As Monday 16th February dawned cold, but fine and sunny, Sybille suggested that we should take advantage of the weather on my day-off, and pay our first visit of 2015 to Prague Zoo. Here is an illustrated account of our most enjoyable day out.
Prague Zoo lies directly opposite from where we live in Podbaba, on the other side of the Vltava River. As there is no immediate bridge, the only way to get there is by ferry. So we walked down to the Podbaba bus stop and took the bus, two stops to Podbabe from where the ferry departs.
Here we are, approaching the arrival and departure point of the ferry at Podhorí, on the other side of the river. I love the sticker that declares that this small boat is part of the Prague Integrated Transport System 🙂
There is a half-hourly bus service from Podhorí to the zoo entrance, but as it would have been a twenty minute wait, we decided to walk instead. Upon arrival at the zoo entrance, we paid our admission fee, (CZK 200 for Sybille and CZK 150 for me, as being between aged 60 and 69, I am deemed to be ‘senior’ 🙂 ), and then set off to explore. My apologies that I took the photograph above, as we were leaving in the late afternoon, hence the metal gates across the entrance!
Here are a variety of creatures that we met during our visit.
Last weekend, we had the heaviest snowfall here in Prague, since early January 2010. It started snowing late on Friday 22nd February and rarely stopped until just before Sybille and I left the Chaplaincy Flat to go to Church on Sunday morning. To give you a visual impression, here is a picture showing what Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement’s Church looked like last Sunday, covered and surrounded by freshly fallen snow.
But in contrast to the UK, where everything seems to grind to a halt as soon as any snow falls, here in the Czech Republic, that just does not happen. So it was that Tram 8 arrived on time at 10.07 at the Podbaba tram stop, and whisked us off on our sixteen minute journey to Dlouhá trída, two minutes walk from the Church.
But although public transport almost always keeps going when it snows in Prague, I generally believe that ‘discretion is the better part of valour’, when it comes to trying to drive the ‘Carly’ when it is covered in this amount of snow. The irony of having finally obtained my new Czech driving licence just a few days earlier, was not lost upon me 🙂
After Church, Sybille and I took Tram 26 to Letenské námestí and had a celebratory lunch for Sybille’s birthday, in Fraktal Bar-Restaurace. Then we walked home through Stromovka Park where some park visitors were not put off by the snow, but were sitting out on deckchairs, enjoying liquid and other refreshments from the Slechtovka Restaurace, located in the middle of the park.
After a few false starts, it does seem that summer has finally arrived in Prague. Over the last couple of weeks we have had temperatures well into the twenties Celsius, plenty of sunshine and only the occasional thundery downpour. So here are some words and pictures to give a flavour of our life in Prague now summer is here.
Since soon after Easter, each Saturday morning, there has been a regular Farmers’ Market at Vítezné námestí, just a short bus or tram journey from the Chaplaincy Flat. So now the weather is so much more enticing, Sybille and I are trying to make visiting the market part of our regular Saturday morning routine. We are not the only ones as you can see from the crowds on the photograph above!
Despite now having a new Kaufland supermarket on our doorstep, it still is nice to be able to buy fresh vegetables and freshly baked bread at the Farmers’ Market each week.
However, this week sees the end of the school year for both the International and the Czech schools. And this impacts considerably on the congregational life of St. Clements as it marks the beginning of an eight week period when many of our regular members head off on holiday and/or travel back to their countries of origin. Whilst Sunday worship continues, midweek activities cease, to recommence at the beginning of September.
Therefore last Sunday 24th June, before many of the regular congregation depart to various corners of the world, following our Family Eucharist, we held a Church Family Picnic in an attractive small park that lies between St. Clement’s Church and the Vltava River. We were blessed by the recently arrived dry, warm and sunny weather and good time of fun and fellowship was had by the many who attended. Courtesy of the generosity of all those who brought picnic food to share, we were able to invite several of our visiting worshippers last Sunday, to also join us for our picnic.
The arrival of warm summer weather has also encouraged Sybille and I to take more frequent late afternoon/early evening walks to Stromovka Park, just as we used to do when we had Sam the dog. As well as the warmth and sunshine, there is the opportunity of being able to enjoy ‘a cool glass of something’ in the Šlechtovka beer garden, located in the middle of the park. For Sybille there is the additional attraction that many dog owners also frequent the beer garden allowing her to make the acquaintance of numerous four-legged friends and get a regular fur-fix.
The one drawback of Šlechtovka beer garden is that the music played over their speaker system can at best be described as ‘somewhat difficult on the ears’. On occasions, I would struggle to call some of it ‘music’! There is an adjacent covered stand for live music and on one occasion, a couple of weeks ago, there was a guitarist and drummer playing whose live music was much more to our taste.
