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Karlín – Prague’s first suburb
28.01. 2012Prague’s leafy central suburb of Karlín may best be known outside of the Czech Republic for the devastating floods that laid ruin to it in 2002, but much of the world has been using the machines and products born of Karlín factories for more than a hundred years and aside from that it is also Prague’s oldest suburb – a point recalled by an exhibition being held this year at the City Museum in Prague that was created by historian Dr. Zdeněk Míka:
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The House of the Black Madonna – home of the only surviving Cubist café in the world
25.01. 2012Nestled between busy Wenceslas Square and Prague’s number one tourist destination, Old Town Square, the House of the Black Madonna houses a small museum of Cubism as well as the only surviving Cubist café in the world – the Grand Café Orient, which was renovated between 2002 and 2005.
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The Museum of Decorative Arts – a must-see destination for fans of Czech design
11.01. 2012Lovers of Czech applied arts and design will find a veritable treasure trove of interesting items, ranging from glass wares to clocks and metal works, in Prague’s Museum of Decorative Arts. Located right across the street from the well-known Rudolfinum palace, the museum is housed in a stunning Neo-Renaissance building. It was one of the last in Prague to be designed in that style. The architect was Josef Schulz, who also was behind the Czech National Museum.
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Jilemnice - the cradle of Czech skiing
04.01. 2012It is early on a Friday morning, the air is freezing and there is no sign of the sun in the sky. Yet, the creaky old Karosa bus heading towards Krkonoše or Giant Mountains is almost full when I arrive at the bus station. Many people from Prague have taken their day off in order to enjoy some snow. Unlike most of my fellow travellers, I am not heading towards the ski slopes and racing tracks. My destination is the little town of Jilemnice, crouching at the foothills of the Giant Mountains in north Bohemia. Jilemnice was one of the very first skiing centres in the country and it proudly calls itself the Cradle of Czech skiing. Petra Pohůnkova from the local Town Hall has promised to give me a tour through the town. We meet on the central square, right in front of the Town Hall building:
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The Lucerna Palace
28.12. 2011The Lucerna Palace, long considered a beacon of Czech national pride has been celebrating its centenary this year without too much of the fanfare usually reserved for such occasions. Situated off Wenceslas Square in the very heart of Prague, and established by civil engineer, designer and builder Václav M. Havel in 1907, it was the first multi-purpose arcade of its kind ever to be built in this country.
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Litoměřice
17.12. 2011The North Bohemian town of Litoměřice has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the Czech Republic's most beautiful towns. Founded roughly 1,000 years ago, Litoměřice lies in one of the Czech Republic's hilliest ranges on the confluence of the Elbe and Ohře Rivers. The town's beginnings was originally a Slavonic fort overseeing a number of small municipalities, later replaced by a castle and emerging town in the 11th century.
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Strážnice open-air folk museum offers a glimpse of life in past centuries
14.12. 2011In today’s Spotlight we travel to South Moravia, to the town of Strážnice, the heart of the ethnographic region of Slovácko. The town is a traditional centre of regional ethnographic festivities. Today we take you to the Strážnice open-air folk museum featuring local village architecture and showing glimpses of life in the past centuries.
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Welcome to Landek Park – the largest museum of mining in the Czech Republic
07.12. 2011Two weeks ago in Spotlight we travelled to the centre of Ostrava, the capital of the Moravian-Silesian region, where a new industrial heritage site is going to open next year. Today we will stay in the area to visit Landek Park, the largest museum of mining in the Czech Republic.
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A tale of two restaurants
30.11. 2011Hrabal’s book "I served the King of England" makes working in a restaurant sound very dramatic, and very glamorous. But the novel also suggests that such drama and glamour belong to a time now long gone. To find out whether this was true, I visited two of Prague’s most famous restaurants, to talk to their owners about their work from day-to-day.
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The second life of the Vítkovice ironworks
23.11. 2011In today’s Spotlight we travel to the city of Ostrava, the capital of the Moravian-Silesian region and more precisely to the city’s industrial centre Vítkovice. Its unusual skyline does not feature skyscrapers and church towers but rather the tall and imposing structures of extinct blast furnaces. Instead of demolishing them, Ostrava has decided to preserve its unique industrial heritage and the whole complex is now being revitalized and turned into a multipurpose cultural facility.
