Kolovazy u Prahy (a small town near Prague) recently opened up a new attraction: A Museum of Socialist Vehicles. It exhibits car models made in-between years 1965 and 1988, which makes about 30 different models, mostly Skoda cars but also Romanian Dacias and Ziguliks. The Museum is showing off some Germany models such as Trabant and Wartburg but those are in minority.
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A giant Czech man-made lake Milada (located in the northern part of the Czech Republic) may be a ready-to-use tourist attraction by the year 2013. It came to life after a deserted coal pit was filled with 35 thousand million liters of water and flooded three former villages.
Milada is not the only such lake. It is one of the other 3 lakes which were created the same way. Water re-cultivation appears to be an inexpensive way how to beautify the land which was devastated by coal mining.
The locals hope the site to become another Macha’s lake, a place of leisure, filled with thousands of swimmers, dock yards, hotels and cyclists. All this will depend on whether the local community has the money to fund these recreational projects or not.
However, the lake has also a couple of drawbacks. Since it is located in a giant pit, the wind is almost non-existent, which will discourage yachtsmen from coming. The banks are also quite unstable, causing frequent mini-land slides. What is more is that the area still has coal deposits underground (about 100 million tons), which is about 2 to 3 years worth of supply for the whole Czech Republic. [click to continue…]
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You are not going to believe this. A certain Prague traveling agency is launching world’s first holidays for stuffed animal toys! For only 90 euros (and up) you can send your favorite teddy bear for a week trip to Prague. You know how boring it is for him to sit in the same bed for years? The poor thing wants to live a little too!
So once you send your dear one off to Prague you get a daily e-mail updates from him with pictures attached: teddy at the Prague Castle, teddy sitting by the Jan Hus statue at the Old Town Square, teddy having a typical Czech dinner…..
The creator of this ‘teddy bear tourism’ is a half-Czech, Prague-based enterpreneur, Tomio Okamura. “There are 1.2 billion teddy bears around the world, which is of course a very big group of potential clients,” says Tomio. [click to continue…]
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Everyone would agree that Wenceslas Square is a Prague’s signature landmark. Many important historical events took place there, the good ones as well as the not-so-good ones. Who else can give us the best authentic outlook on this place than someone, who has been living there for close to 70 years? From her apartment window Vera Korbelova has seen it all: German occupation, burning of Jan Palach (1969), building of a metro station (1972) as well as the horrendous freeway which runs right across the Wencselas square, and of course, the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Now she is 74 years old and this what she says:
“During the last 20 years, Wenceslas Square has changed a lot. It’s not only the promenade, a walking area for the foreigners, but there are funny shops that weren’t there before, there are casinos, which we hate, there isn’t a normal bakery, for instance, and there was a beautiful bakery here at the middle of Wenceslas Square. There are a lot of tourists here, a lot of drug dealers just on the corner here, who we are afraid of. I hope the whole situation will become better. They plan to bring more greenery, they plan to put more trees, and maybe my grandchildren will see in the future, another, more beautiful place. But still, it is the place I am living and I love to live. I think Wenceslas Square is one of the most beautiful places and squares I have seen in my life, and I have seen a lot of them.”
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If you don’t like to go mushroom picking you are simply not Czech. As most of us have experienced, summer in the Czech Republic (or Slovakia) can be very rainy; sometimes it rains for weeks! It is unfortunate for tourists but for mushroom pickers it is a time for celebration. As the forest soil sucks in the moisture, various mushroom types emerge but you have to have a trained vision to see them as they are really good in camouflaging themselves. When I was about 5 years old I went mushroom picking with my neighbor’s family. Since I was the youngest one in the pack I was sent on the most obvious and boring trails. Discouraged, with my basket being completely empty compared to the others, I slowly lingered on my assigned trail. All of a sudden I see this suspiciously big pile of leaves. [click to continue…]
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I found a really nice report about Brno, written by this guy who is originally from there and recently came back to Brno for a short visit as a tourist. The article is short, sweet and entertaining (read the article right here). Now, all of you Moravians out there, tell me if you agree with him!
CZ: Nasla jsem vam moc hezkou reportaz o Brne, napsanou clovekem, ktery v tomto meste vyrostl a po dlouhe dobe se do nej vratil na par dni jako turista (clanek si prectete zde). Ted mi, vsici Moravaci, musite rict, jestli s nim souhlasite!
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After a short but stressful in-limbo state the Czech Republic is still officially without any recorded case of a swine flu. The three Czechs in question who recently came back from Mexico are thankfully not infected as the medical test have confirmed. However, more Czech tourists are coming back from their trip to Mexico this Saturday on May 2nd and they will be informed about the swine flu symptoms on the board of the plane itself. If in doubt, they may chose to be examined by a doctor at the Ruzyne airport.
For now the Czechs have enough of the anti-viral medicine for about 2.2 million people which is sufficient for about 20% of the Czech population. The Minister of Health, Daniela Filipova, warned citizens not to buy out all of the protective masks as well as the Tamiflu medicine which, if overused, can cause a resistance of the virus to the other otherwise helpful antiviral agents. [click to continue…]
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So it is finally here. After McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, Prague has just recently given into yet another fast food restaurant – Burger King. Fortunately with this one the store is not located in the middle of the historical center like it is with McDonald’s or KFC – disgracing the neighboring 16th century Renaissance architecture (see the picture bellow). The first Burger King has found its home in the newly opened shopping center in Zlicin, far away from the downtown of Prague. It may be just a matter of time however, when another one of those “Kings” invades the Old Town square or some other Czech Mid Evil town and defiles its looks as well. Daniel Kaspar, the president of Burger king kind of supports my theory:”Our strategy is to be a dominant company in the region of central and eastern Europe”. The next plan for this company is to build Burger King chains in Slovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria. [click to continue…]
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Have you ever thought of what would Prague sound like if it were expressed through music? You will be soon able to buy a CD of those sounds. A British artist Peter Cusack – the master of “soundscapes” from all over the world – is taking on Prague as his new project. How does it work? First, questionnaires are randomly spread through people to get some kind of an information about their background noises. Then the artists go on so-called “sound-walks”, listening to different sounds – looking at Prague from the “sonic point of view”. [click to continue…]
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Do you like to visit Prague? And do you like to chew gum? Then you may be in trouble. Starting this July spitting out an old chewing gum or flicking off your cigarette butt may cost you 1,000 Czech crowns (which with today’s exchange rate means pretty much $1,000). And if you try to make it difficult for the police – like putting that gum back to your mouth claiming that it had accidentally just fallen out – then you may be charged up to 30,000 crowns!! What else is included (or rather excluded) under the new Clean Law? [click to continue…]
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