent Sunday worship with the regular congregation being joined by numerous visitors from around the world. Our service began with the singing of, ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’, and ended with a rousing rendition of Charles Wesley’s ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’. But as well as celebrating Christ’s promised ‘second Advent’, I was very conscious that just a couple of days later, I would experience a personal ‘second advent’ – that of my wife, Sybille, returning to Prague from her nearly six-month walking pilgrimage, from Prague to Santiago de Compostela.

Having left from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat on Monday 9^th June, Sybille successfully walked into Santiago on the morning of Sunday 23^rd November. After her arrival, she spent a few days enjoying the city and also visited a friend in Lugo. With no direct flights available to Prague, she instead flew to Barcelona and spent the Advent Sunday weekend staying with another friend there, before being booked to fly to Prague on Tuesday 2^nd December.

Over the few days before Sybille was due to return to Prague, it was cold but dry. However, soon after dark on the evening of Monday 1^st December, it started to rain. But because the air and the ground were so cold, the rain almost immediately froze, forming ice everywhere. Prague, together with much of the rest of the Czech Republic, experienced what has been described as an ‘ice storm’. Ice forming in large amounts on the overhead wires, caused the whole of the Prague tram network to close down along with much of the Czech railway system.

The 'Carly' on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates — The ‘Carly’ on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates

Eventually, the rain did turn to snow and this was how my car looked the following morning, in advance of driving out to the airport to meet Sybille. But underneath what appears to be just a light dusting of snow, was a thick layer of ice covering the windscreen and all the other car windows. It took a major scraping exercise to get the car into a condition to be driven safely with good visibility all round!

Therefore, having been sitting alongside the sea, sipping a glass of wine the previous afternoon, it came as quite a shock for Sybille as she flew from a temperature of +16C in Barcelona, to one of -2C in Prague. She did humorously request that I put her straight on a plane back to Spain, when she saw the snow and felt the icy cold.

Fortunately, the weather and temperature has improved from the atrocious conditions of Monday night and Tuesday. I’ve taken the inside of this week as annual leave and we’ve begun to adjust to once more being together in the same flat, for the first time in nearly six months.