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Slavonice: a South Bohemian renaissance town off the beaten track
19.11. 2011It is a very crisp autumn day here in South Bohemia. And I’m slowly trundling towards Slavonice, which is in the very far south of this country, right on the Austrian border. I’m in a modern-looking, but as you can probably hear, rather shuddery sort of train. And I’m heading towards this stunningly pretty Czech town, which I hear, in recent years, has become something of an artists’ colony. So, I’m off to find out more about that in this week’s Spotlight.
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Kurdějov, one of the oldest winegrowing communities in the country
09.11. 2011South Moravia is well-known for its wine, which has been produced there at least since thirsty Roman soldiers far from home began doing so in the 2nd century. Move forward a thousand years or so, to the 13th century, and wine trading had become one of the most profitable businesses in the region. Those are the days that our destination for today stretches back to.
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A day at the races in Velká Chuchle
02.11. 2011“What’s a ‘chuchle’” was my first question, a reasonable question I think, when I first learned I would be going to see a ‘big’ one, many years ago. In the end it seems, the name of the premier Czech horse racing flat-track, Velká Chuchle, doesn’t have any literal meaning, but it is a synonym for a lovely Sunday afternoon.
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Prague’s Malá Strana cemetery: a burial ground that’s dying out
26.10. 2011Cemeteries across the country will soon fill with flowers and burning candles when on All Saints Day people visit the graves of their loved ones. But in Prague, there is one burial ground where few visitors are expected. The Malá Strana cemetery was only in use for about a century, and it now stands out as a unique monument in the middle of the dynamically developing district of Smíchov. A group of local enthusiasts have now got together to save this unique part of the city’s heritage.
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Kolín - more than just a railway junction
22.10. 2011Surrounded by railway sidings and industrial estates, it's easy to get the impression that Kolín is simply a town travellers pass through on the way from the Czech capital to the nearby tourist-friendly Kutná Hora. Nevertheless, anyone who gets off the train in Kolín and takes the trouble to walk the short distance past the factories and business parks to the city centre will find that it is a place worth visiting.
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Svitavy – the birthplace of Oskar Schindler
19.10. 2011You are not very likely to wander into Svitavy by chance. Located on both the major road and railway line connecting Moravia and eastern Bohemia, for most people Svitavy is just a name on their itinerary. But if you do come and take a closer look, you’ll find a little town proud of its past and working for a better future. Once an important town for Moravia’s textile industry, re-populated after the expulsion of Svitavy’s German speaking inhabitants, it only recently showed its pride in perhaps its most famous native personality – Oskar Schindler.
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Teplá abbey seeks to make a comeback in straitened circumstances
12.10. 2011The imposing Teplá abbey complex is sited around a dozen miles from the spa town of Mariánské Lázně, in western Bohemia. Its story is one of an enterprising religious community that was the main force in developing the whole region, its destruction under Nazism and then Communism and its tentative comeback today on the back of tourist income.
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St. Martin in the Wall
05.10. 2011I had never really been inside or had a proper look around, but I was sure the small church of St Martin in the Wall would have an interesting story, if for no other reason than its ancient appearance and peculiar name. Just off the central Národní třída is a classic Prague alleyway that’s tucked away from the shopping boulevard, neatly dividing the centuries from one another, and there you’ll find it. One of the oldest churches in the city, St Martin in the Wall is one of those relatively few landmarks whose story can transport you all the way back through the ages to the beginnings of the Czech metropolis.
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The Fort above the Black Forests - Kostelec nad Černými Lesy
24.09. 2011This week’s spotlight focuses on one of the main centres of forestry in the Czech Republic and an oft overlooked pearl of Bohemian cultural heritage. Christian Falvey gives us his impressions of the town of Kostelec nad Černými lesy.
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Michal Thoma – Traveller, photographer, writer – Part 2
16.09. 2011Michal Thoma – like his father Zdeněk – is a well-known Czech photographer, traveller, and author focussing on countries in Asia, including India and Nepal. In Part 2 of this special Panorama, we focus on Manang – a village in the Himalayas which was unchanged for centuries when Zdeněk Thoma visited and photographed there in 1979. Thirty years later, his son Michal followed in his father’s footsteps and has since put together a joint-exhibition about Manang which you can see at The House at the Stone Bell in Prague.
