Weekly Image Of Life: Summer

It is almost summer, but the weather this year seems to think it’s not. And what summer means to me? I will show you at some shots taken in Southern Moravia 3 years ago during our family vacation.

Summer is seeing sunflowers at the fields.

Sunflower field in Lednice

Summer is visiting castles and old palaces around Czech Republic.

Lednice castle

Summer is doing nothing and enjoying the sun whenever and wherever you want.

Garden coffee at Lednice garden

Summer is when there are flowers on the street.

Mikulov

Summer is when you don’t go to sleep at the evening, because you go to the summer festival for music.

Meky Žbirka at Bernard Fest in Humpolec

Summer is when you don’t go to sleep at night, because you are having fun with your partner and with your glass of beer.

At Bernard Fest Humpolec

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Weekly Image Of Life: A Mother’s Love

A few shots from our family album for A Mother’s Love Challenge. The best mum in the world is on the first gallery, with her only child (me).

My mum and me

Our first beloved dog, Tabitha, with her first children Fanynka and Bertik, they grew up in a perfect dogs, already getting old now.

Tabitha and her Tiffany (Fanda) and Hubert (Bertik)

Fanynka with her own children and one foster, from Tabitha, she was not able to care about it, maybe you will find the smallest youngest one :-).

Fanynka (Tiffany) with her own herd (Sára, Andy, Kačka, Žanynka)

Weekly Image Of Life: Nature’s Bliss

For Weekly Image Of Life: Nature’s Bliss I take you to Western Bohemia for a short walk at the small village Bor u Tachova, just a few kilometers from the border with Germany. It is April, nature is waking up, water is cold and quick, grass and flowers are getting green … enjoy :-).

Weekly Image Of Life: Easter Time

Today I have some shots connected with Easter in Czech Republic and Prague for Weekly Image Of Life: Easter Time.

Despite the fact that Czech Republic is very secular country, also here we have Easter services, this one from St. Salvator Church at Klementinum complex.

Easter Ceremony at St. Salvator Church, Klementinum

Mostly the feast is the great opportunity to decorate city squares and have Easter markets, as this one at the Old Town square.

Old Town Square – Easter Market

“Kraslice” are the real egg shales. The name comes from the Czech word “krásný” = beautiful and “krásný” comes from Slavonic/Russian word “krasnij” = red. Look at the next gallery and you won’t be surprised, that kraslice are mostly red. There are many decoration styles, every village has its own style and method and ornament shapes, which are used for centuries.

“Kraslice” – Easter Eggs

Important for Easter Monday, “pomlázka”. Pomlázka is a stick made from willow canes and the word comes from: “mladý” = young, “omladit/pomladit” = make younger. Therefore, on the Easter Monday mornings boys are visiting girls and they make them younger with their “pomlázka’s” and girls are giving back the eggs and ribbons. Look at it from other perspective here.

Pomlázka

About Czech Christmas gingerbread tradition you can read here, and for Easter we have special gingerbread shapes as well :-).

Easter Gingerbreads

Eggs are all around us, also like a colorful candles.

Eggs od candles?

And easter time is also important, as the spring is coming to Czech Republic and flowers start to bloom and smell, it is beautiful!

Spring is coming

Weekly Image Of Life: Getaway

For this week’s Getaway I take you to Prague parks. All shots were done at the same month and the same year, in November 2010, the first one in November 14 and the second one in November 30.

First gallery is from the place of my childhood, still in Prague easily reachable by subway, but already at Prague borders. Lovely Ďáblice háj (Devil’s wood, where Devil’s = Ďáblice is the name of the quarter of Prague 8), place where we were going to play, for a walk, to country ski, definitelly great getaway when you don’t have much time to leave Prague.

Click on picture to enjoy the full size in the gallery:

Sky

Trees are high

Golden lanterns

Pond

Flowers

Trees

Fanynka is brave girl

Walk in the wood

Playing with our dogs

 

Rieger’s park is almost in the city center, but still nice walk. You will find nice views there, Beer garden (in summer), place where you can walk your dog.

Click on picture to enjoy the full size in the gallery:

Bushes in snow

Walking path

Rieger statue

White trees

White poesie

Winter walk

Winter sports

Weekly Image Of Life: Event

Geocaching map, click for bigger

For Weekly Image Of Life: Event I will take you geocaching. Who haven’t heard about geocaching yet, to be very simple, it is looking for boxes (from the very small tiny ones to big big ones) in the country or in the city using your GPS device. There are several types of caches, some of them are more virtual than real boxes. And we will talk about one of these, namely about Events.

