The first flower vending machines appear in Prague, Czechs and Germans to meet over knodels in Cheb and a police officer gives Czechs a lesson in honesty. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.
One of the Czech Republic’s biggest attractions is its rich historic legacy – close to two hundred magnificent castles, chateaux, old ruins and fortresses are scattered around the country. Some of these architectural gems have been returned to their former owners, others are in state ownership but the vast majority are beautifully maintained and open to the public. Vying for summer visitors, the castle managers organize a string of summer events on the castle grounds - night guided tours, medieval tournaments, outdoor markets, arts and crafts sales exhibitions, fairs and concerts. Some even arrange weddings. Most visitors are Czech but in an effort to attract more foreign tourists many of these castles are getting audio-guides in a number of languages – so when you are next in Prague check out the possibilities.
Sternberg Castle
For those who are in a big hurry – I have a tip – this summer Sternberg Castle is displaying a collection of models of close to one hundred Czech castles and chateaux. The models are made of paper or wood and are said to be near-perfect copies of the authentic buildings. The exhibition also features a series of photographs of each castle with info about its origin and history. The exhibition is on until the end of October.
It was back to school for some thirty young police officers in Ostrava when Banska mining college reported a series of thefts on its premises. With cameras and computers mysteriously disappearing from various cabinets the police swung into action and sent its boys back to school under the guise of students. For a month, three dozen of them took turns attending classes, spending time in the library and hanging out at dormitories. By the end of the month the case was closed and the two thieves responsible were under arrest, in fact chatting with students helped the officers solve a completely unrelated case of theft in the town as a bonus. Now they are back at work and maybe missing life on campus just a little…..
Another officer –Marcel Moravec from Ostrava – gave the public a lesson in honesty this week when he returned 12,5 million crowns which had arrived on his private account by mistake. Of course as an officer he knew that keeping it could have landed him in prison for five years but the action is still commendable. Given the low salaries of police officers in this country twelve million must have been hard to give back.
Illustrative photo: archive of Radio Prague
The nations of central Europe have plenty in common – and few things so much as food. For instance schnitzels, pastry shops and dumplings. Germans who order an apple strudel in Prague feel right at home as do Czechs in Austria. Now the heads of three regional museums in the Czech Republic and Germany – the towns on Cheb, Deggendorf and Marktredwitz have decided to explore their dumpling legacy together in an exhibition opening on August 28th in the town of Cheb. Going under the heading Knedlik –Kloss - Knodel the exhibition aims to portray dumplings in various areas of life – dumplings in gastronomy, dumplings in literature, dumplings in art and even dumplings in cartoons.
Other towns have jumped on the bandwagon – Eva Dittertova head of the Karlovy Vary Museum says one of the town’s historians searched the chronicles for a dumpling related legend and found the following – in 1866 on July 9th the town of Karlovy Vary was under the threat of a siege by the Prussian army. The town was ordered to prepared food for 1,600 soldiers and women set about cooking dumplings by the hundreds. In the end the soldiers never arrived and the townspeople were forced to eat all the dumplings themselves. Ever since July 9th has been marked as dumpling day in Karlovy Vary – of course, now the event is slightly overshadowed by the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The town of Deggendorf also has a dumpling legend – once the town was besieged by Czech troops but was reportedly never captured because the town’s women cooked hundreds of round dumplings which the men used as weapons to throw at the approaching army. In short dumplings were always vital to the region’s development.
If you’re in Prague and desperate to get flowers early in the morning or late at night – you do have an alternative to plundering one of the city’s parks. The first four self-service vending machines offering bunches of fresh flowers have now been installed in Prague’s metro stations. For the time being people are just taking a tentative peek inside to see what’s on offer – but gradually they are catching on. Three or four bunches are sold from one machine per day. The Fresh Flowers company which installed them is optimistic that it will soon be doing good business – with its main customers forgetful or unfaithful men heading for home late at night. And whatever Czechs are saving on in the midst of the economic crisis –it does not seem to be flowers. Statistics reveal that last year, Czechs spent some 8.1 billion crowns on flowers, though they don’t say at what time of day people bought them.
