2010-03-10T16:39:17+01:00 Radio Prague http://www.radio.cz/en/current/spotlight urn:uuid:6376adba-e8dc-5503-a393-b98ddfdf1f95 2010-03-10T16:39:16+01:00

For centuries, the northern Bohemian town of Žatec has been the centre of hops growing in the country. Known as the home of hops and beer, the town is now trying to cope with a decline in its traditional industry. It recently launched a multi-million euro tourism project called Temple of Hops and Beer – but it is also slowly coming to terms with recent history that saw the town’s original German population replaced by Czechs in the aftermath of WWII.

urn:uuid:5f619b20-8507-518c-ae7c-21cdbcb0720a 2010-02-24T17:20:19+01:00

A visit to Týn nad Vltavou offers much of what you would expect of a small South Bohemian town. The winding streets are full of locals in the morning, each one greeting the other, the buildings, mostly farmsteads, have a kind of rural hominess that whips up the nostalgia in you even if you’ve never been there before, the woods are full of aged artefacts - bridges and crosses in the middle of nowhere, say – and in the absence of any bustle you get the feeling that the church bell rings almost constantly.

urn:uuid:0c2aef11-cbce-57ec-92a7-5c777d7c771e 2010-02-10T14:05:46+01:00

The Czech Republic’s first and only science centre has recently celebrated its first birthday. Techmania, based in the western industrial city of Plzeň, has already demonstrated its pulling power based on the formula of learning while having fun. And it has much bigger ambitions.

urn:uuid:763ff6ad-987f-56db-99f3-26f29720e1eb 2010-01-27T15:12:26+01:00

No visit to Prague is complete without paying homage to one of the most important buildings in the country in terms of history, symbolism and function: the National Theatre, a physical manifestation of Czech national pride.

urn:uuid:f82717be-f1f3-5365-915c-e4fe66ae0418 2009-12-16T14:40:01+01:00

Every year the start of Advent in late November sees the opening of traditional Christmas markets in the Czech capital, among the most popular the market on the city’s historic Old Town Square. Surrounded by famous medieval architecture, red-roofed stands, decorated with sprigs of evergreen, sell everything from hand-painted baubles to traditional nativity scenes. Open for more than a month, the market features daily programmes such as children’s workshops and concerts in the run-up to Christmas. It also offers a variety of refreshments - a draw not only for Czechs but also of course for visiting tourists.

urn:uuid:89d51d6e-15b6-5294-b656-4504a4f44ebf 2009-12-02T16:54:34+01:00

Deep beneath the city of Prague is another city altogether, one that most people are completely unaware of, and that they’ll hopefully never see. It is a system of hundreds upon hundreds of concrete bunkers with their own electricity, water and ventilation systems awaiting the day that you might hear the air-raid sirens wailing.

urn:uuid:4bbe0dd2-012f-5064-9653-c322f5201354 2009-11-04T17:37:50+01:00

The border point of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria is the confluence of two great rivers, the Dyje, from the west, and the Morava, from which the region of Moravia takes its name. Along the rivers is a natural reserve of marsh forest and a bastion of Moravian culture called Podluží, or “under the marshland”.

urn:uuid:f308fe92-eac6-52ca-8bd9-a023f7078d85 2009-10-21T17:39:01+02:00

The location of the Czech-Polish-Slovak tri-border can be described in a number of ways. Geographically, it’s in the Beskydy mountain range. Politically, it’s Silesia, the oft-forgotten “third” region of the Czech Republic, a strip of mixed Czech, Polish, German and Jewish heritage straddling the north-east border. 20th century conflict though renamed southern Silesia “Zaolzie”, a Polish-perspective place name that means “beyond the Olza River”. 21st century reality though has left the names Poland, Slovakia or the Czech Republic with little real meaning. This is after all the Slavic corner of the Czech Republic, where all three cultures, it seems, create a fourth.

urn:uuid:88ee9d88-882a-5ca4-b69f-866951761115 2009-10-07T17:25:48+02:00

On the one hand, marking off one’s territory is said to be a basic human trait, and on the other, there is nothing that comes so naturally to people as defying a boundary and exploring the other side. The Czech/German/Polish tri-border is an excellent example of this.

urn:uuid:ee8082ab-450f-5002-b8d7-99c90093dbd6 2009-09-23T17:45:11+02:00

Borderlands are fascinating areas where cultures either meet and intermingle, or in some cases are cordoned off to coldly stare at one another. The Czech/German/Austrian tri-border has experienced both. Over the last century it went from being an imaginary line through the woods to a literal Iron Curtain and back again. What’s emerging here today is a cross-cultural region deep in the Bohemian Forest National Park.