Taken from geocaching.com: An Event Cache is a gathering of local geocachers or geocaching organizations to discuss geocaching. The Event Cache page specifies a time for the event and provides coordinates to its location. After the event, the cache is archived.

Cachers community in Prague and in Czech Republic is quite big and events are great opportunities to meet people and share fun. Look at the following maps. The first one is a single map of Prague, the second one is a map with geocaches on it (the smilies are my finds), the third one is just a filter for event caches. Quite a lot for our city :-).

To read more about geocaching and fun with “hunting” the caches look at these posts:
caching heaven
transventure
traveltails
kayak rogue
Geocaching and Exploring Off the Beaten Path

A lot of events last year happened in February 29, as 2012 was a LEAP year, only once in four years you can do geocaching on Feb 29, therefore it was full of events. We already started at the first minutes of the day at the Old Town square.

Crowds at the midnight in Prague Old Town

I will skip some other events that day (like meeting at the altitude of 366 meters above see level, meeting at the end stop of the bus number 366, meeting at the coords ending 366,366) and will show you shots from event: Travelling by bus number 292 (29.2. = Feb 29). The bus normally is almost empty, just a few people, and that day? Why was everyone taking the picture of the bus?

Just a few cachers in the bus, as it is small, others waiting at the final stop

Old Town square again, St. Patrick’s day and bunch of lunatics all dressed and colored in green :-).

St. Patrick’s event in Prague Old Town

I would love to know how many people know what to celebrate on May 25, but I believe all readers of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would know we celebrate the Towel day. Everyone must have his towel.

Towel day at the stairs of Rudolfinum

One morning geocachers decided to find out if there would be enough tomfools coming very early in the morning to the Charles bridge to make a living chain over it. The lenght of the bridge is about 1969 ft (600 m). Yes, we did it, view from above and also video you can check here.

“Building” the chain

After participating in the other owners events we connected our travelling with meeting people in our holidays destinations, very nice way how to meet local people and share your hobby with them.

Event at Jurmala beach (Latvia), at the Tallinn old town (Estonia) and in republic Užupis (Lithuania)

And after this success we organized Czech Christmas at Slussen in Stockholm (Sweden), also with Swedish Christmas Carol.

Event at Slussen

One of the nicest events in Prague happens every year before Christmas and more then 800 people are attending this MEGA event – Christmas Nutshells – Czech traditionally sending nutshells with candle on the water.

Bellow the Charles bridge, Čertovka channel with nutshell boats with candles

Weekly Image Of Life: People

“This week’s challenge is about the people who are uniquely special to us.”
My people, the most important ones, thanks to them I am who I am, are my parents and my husband. I know they don’t like much having their picture on the internet and therefore I will show you shots of them when they were not yet my parents or my husband.

My father, my mother and my husband at the time they were not yet these

There are many more important people who made my life and one post is not enough to mention them. Therefore I chose the ones who made my childhood so happy – friends and cousins. On the top middle shot there are siblings who I met for 2 weeks only in Bansin (Udensee Island in Baltic see, Germany). That year I learned to swim. The siblings were so great to me, they were older, we didn’t understand each other but we played together whole days, the boy even saved my life from the sea (in my eyes). And I don’t even remember their names. If you recognise them or maybe if you recognise yourself, please, let me know :-).

My cousins and friends of my childhood

It is quite easy to be a member of the last group of people and you are invited to enter the”club”. They are my clients. The very first ones are on top left and then you can see others who are closer to me, and some of them even became our family friends. I want to thank them for enjoying their time with me and I hope we will meet again.

From my first clients to my best friends

Weekly Image Of Life: Places

This summer it will be already five years, when I visited port Vergi for the first time. Immediately I fell in love with the place but I can’t explain you why. Maybe it was the weather and clouds, maybe the water, maybe the feeling of freedom … Most probably all these together and what is strange, my husband fell in love with the place too. Last summer we went there once more, with our family and small dogs, and the feeling was there again.
Port Vergi is a small port in natural park Lahemaa in North Estonia, you can park your yacht here, there is a small restaurant and hostel opened during summer. But I think this info is not that important, beacuse it is the feeling, which is inside me when I remember port Vergi. I hope you will be able to feel it at least a bit from my shots.

Post is written for Weekly Image Of Life: Places.

