Czech Republic – Let there be Light!

Czech Republic – Let there be Light!

October 17

Hello everyone!

October. Autumn is in full swing. The leaves are turning fiery. The flip-flops are being used increasingly sparingly. The amount of daylight is getting shorter, with evenings becoming longer.

Don’t panic, though. Though some opportunities are lost with the end of our Indian summer, others are being created. One such example is Prague’s spectacular SIGNAL light festival, which took place this weekend, bringing bright and colourful light to the increasingly long night.

The idea of the four-day festival is to showcase Prague’s rich architectural heritage and combine it with more modern art ideas. Prague’s most famous buildings and areas, such as the Old Town square and the Charles Bridge, are just two of many locations which undergo a visual transformation once the sun has set.

Certain buildings are selected in advance and a ‘mapping’ company will spend time creating a display unique to one particular building. Indeed, the shows are not transferable to the other sites in the city. Shows last a short time, between five and ten minutes, and are on loop so it is possible to see many shows over the course of an evening.

Our first destination in the dark was the church at Namesti Miru. A large crowd gathered as each petal projected onto the clock face disappeared, counting down to the start of the show. The clock face soon transformed itself into a blinking eye.

There were some very impressive effects being projected from a distant building onto the spires and main part of the church. The lights were able to bring the church to life, making it bulge and shrink. Later in the show the bricks also seemed to start emerging out from the church, creating an amazing 3D effect.

From Namesti Miru we walked, via a pub of course, a short distance to the famous Old Town Square, where another light show was to be shown. The obvious place to beam this would have been on the world-renowned astronomical clock, yet for some reason the famous timepiece remained dark throughout. Instead, one of the lesser-known buildings was the subject of a bright light makeover.

As with all of the shows we saw, it was unique and solely for the building it was dramatically altering. This display, by a different mapping company, utilised a variety of colours to bring the building to life.

Our next location was one of Prague’s main libraries, which has six Greco-Roman statues standing over its large, looming doors. The idea of this light show was to tell the story of each of these figures. We watched it twice and still had no clue as to what was going on.

There are many shows around the city; it isn't really possible to enjoy them all. We walked past an interactive light show at the base of one of the towers of the Charles Bridge. A person would blow into a tube, which would them transmit a beam of light towards the tower and display a pattern on the old stones. The line was too long to consider waiting in, though it did look like a lot of fun.

The best show we saw was our last, and absolutely worth the long walk from the town centre. We arrived at the end of a light show in the grounds of the Kafka museum. The applause from spectacle-clad men and women which greeted its conclusion suggested that it would be worth investing in the 3D glasses being sold at the entrance.

In true Kafka style, it was incredibly weird and difficult to describe. Best just watch the videos…

I really enjoyed seeing the spectacular effects of the show. Whether modern art is your cup of tea or not, this festival is a great way to see the main attractions of Prague in – excuse the pun – a whole new light.

Love you all

Matt

Czech Republic – Rocking around Czech paradise

October 4

Hello everyone!

Prague is beautiful but, just like living in any large city, it’s often pleasant to escape the crowds and kafuffle. As the weather will soon turn wintry, we took the opportunity to escape to the countryside to see the green leaves turning to the fiery colours of autumn.

The main reason we visited the area which translates as Czech Paradise, however, doesn’t change colour. In fact, they haven’t changed colour for many thousands of years.

Česky Raj is just short of 100km northeast of Prague: easily accessible by car. As we don’t possess a car, however, we had to cross the city to the Černy Most bus terminal to hop on a bus which would take us to a village called Jičín. Missing the aforementioned bus by seconds wasn’t great planning, but another arrived soon after to give us plenty of time in the fresher air of the east.

Jičín itself is a nice place, with colourful Baroque buildings fortifying a pretty town square. We wandered around their Saturday market before leaving on a seven kilometre uphill trek to the entrance of a natural reserve of sandstone rocks called Prachovské Skály.

Once inside the boundaries of the park (the kind lady allowed us to enter for student prices as I fumbled around trying to find my expired student card), the real walking begins. There are a variety of trails snaking through, around and under the sandstone stalagmites which rise surreally from the colourful hillside.

The exact reason for these freaks of nature is unclear, but I assume it is due to the ice age and the erosion attached to it. The rocks, which are the biggest collection of their type in Česky Raj, are a popular climbing challenge for those who enjoy such a thing. In the picture below, a professional has scaled one of the rocky obelisks and is helping an amateur towards the peak. This is normally a challenge I would hurl myself at; unfortunately, time constraints were against us. Though watching those climbing the vertical peaks would have certainly resulted in thinking twice about scaling the rocks. Terrifying.