However on Tuesday of this week, we were delighted to discover upon our arrival just before 6.00 pm, that there was to be a concert that evening, given by students and staff of the Prague Conservatoire. What could be more delightful than enjoying a cool glass of beer listening to the playing of various young talented Czech classical musicians?
The concert lasted just over an hour and was thoroughly enjoyable. One of the highlights was a Sonáta by the French composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, played by Dudlajdá Fagotiky, a quartet of young ladies playing bassoons – three normal ones together with a bass bassoon. I’m not sure of the exact meaning of the quartet’s name though fagot is Czech for bassoon.
As you can see, not only were the four young ladies excellent musicians, they also seemed to compete between themselves as to who could wear the highest stiletto heels and shortest black minidress 🙂
Where is winter? It is a question I’ve been asking for several weeks. This time last year, there had been snow lying on the ground for about seven weeks. Until yesterday, when we finally had a few heavy snow showers, there had been no snow at all in Prague this winter.
The temperature this evening has just dropped below freezing and the forecast is for temperatures of below 0 degrees Celsius for the next four nights at least. But there is still no sign of any serious snow.
There is a very good reason why I want some serious snow and for temperatures to remain below freezing for many days at a time. To ensure that the mosquitoes are kept at bay!
In the Autumn of 2008 when we first arrived in Prague and throughout the warmer months of 2009, we suffered from an abundance of mosquitoes here in the Chaplaincy Flat and elsewhere. Then two successive severe winters caused their numbers to drop to a handful. I fear that a mild winter might just allow the Prague mosquito population to recover!
In the meantime, a few evenings ago, we did experience this wonderful sunset, the picture being taken from one of the balconies of our flat. The floodlight pylon belongs to the stadium of FK Dukla Praha who, like the rest of the football clubs in the Czech Gambrinus liga, are on their mid-season break which started in early December and doesn’t conclude until late February. In view of the mild weather we have experienced so far this winter, they could still be playing!
As I mentioned in my recent sad post about Sam the dog, one of the many great things he did for Sybille and I was to get us out walking far more than before we adopted him. He became our ‘weight loss programme’ because he exercised us as we exercised him! We are both determined to continue walking just as much as we did when we had Sam so as to maintain our weight loss which between us now exceeds 30 kilos.
Most days, we would walk from the Chaplaincy Flat to the extensive and beautiful Stromovka Park, which lies about twenty-five minutes walk away from where we live. Through doing this, we got to know numerous other Czech and expat dog owners and improved our ‘dog Czech’ no end.
However, one behavioural habit which I regularly observed and continue to observe, annoys me intensely – dog owners and parents of young children, who go to the park, but then spend the whole time they are there, talking to someone else on their mobile phones!
The most extreme example I remember was of a woman we met, just by the entrance to Stromovka. She was pushing a buggy with a baby in it; was also holding onto the hand of a toddler and had a dog on a lead. She also was responsible for a slightly older toddler walking in front of her and for a second dog who was off-lead. But at the same time as all of this, she had her head bent to one side to hold her mobile phone next to her shoulder, in order to have a long conversation with one of her friends. I know women are meant to be able to multi-task, but…….
What conscious or sub-conscious message does such behaviour send to either the children or to the dogs? Why do people need to have such phone conversations if they are going to the park in order to spend quality time with their children &/or their dog(s)? Mobile phones are incredibly useful but they can also be a curse.
My photo is of a young woman walking across Václavské námestí/Wenceslas Square, also talking on her mobile, though admittedly, without dog or child in tow. But I hope I make my point – it is perfectly easy to say in response to a call, “I’m in the park with my dog/my children. I’ll call you back when I get home”.
As part of our ongoing walk programme, as well as walking to and around Stromovka Park, Sybille and I have also recently started walking around some of the more central areas of the city, particularly as they are currently relatively free of tourists! However, I’m afraid I cannot resist posting this further wonderful example of Czenglish we spotted one evening recently in Malá Strana. What might be on the menu at a ‘Restaurat’?
Finally for this post, below are two photographs, both of which brought a smile to my face as I hope they will for the many readers of my blog.
This year, New Year’s Day was a Sunday. Our Church Treasurer Gordon is a Scotsman and marked Hogmanay, by coming to Church in his kilt. I did jokingly suggest that he could put the collection in his sporran to take it home to bank the following day! I should add that it is post-Eucharistic coffee rather than a wee dram that he is drinking!
And alongside is an invitation to ‘Explore the meaning of life’ – in Czech!