Sea, restaurant / hostel, port

View from restaurant

Wanna take a boat?

Pub and delicious food there, no I don’t mean our dogs, I mean the bottom line

Stones at the sea

Weekly Image Of Life: Weekend

Welcome to our little cottage

Traditional way of spending the weekend for families in Czechoslovakia during coommunistic regime was “going to the cottage”. There were lots of small colonies close to bigger cities (mainly around Prague) that were preoccupied during weekends and summer and empty during working days. Traditionally, almost everyone left the work on Friday about 2pm, took his family and went to the cottage. The cottages were from small and simple cabins to residences bigger than the appartment family had in Prague. My family didn’t have cottage where to go, so we have spent our weekend travelling around Bohemia, visiting castles, cities, exploring different places. Maybe that’s why I love travelling so much.

Patio, where everything happens

Sun-bathing platform

My husband’s family went to the cottage at weekends. Once or twice a year now we are going to this cottage with our friends, and the place is lovely. Very close to Prague, but out of any civilisation, in fact there is no electricity, no water in the kitchen, you have to pump the water from the pump in the center of the colony. For toilet you have to go through the whole garden to the end of it, which can be quiet adventurous specially during the night, but mostly stars are shining to show you the way, which wouldn’t happen in Prague, where is a lot of light smog. For taking shower we first have to pump the water, then warm it on the fire and finally pump it to the barrel above the heads. But it worths it and you enjoy it more then at home, where everything is automatical. Here you live in the nature.

It’s nice to spend your weekend with friends.

Sporting and resting, time for both

When you are not able to assemble the long chair, you can lie down on the grass

The best chicken is made on fire, bastled with beer and finally you need four real men to take the chicken down from the stick

Or enjoy the seasons there on your own.

Spring and summer

Fall is coming

Weekly Image Of Life: Children And Their Gifts

In Prague and Czech Republic you can find lot of attractions for children, we have beautiful ZOO and other activities, which families can enjoy.  But as I just came back from Sweden, for todays weekly image of life I chose the world of Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author of childrens books, whose books are brilliant and I grow up with Pippi and Children from Bullerbyn, I lived in robbers castle with Ronja and Birk or at the roofs of Stockholm with Karlsson. My first detective steps were made with Kalle Blomkvist, the young forerunner of Mikael Blomkvist from Stieg Larsson Millenium books. Astrid Lindgren was my favorite author and I believe it was because the child in her never grown up, see on shot from sweden.se.

Photo of Astrid LIndgren from Sweden.se

In Sweden you can find (at least) two museums dedicated to Astrid, one is in Vimmerby, the city where Astrid and most of her character lived, and the second one is in Stockholm, at Djurgården Island, where a lot of museums are.

AL book at Vimmerby park

Village Vimmerby is in the South Sweden, not far from the highway from Stockholm to Malmö, and big part of it is the World of Astrid Lindgren’s park. You can meet there all your favorites characters from Astrid’s books, visit small cities, play lot of games, watch performances like this one from Emil’s home at Lönneberga.

The walk throug the village is very nice, lot of small buildings and colors all around.

Colorful houses at Vimmerby park

And when you are tired of walking, visit the interiors,

You want to visit Pippi?

or take a boat …

Pram competition, who will be first at the other side?

sorry, I ment the boat with Pippi :-).

Pippi on the boat

If the Vimmerby is too far for you and you just came to see Stockholm, then you can’t miss museum Junibacken, perfect place for families and Astrid Lindgren lovers. At the entrance you will find a stroller park :-).

Stroller park

Behind the entrance is a playground area, where children can enjoy small houses or castles.

Playground hall

After visiting the playground area you go for a train/cabin, which takes you through the beautiful world around villages and above the roofs, through the mouse hole, you are the onlooker of stories that happen around you.

Cabin and the villages around

The tour is like a short performance, for example this one with Ronja and Birk.

After the challenging trip you can go to the dining room and choose from dishes and sweets in colorful area.

Dining room

And finally the place that cannot be forgotten, the place where everyone can find the right tallness :-).

Bathroom for everyone

I hope you enjoyed the tour through the world of Astrid Lindgren, woman, that stayed a child in her heart, had brilliant fantasy and who was a big inspiration for children, as well for me.

I really like how Swedish people enjoys children games, so the last short video is from dancing around the Christmas tree at Skansen, sorry for the sound, really not good quality, but the best I have now :-).