The stones, cool to the touch, are a pleasure to walk around. Squeezing through narrow crevices can lead to dark, mossy areas which can seem otherworldly. It struck me as being the perfect location for The Lost World.

Our trip to paradise was for one day only, so we had to eventually trek back to Jičín in order to catch one of the last buses to Prague. My guess is that we covered in excess of 20 kilometres of hilly and awkward terrain on foot during the day. In spite of the effort required, it was exactly what I wanted. The air seemed fresher, the leaves brighter, the terrain more spectacular.

Whether I’d describe Česky Raj as ‘Czech Paradise’ is up for debate. I would, however, highly recommend it as a location in which you can get away from city life. Just don’t look down if you climb those rocks…

                                                                                                                                                   

Love you all

Matt

Czech Republic – Two very different gaming paradises

August 30-September 3

Hello everyone!

The sun has just about set on another work-free summer. Another year of English, maths, science and more awaits. As does another year of exploring the wonders of the Czech Republic and its idyllic capital city. The first couple of weeks have led to two experiences linked to games. One adventure is in Prague itself: the other, seemingly a world away.

Working chronologically, I’ll start with the latter. A thirty minute bus ride led us to the outpost of Cerveny Ujezd. There is very little in the village itself; I would argue that it’s a stretch calling it a village. Silence reigned supreme on a balmy Saturday afternoon. Turning down one particular side road, however, led our group to a modern, wooden house: something from an IKEA catalogue.

Inside this shiny hut was arguably one of the stranger personal collections one may happen to come across. The eerie hush of the hamlet was blasted away by pinging, boinking and clattering. The natural sunlight warming Cerveny Ujezd was blazed away by artificial lights of innumerable colour. We had entered a gaming arcade called ARCADEHRY.

Not just any arcade. For what lay before us was a personal collection of enormous machines, assumingly shipped from around the world, hosting arcade games famous from a time before I was able to play them. A personal collection of retro arcade games.

Pong…

Space invaders…

Our undoubted favourite, Sonic the Hedgehog…

Even some strange games which I can’t imagine taking off today, such as the 1983 ‘classic’ Paperboy (exactly what you think)…

I’m not sure of the reasoning – whether it’s to pay the electric bill, debts or to raise money for purchasing ‘new’ machines – but you pay 150Kc and have unlimited access to hundreds of arcade machines. What’s more, you don’t need to insert a new coin to continue a game if you perish: I’ve never progressed so far on Time Crisis!

It’s not the easiest place to find, but ARACADEHRY is definitely worth the journey. I believe that it’s actually better to be in its current location; if this place were in the centre of Prague, you would never get more than one try on Sonic at a time, let alone ten.

Much closer to the centre of Prague, near the castle in an area called Sparta, was our other gaming adventure. Very much a watching brief, this time, for if I had been playing I would be either Czech or American. Oh, and a professional football player of a very high standard.

The Czech Republic football team used to be feared across Europe. Almost 20 years ago, they got to the final of the European Championships. Ten years ago, they arguably should have won the same competition but choked against a limited Greek team. However, they have recently slipped from that elite level of the game, failing to qualify for a World Cup since 2006, and lack the star quality of previous teams aside from their goalkeeper, Petr Cech. Better than Wales’ recent record, admittedly, but there is certainly room for improvement.

The next tournament they can qualify for is the European Championships in France in 2016. The team played a warm-up match against the United States of America – who are better at football than may people give them credit for – to prepare them for their first qualifying encounter, against the Netherlands the following week.

This was an opportunity that we couldn’t miss, especially when tickets were the equivalent of £6. It turns out much of the American diaspora here in Prague felt the same way. A significant amount of the 12,000+ in attendance in the reasonably old stadium seemed to be chanting ‘USA USA’ fairly frequently.

There is every chance that this was also coming from Czech fans mocking their own team. You see, they weren’t very good, particularly in the first half. A shocking piece of defending led to the United States scoring what transpired to be the game’s only goal.

The Czechs did improve in the second half, with their star outfield player Tomas Rosicky pulling the strings, but the team were guilty of missing two glorious chances towards the end of the game. Maybe they should go to ARCADEHRY and play on the football machines to hone their striking skills…

Love you all

Matt